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Class of 2018 Awards and Honors: Scripps Nominates Three Watson Fellowship Finalists

ÌÒ×ÓÊÓƵ has nominated three members of the Class of 2018—Ilana Weisberg ’18, Madeline Sy ’18, and Lina Mehret ’18—as finalists for Thomas J. Watson Fellowships. This selection puts them in the running for the prestigious grant, awarded annually to 50 students out of hundreds of graduating seniors from colleges and universities across the United States. The grant supports one year of international travel, exploration, and independent study as outlined by each student’s proposed project. Scripps’ finalists are interested in topics related to animal care culture, opera, and political violence and national identity.

Career Planning & Resources: Scripps in Residence: Students Connect with Prominent Alumnae in Politics

More women need to get involved in politics and have their voices heard. That was the prevailing message relayed to Scripps students during a conversation with alumnae California State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson ’71 and POLITICO USA President Poppy MacDonald ’97 as part of this year’s Scripps in Residence program.

Spotlight on Staff: Sue Castagnetto, Director of The Intercollegiate Feminist Center

Sue Castagnetto, who serves as the director of the Intercollegiate Feminist Center (IFC) and is a lecturer in the philosophy department at Scripps, has led the IFC for the past 18 years. Her wealth of knowledge is reflected in the stacks of papers and books that overflow around us.

For many women, the Trump administration’s policy priorities have ushered in undulating waves of panic, frustration, and outrage. For the feminist contributors to Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding’s anthology Nasty Women, putting pen to page is one of the most important ways to mobilize. The editors, along with Carina Chocano, one of their Los Angeles­â€“based authors, visit to talk about writing as activism with Scripps Writing Program Director and Associate Professor Kimberly Drake.

Scripps Magazine: Art Forms

Alison Saar ’78 Weight, at first glance, appears to be a young girl playing on a swing, until one realizes that the child is stripped bare. Her swing is attached […]

Scripps Magazine: Revolution & Ritual: The Photographs of Sara Castrejón, Graciela Iturbide, and Tatiana Parcero

“If there is an occupation suitable for women, it is photography.” So declared the Mexico City newspaper El Mundo in 1899. It went on: “They have the aptitude and an extraordinary manual dexterity and, above all, they serve better than a man to make portraits of women, arranging their headdresses and getting them in positions with a confidence and a thoroughness that would be impossible for persons of the opposite sex.”

Scripps Magazine: Focus on the Faculty: Susan Rankaitis, Fletcher Jones Chair in Studio Art

“I don’t call it retirement, I call it downsizing from two careers to one,” says Susan Rankaitis. This past July, Rankaitis, who joined Scripps’ Art Department in fall 1990 as the Fletcher Jones Chair in Studio Art, began two years of phased retirement. She will no longer teach classes but will continue to write letters of recommendation for her advisees and colleagues. She will also be devoting significantly more time to her own art practice.

Spotlight on Students: Kelly Peng ’18, President of Scripps Associated Students

I recently sat down with Kelly Peng ’18, president of Scripps Associated Students (SAS), to find out more about her as well as what issues and initiatives she’ll be focusing on during her tenure. Peng, who is a dual major in biology and Asian American studies from Battle Creek, Michigan, brings extensive experience in Scripps student government to her current position—over the past three years, she’s served on the SAS Senate, as the Class of 2018’s sophomore class president, and as SAS executive vice president.

Scripps Presents: Carina Chocano

In the spirit of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Carina Chocano’s You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Trainwrecks, & Other Mixed Messages examines the dramatic and often damaging ways that pop culture influences female identity. Cultural touchstones—from Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, from Flashdance to Frozen—serve as entry points to Chocano’s personal reflections and surface some familiar truths about the challenges of locating oneself in the face of an often abstract ideal of womanhood. Chocano and Scripps’s Dorothy Cruickshank Backstrand Chair of Gender and Women’s Studies Piya Chatterjee are the first speakers in a three-part conversation series.

Scripps Presents: The Grip of It, with Jac Jemc

Novelist Jac Jemc’s smart and uneasy page-turner is a ghost story set in the wilds of suburban America; at the book’s center is a couple whose domestic adventures take a decidedly hallucinatory and harrowing turn. Jemc, who has taught creative writing at Notre Dame and Lake Forest College, talks with Scripps’ Adam Novy about her latest literary escapade.