The mission of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities is to provide support for faculty, students, and community partners who investigate gender and sexuality through intersectional scholarship and activism. We advocate for work that bridges the diverse communities represented at Cal State LA and its surrounding community.
CSGS Initiatives
Fall 2024 Calendar
October 3rd:
CSULA CSGS Faculty Fellows Research Symposium, 4:30pm-6:00pm, Alhambra Room, USU
November 15th:
CSULA Faculty Research Showcase, Time: TBD, San Gabriel Room, USU
December 8th:
Transchool Vol. 1 Book Celebration, in collaboration with the Feminist Center for Creative Work, Time: TBD Located at the Feminist Center for Creative Work in Glendale, CA
Spring 2024 Calendar
February 29th:
Cyprus Marques
Philosophy Dept.
Trans Studies Graduate Fellow
Montebello Room, USU 3:00pm - 4:15pm
March 14:
The Young Lords: Puerto Rican Radicals Fight for Gender Justice in the 1960s
Dr. Johanna Fernandez
CUNY Baruch
WGSS Co-Sponsored Event
Gender & Sexualities Resource Center, USU, 3rd Floor 10:50am-12:05pm
March 25th
Archiving Chicanx and Latinx Feminisms
Dr Bernadine Hernández - University of New Mexico
Dr. Anita Huízar-Hernández - University of Arizona
Dr. Viviana Beatriz MacManus - Occidental College
Room TBD 3:00pm-4:30pm
April 16th
Dr. Alisa Bierria - UCLA
The Ann Garry and Sharon Bishop endowed lecture in Feminist Philosophy
Room TBD 3:00pm-4:30
CSGS Annual Student Research Conference
April 25-26: 20th Annual Student Research Conference
Gender, Sexuality, and Power
Alhambra Room, USU
April 25: Keynote Lecture with Dr. C. Riley Snorton - University of Chicago
LA Rooms AB, USU
Fall 2023 Calendar
CSGS Advisory Board, 2024-2025
Ren Heintz (they/them) Current CSGS Director, 2020-present; English
https://www.calstatela.edu/al/english/ren-heintz
Pau Abustan (they/siya) Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
https://www.calstatela.edu/al/wgss/faculty-staff
Talia Bettcher (she/her) Ex-Officio Past Director; Philosophy
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/talia-mae-bettcher-professor
Dionne Espinoza (she/her) Ex-Office Past Director; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
despino@exchange.calstatela.edu
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/dionne-espinoza
Ann Garry (she/her) Ex-Officio Founding Director; Emeritus Philosophy
ann.garryz@gmail.com
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/ann-garry
David Green (he/him) Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
https://www.calstatela.edu/al/wgss/faculty-staff
Linda Greenberg (she/her) Ex-Officio Past Director; English
linda.greenberg@calstatela.edu
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/dr-linda-margarita-greenberg
Libby Lewis (she/they) Pan African Studies and Sociology
https://www.calstatela.edu/academic/pas/pan-african-studies-libby-lewis
Alejandra Marchevsky (she/her) Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, WGSS Representative
https://www.calstatela.edu/al/wgss/faculty-staff
Allison Mattheis (she/her) Education
amatthe5@calstatela.edu
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/allison-mattheis-professor
Oliverio Rodriguez (he/him) Art
https://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/oliverio-rodriguez
Molly Talcott (she/her) Sociology
mtalcot@exchange.calstatela.edu
https://www.calstatela.edu/nss/sociology/faculty-and-staff
Shikha Upadhyaya - (she/her) Marketing
https://www.calstatela.edu/business/facultyprofiles/shikha-upadhyaya
Dr. Zhe 'Meredith' Zhang
Dr. Zhe 'Meredith' Zhang got her PhD in Sociology from Ohio State University, then spent a few years at Rice University for a post-doctorate fellowship. Right before she became a Golden Eagle, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, she was in the Ozarks as an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas. She's broadly interested in anything related to family, health, gender, sexuality, and aging/life course. Most of her current work explores how family characteristics and experiences shape the health and well-being of sexual and gender minorities.
Meredith's Research Abstract
Existing literature finds that caregiving can be stressful and have negative health effects. Further, the association between caregiving and mental health is found to be more negative among women than men. However, relatively little research has considered the joint role of gender and sexual identity in shaping individual caregiving experience and mental health outcomes. To address this research gap, this study uses data from BRFSS, a probability-based sample of adults living in 36 U.S. states between 2015 and 2021 and examines the association between mental well-being (poor mental health days in a month) and caregiving status (providing unpaid care or not) by considering the joint role of gender (i.e., man or woman) and sexual identity (i.e., heterosexual, gay/lesbian, or bisexual). Preliminary results suggest that the gendered association between caregiving and mental well-being may be more prominent among heterosexuals than sexual minorities.
Fun Facts about Meredith
She loves learning languages. She speaks Mandarin and Cantonese, and she has a 1900-day streak learning Spanish in Duolingo as of February 2024. She is also an avid podcast listener, who tries to include interesting podcasts in her class.
Dr. Julian Nykolak
Dr. Julian Nykolak is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History. He received his PhD in 2017 from the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester and his research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Whitney Independent Study Program, and a Chateaubriand Fellowship. His writing has appeared in Art Journal, Art History, and Selva, and he is currently completing his book manuscript entitled “The Ends of the Avant-Garde: Painting and Politics circa 1968.” At Cal State LA he is the chair of the Art History option and recently coordinated a lecture series that brought contemporary artists Beatriz Cortez, Kang Seung Lee, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Sayre Gomez, Gala Poras-Kim, and Rafa Esparza to campus.
While holding this fellowship, Nykolak will begin a chapter for his second book project, “Impossible Communities: The East Village Art Scene,” on the transgender artist Greer Lankton. Lankton gained renown for her meticulously fabricated yet motley dolls, which she subjected to perpetual change under the watchful eye of photography—challenging the idea of the static work of art while staging the body as transformable and gender as successive. This project considers Lankton’s doll-making alongside her work dressing windows at a cult East Village vintage boutique to explore notions of lifestyle, self-fashioning, and the body as property as part of a larger argument concerned with the model of the subject that took shape within the rubble of the neoliberal remaking of the self and unmaking of the social in the early 1980s.
Director, Ren Heintz, PhD (they/them)
Email: lheintz@calstatela.edu or csgs@calstatela.edu
Student Coordinator, Anabel Ramos (she/her/ella) WGSS Undergraduate
Email: aramos228@calstatela.edu
Present your research at the annual "Gender, Sexuality, and Power" student research conference
Receive a research award for your conference presentation
Attend CSGS and GSRC coffee hours to tell us who you want to bring to campus
Apply to become a CSGS student administrative assistant
Apply for the CSGS Faculty Research Fellowship for one semester of course release
Attend the Faculty Fellow Research Lecture and CSGS events
Join the CSGS faculty advisory board to develop collegial ties
Chair a student panel (from your class or otherwise) at the CSGS student research conference
Meet past and present community partners: Trans Latin@ Coalition, Reach LA, Allies in Arts, ONE Archives, Project Rebound, Words Uncaged
Participate in collaborative grant writing with community agencies
Join the Community Engagement Committee to help build relationships between the community and the academy
Join the conversation!
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