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121-528: In the early 1970s, Barbara Smith was teaching courses about black women writers at Emerson College . However, she found that the books she required for her courses were often out of print and it was difficult to obtain specific novels. She has said that, "That was because nobody cared if [ Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God or Ann Petry 's The Street was available. People did not care because they were considered to be marginal and unimportant writers." Another main factor that ultimately led to

242-502: A Shakespearean scholar and actor, was named the second President of Emerson College of Oratory. His service as president lasted until his retirement in 1908. As the Student Government Association of the college held its first meeting in 1908, the third president of the college, Henry Lawrence Southwick, was inaugurated. He introduced the study of acting and stagecraft into the college curriculum. During his tenure,

363-405: A mojado from Peru). The household she grew up in was one in which the male figure was the authoritarian head, while the female, the mother, was stuck in all the biases of this paradigm. Although this is the difficult position in which white, patriarchal society has cast women of color, gays and lesbians, she does not make them out to be the archenemy, because she believes that "casting stones is not

484-523: A "school of oratory ," the college offers more than three dozen degree and professional training programs specializing in the fields of arts and communication with a foundation in liberal arts studies. The college is one of the founding members of the ProArts Consortium, an association of six neighboring institutions in Boston dedicated to arts education at the collegiate level. Emerson is also notable for

605-555: A $ 100,000 gift from Mrs. Mary E. Tufte. Financed by the contribution, The Tufte Lab was placed on the fourth floor of the Ansin Building and dedicated in Mrs. Tufte's honor. The lab was the catalyst for a telecommunications/ fiber optic network installation, which was completed in October 1995. In addition, the college announced the purchase and restoration of The Little Building (1994) across

726-413: A building at 150 Beacon Street was obtained for dorms, a dining hall, and administrative offices. With major gifts from Elisabeth Abbot Smith and J.F. Buzzard, the college library moved from the fourth floor of 130 Beacon Street into its own building at 303 Berkeley Street. In 1964, two buildings were purchased: 96 Beacon Street, which became the student union building, and 132–134 Beacon Street, which became

847-419: A building at Zero Marlborough Street (also known as 6 Arlington Street) for dormitories and a dining hall. John Zacharis became the tenth President of Emerson College and faced a college fractured by the failed move to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Over the course of two years, he worked to restore unity to the campus by purchasing a building at 180 Tremont Street, now called the Ansin Building. This purchase started

968-424: A cactus so nobody would see them.... My genitals... [were] always a smelly place that dripped blood and had to be hidden." She eventually underwent a hysterectomy in 1980 when she was 38 years old to deal with uterine , cervical , and ovarian abnormalities. Anzaldúa's poem "Nightvoice" alludes to a history of child sexual abuse , as she writes: "blurting out everything how my cousins/took turns at night when I

1089-475: A certain group. Instead, in her Mundo Zurdo, she is like a " Shiva , a many-armed and legged body with one foot on brown soil, one on white, one in straight society, one in the gay world, the man's world, the women's, one limb in the literary world, another in the working class, the socialist , and the occult worlds". The passage describes the identity battles which the author had to engage in throughout her life. Since early childhood, Anzaldúa has had to deal with

1210-521: A dormitory. The campus remained primarily in Back Bay until the late 1990s. In 1967, Richard Chapin, former Dean of the Harvard Business School was inaugurated as the seventh president of Emerson College. Shortly afterwards, an academic planning committee approved a new course of study for general education requirements. The first level of this program replaced the college-wide requirements with

1331-539: A financial partner for the college with Emerson. This financial partnership led to the acquisition of the Boston School of Oratory from Moses T. Brown in 1894. At the turn of the century, faculty members Henry and Jessie Eldridge Southwick and William H. Kenney purchased the college from Dr. Emerson. Soon after, the college rented a new location in Chickering Hall . Dr. Emerson retired in 1903 and William J. Rolfe,

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1452-525: A former Emerson history professor, S. Justus McKinley, as the fifth President of Emerson College. Pulling out of its financial crisis, the college started to develop its programs with new facilities. In 1953, Emerson opened The Robbins Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic at 145 Beacon Street, furthering the Communication Sciences and Disorders Program. A television studio was dedicated at 130 Beacon in 1954, with its first closed-circuit TV program

1573-673: A larger audience, Kitchen Table Press brought their books to concerts, book fairs, conferences and readings and made a special attempt to attend events like the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Festival in New York, the Latin American Book Fair and the convention of the College Language Association , as well as events that were specifically for women of color. Kitchen Table was also conscious of

1694-401: A lesbian in most of her writing and had always experienced attraction to women, she also wrote that lesbian was "not an adequate term" to describe herself. She stated that she "consciously chose women" and consciously changed her sexual preference by changing her fantasies, arguing that "You can change your sexual preference. It's real easy." She stated that she "became a lesbian in my head first,

1815-499: A lot of time promoting acceptance of all languages and accents. In an effort to expose her stance on linguistics and labels, Anzaldúa explained, "While I advocate putting Chicana, tejana , working-class, dyke-feminist poet, writer theorist in front of my name, I do so for reasons different than those of the dominant culture ... so that the Chicana and lesbian and all the other persons in me don't get erased, omitted, or killed." Despite

1936-628: A major academic center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood for its long-established Los Angeles program. Once owned by the Boston Edison Company , the Ansin Building was purchased by Emerson in 1992. The building stands 14 stories high and contains all Visual & Media Arts (VMA) labs and facilities, offices for all VMA and Writing, Literature & Publishing (WLP) departments, and is the home of WERS , WECB, and ETIN (Emerson's Talk and Information Network, an online radio service). It also contains

2057-437: A need for Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press." In addition to publishing books, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist and advocacy organization devoted to the liberation struggles of all oppressed people. The group was very influential in the works of many writers; tatiana de la tierra , a Latina lesbian author and publisher, was inspired by the goals of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and her work reflected

2178-417: A new complex at the site including a 565-seat main stage theater inside the existing Paramount Theater and a 125-seat black box theater in an adjacent new building. Plans also included a 200-seat film screening room, eight rehearsal studios ranging from 700 to 1,900 square feet (65 to 177 m ), six smaller rehearsal spaces, a sound stage for film students, a new scene shop , and a dormitory. In May 2006,

2299-749: A new role as CEO and President of the Boston Foundation. Jay M. Bernhardt became the 13th president of Emerson College on June 1, 2023, after serving as dean of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin . On the day of his investiture ceremony, a protest for Palestinian liberation led to the arrest of 13 individuals, 12 of which were Emerson students. Additionally, 11 of those arrested were people of color . On April 25, 2024, 118 Emerson students were arrested (and several injured) after Boston Police cleared an encampment that

2420-520: A new women's dormitory building at 373 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay , and started intramural sports in 1931 with the organization of volleyball games. In 1930, full charge and control of the college was transferred to the Board of Trustees by William H. Kenney, Henry Lawrence Southwick, and Jessie Eldridge Southwick. When Harry Seymour Ross was appointed the fourth president of Emerson College in 1931,

2541-541: A producer of consumable goods. The "new mestiza" way of thinking is illustrated in postcolonial feminism . In education, Anzaldúa's practice of border challenges the traditionally structured binary understanding of gender. It recognizes gender identity is not fixed or singular concept but rather a complex terrain. Encouraged educators to provide a safe and open platform for students to learn, recognize, and identify themselves comfortably. Anzaldúa called for people of different races to confront their fears to move forward into

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2662-604: A result of Lorde's suggestion, Smith assembled a group for a meeting on Halloween weekend in Boston , the home city of the press in its first year. In 1981, Smith relocated the press to New York City after leaving the University of Massachusetts at Boston. However, on most of the press's publications, Latham, New York , near Albany , is listed as the place of publication. Smith, Lorde, Cherríe Moraga , Hattie Gossett , Helena Byard, Susan Yung, Ana Oliveira, Rosío Alvarez, Alma Gomez and Leota Lone Dog are all considered co-founders of

2783-585: A seventh-generation Tejana and Chicana . In 1968, she received a B.A. degree in English, Art, and Secondary Education from University of Texas–Pan American , and an M.A. in English and Education from the University of Texas at Austin . While in Austin, she joined politically active cultural poets and radical dramatists such as Ricardo Sanchez, and Hedwig Gorski . After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in English from

2904-583: A transition from Back Bay to the Boston Theater District . Zacharis went on medical leave in 1992 and died of leukemia shortly after. During Zacharis's leave, speech pathologist Jacqueline Weis Liebergott was appointed as Acting President and, a year later, inaugurated to become the first female president of the college. Shortly after, she submitted a 10-year master plan to the Boston Redevelopment Authority which involved moving

3025-468: A two-year interdisciplinary course of study and electives. In order to accommodate this new program, the building at 67–69 Brimmer Street was purchased. The Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies was born. A year later in 1972, the college gained authorization} to grant BFA and MFA degrees. Though Emerson College has moved to various locations within the city of Boston, the appointment of Allen E. Koenig (the ninth President of Emerson College) almost took

3146-404: A unique blend of eight dialects, two variations of English and six of Spanish. In many ways, by writing in a mix of languages, Anzaldúa creates a daunting task for the non-bilingual reader to decipher the full meaning of the text. Language , clearly one of the borders Anzaldúa addressed, is an essential feature to her writing. Her book is dedicated to being proud of one's heritage and to recognizing

3267-430: A valued and long-active member of the organization, with the annual Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, which is designated for groundbreaking monographs in women's studies that makes significant multicultural feminist contributions to women of color/transnational scholarship. To commemorate what would have been Anzaldúa's 75th birthday, on September 26, 2017 Aunt Lute Books published the anthology Imaniman: Poets Writing in

3388-423: A very personal account of the oppression of Chicana lesbians and talks about the gendered expectations of behavior that normalizes women's deference to male authority in her community. She develops the idea of the "new mestiza " as a "new higher consciousness " that will break down barriers and fight against the male/female dualistic norms of gender. The first half of the book is about isolation and loneliness in

3509-464: A very spiritual person and stated that she experienced four out-of-body experiences during her lifetime. In many of her works, she referred to her devotion to la Virgen de Guadalupe ( Our Lady of Guadalupe ), Nahuatl / Toltec divinities, and to the Yoruba orishás Yemayá and Oshún. In 1993, she expressed regret that scholars had largely ignored the "unsafe" spiritual aspects of Borderlands and bemoaned

3630-594: A white-owned corporation called Rio Farms, Inc. Anzaldúa claimed that her family lost their land due to a combination of both " taxes and dirty manipulation" from white people who were buying up land in South Texas through "trickery" and from the behavior of her "very irresponsible grandfather", who lost "a lot of land and money through carelessness". Anzaldúa was left with an inheritance of "a little piece" of 12 acres, which she deeded over to her mother Amalia. Her maternal grandmother Ramona Dávila had amassed land grants from

3751-478: A world that is less hateful and more useful. In "La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness," a text often used in women's studies courses, Anzaldúa insisted that separatism invoked by Chicanos / Chicanas is not furthering the cause but instead keeping the same racial division in place. Many of Anzaldúa's works challenge the status quo of the movements in which she was involved. She challenged these movements in an effort to make real change happen to

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3872-506: Is a "continuation of the abuse of native spirituality and the Internet appropriation of Indian symbols, rituals, vision quests, and spiritual healing practices like shamanism." When she was 11 years old, Anzaldúa's family relocated to Hargill, Texas . She graduated as valedictorian of Edinburg High School in 1962. She managed to pursue a university education, despite the racism , sexism and other forms of oppression she experienced as

3993-694: Is a form of gaining power by speaking our truths, and it is seen as a way to decolonize, to resist, and to unite women of color collectively within the feminist movement . She is highly known for this autotheoretical book, which discusses her life growing up on the Mexico–Texas border . It was selected as one of the 38 best books of 1987 by Library Journal . Borderlands examines the condition of women in Chicano and Latino culture. Anzaldúa discusses several critical issues related to Chicana experiences: heteronormativity , colonialism , and male dominance . She gives

4114-451: Is always looked down on in the valley where I come from." Anzaldúa wrote that her family gradually lost their wealth and status over the years, eventually being reduced to poverty and being forced into migrant labor , something her family resented because "[t]o work in the fields is the lowest job, and to be a migrant worker is even lower." Her father was a tenant farmer and sharecropper who kept 60% of what he earned, while 40% went to

4235-519: Is offered annually by the American Studies Association . The latter "...honors Anzaldúa's outstanding career as an independent scholar and her labor as contingent faculty, along with her groundbreaking contributions to scholarship on women of color and to queer theory. The award includes a lifetime membership in the ASA, a lifetime electronic subscription to American Quarterly, five years access to

4356-433: Is perhaps best known for co-editing This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) with Cherríe Moraga , editing Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (1990), and co-editing This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation (2002). Anzaldúa also wrote the semi-autobiographical Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987). At

4477-426: Is private." Anzaldúa claimed she had "sexual fantasies about father-daughter, sister-brother, woman-dog, woman-wolf, woman-jaguar, woman-tiger, or woman-panther. It was usually a cat- or dog-type animal." Anzaldúa also specified that she may have "mistaken this connection, this spiritual connection, for sexuality." She was attracted to and later had relationships with both men and women. Although she identified herself as

4598-422: The Back Bay to its current location revitalized and preserved the distinct character and profiles of the surrounding neighborhoods, which comprise many significant historic landmarks and structures - the most notable being Boston Public Garden and Boston Common . Presently, the majority of the college's acquired properties were reclaimed, renovated and/or restored without having to introduce new developments into

4719-590: The Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory, and Dramatic Art in 1880, a year after Boston University closed its School of Oratory. Classes were held at Pemberton Square in Boston , where ten students enrolled in the conservatory's first class. The following year, the institution changed its name to the Monroe Conservatory of Oratory , in honor of Charles Emerson 's teacher at Boston University 's School of Oratory, Professor Lewis B. Monroe. In 1890,

4840-486: The Cutler Majestic Theatre finished renovations and re-opened as one of the main stages of Emerson Stage productions. Circa 2001 Emerson adjuncts voted to establish a union and in 2004 ratified its first contract with the college. The Affiliated Faculty of Emerson College, American Association of University Professors (AFEC-AAUP) represents 240 adjunct faculty members at Emerson College as of 2022. In 2004, it

4961-495: The Western world . The "borderlands" that she refers to in her writing are geographical as well as a reference to mixed races, heritages, religions, sexualities, and languages. Anzaldúa is primarily interested in the contradictions and juxtapositions of conflicting and intersecting identities. She points out that having to identify as a certain, labelled, sex can be detrimental to one's creativity as well as how seriously people take you as

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5082-479: The Anzaldúa Literary Trust, to a poet whose work explores how place shapes identity, imagination, and understanding. Special attention is given to poems that exhibit multiple vectors of thinking: artistic, theoretical, and social, which is to say, political. First place is publication by Newfound, including 25 contributor copies, and a $ 500 prize. The National Women's Studies Association honors Anzaldúa,

5203-528: The Anzaldúan Borderlands edited by ire'ne lara silva and Dan Vera with an introduction by United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and featuring the work of 52 contemporary poets on the subject of Anzaldúa's continuing impact on contemporary thought and culture. On the same day, Google commemorated Anzaldúa's achievements and legacy through a Doodle in the United States. Housed at

5324-473: The Bright Family Screening Room, a sound stage , a scene/prop production shop , nine rehearsal studios, six practice rooms, four classrooms, 20 faculty offices, and a student commons area. As of 2014 , two students are suing the college for mishandling their rape cases and failing to provide their Title IX rights. In late 2019, Marlboro College announced that it would merge with Emerson at

5445-728: The Campus Center in the Piano Row building was named the Max Mutchnick Campus Center after a major gift from the 1987 graduate and co-creator of the television sitcom Will & Grace . In the same year, the school exercised its purchase option on the Colonial Theatre , adjacent to the Little Building, and then converted the upper floors of the building to a 372-bed dormitory. With the addition of dorm space here and at

5566-618: The Combahee River Collective's The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties . Audre Lorde and Merle Woo 's Apartheid U.S.A. / Freedom Organizing in the Eighties, Audre Lorde's I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (No. 3), Barbara Omolade's It's a Family Affair: The Real Lives of Black Single Mothers (No. 4), Angela Y. Davis 's Violence Against Women and

5687-623: The Counseling Center and the International Student Center. The Bill Bordy Theater and Auditorium on the ground floor is used for lectures, performances, performance classes and special events. Computer labs: Communication Sciences and Disorders Lab (CSD) Provides classrooms, study rooms, offices to various non-academic and academic departments, five computer labs, and the Iwasaki Library. The fifth and sixth floors connect to

5808-733: The Dark contains multiple transformative theories including include the nepantleras, the Coyolxauhqui imperative (named for the Aztec goddess Coyolxāuhqui ), spiritual activism, and others. Anzaldúa drew on Nepantla , a Nahuatl word that means "in the middle", to conceptualize her experience as a Chicana woman. She coined the term "Nepantlera". "Nepantleras are threshold people; they move within and among multiple, often conflicting, worlds and refuse to align themselves exclusively with any single individual, group, or belief system." Anzaldúa described herself as

5929-518: The Dark , Anzaldúa weaves personal narratives into deeply engaging theoretical readings to comment on numerous contemporary issues—including the September 11 attacks, neocolonial practices in the art world, and coalitional politics. She valorizes subaltern forms and methods of knowing, being, and creating that have been marginalized by Western thought, and theorizes her writing process as a fully embodied artistic, spiritual, and political practice. Light in

6050-559: The Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality Anzaldúa wrote Light in the Dark during the last decade of her life. Drawn from her unfinished dissertation for her PhD in Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz , the book is carefully organized from The Gloria Anzaldúa Papers, 1942–2004 by AnaLouise Keating , Anzaldúa's literary trustee. The book represents her most developed philosophy. Throughout Light in

6171-674: The Downtown core. Abutting the southeast corner of the Boston Common, the 8-acre urban campus at the intersection of Boylston Street and Tremont Street is served by Boylston station on the MBTA Green Line and Chinatown station on the Orange Line . In addition, Emerson College extends its campus outside Massachusetts state, operating in a fourteenth-century castle in the Netherlands and

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6292-563: The Government and Community Relations department. It also contains the school's library and many of its classrooms. The Tufte Performance Production Center (PPC) at 10 Boylston Place opened in 2003. The 11-story steel-and-glass building houses the Department of Performing Arts and includes two theaters (The Semel Theatre and The Greene Theatre), two television studios, makeup and costume labs, faculty offices, and an exhibition area. Also that year,

6413-585: The Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press Transition Coalition," remarked that works published by the press have "literally transformed the conversation on racism , sexism , and homophobia in the classroom in the last decade." After Lorde's death, Barbara Smith became more politically active by later becoming a member of the city council in Albany, New York . Kitchen Table has inspired other feminist publishing companies, such as BrokenBeautiful Press, founded by

6534-683: The Library and Learning Resources Center at 150 Beacon; remodeling the 303 Berkeley building for the Humanities and Social Sciences Division; a new radio/audio complex at 126 Beacon; and construction of two new television studios behind 130 Beacon. In 1984, 335 Commonwealth Avenue was purchased for Administration and the Communication Studies department. The college also received the authorization to grant MFA degrees in Creative Writing. Despite

6655-868: The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin , the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers, 1942-2004 contains over 125 feet of published and unpublished materials including manuscripts, poetry, drawings, recorded lectures, and other archival resources. AnaLouise Keating is one of the Anzaldúa Trust's trustees. Anzaldúa maintained a collection of figurines, masks, rattles, candles, and other ephemera used as altar (altares) objects at her home in Santa Cruz, California. These altares were an integral part of her spiritual life and creative process as

6776-489: The Ongoing Challenge to Racism (No. 5), and Merle Woo's Our Common Enemy, Our Common Cause: Freedom Organizing in the Eighties ." Kitchen Table functioned not only as a press, but also a resource network for women of color worldwide. With this brought incredible potential but also incredible pressure to deal with tokenism and being the only publishing company run autonomously by women of color. While admitting that she

6897-522: The Pan American University (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley ), Anzaldúa worked as a preschool and special education teacher. In 1977, she moved to California, where she supported herself through her writing, lectures, and occasional teaching stints about feminism, Chicano studies, and creative writing at San Francisco State University , the University of California, Santa Cruz , Florida Atlantic University , and other universities. She

7018-460: The Paramount Theatre, the school hoped to accommodate up to 75% of its students in on-campus housing by 2010. In September 2006, a long-running labor dispute between the administrators and faculty union was resolved. The administration limited the union's role in promotion and tenure, and brought department chairs into administrative roles, where they were not covered by the union. In response,

7139-501: The Tufte building. Computer labs: Advanced Projects Lab (APL), Advanced Teaching Lab (ATL), Communication & Marketing Labs (CML) 1, 2, and Journalism Lab (JRL) Production facilities: Newsroom TV Studio, Newsroom Editing Labs Academic facilities: Iwasaki Library, Emerson College Archives and Special Collections One of the sets of popular NBC sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–2020), donated by Emerson alumnus Max Mutchnick ,

7260-573: The academic and writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs in 2012. In a 2018 interview with Shondaland , Smith said that she believes Kitchen Table was a catalyst for "getting the work out and asserting that this work is of great value." Emerson College Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston , Massachusetts . It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles , California , and in Well, Limburg , Netherlands ( Kasteel Well ). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as

7381-409: The borderlands between cultures. The latter half of the book is poetry. In the book, Anzaldúa uses two variations of English and six variations of Spanish. By doing this, she deliberately makes it difficult for non- bilinguals to read. Language was one of the barriers Anzaldúa dealt with as a child, and she wanted readers to understand how frustrating things are when there are language barriers. The book

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7502-578: The building are connected to the Walker Building. Gloria E. Anzald%C3%BAa Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was an American scholar of Chicana feminism , cultural theory , and queer theory . She loosely based her best-known book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), on her life growing up on the Mexico–Texas border and incorporated her lifelong experiences of social and cultural marginalization into her work. She also developed theories about

7623-471: The burgeoning field of Latinx philosophy . Anzaldúa wrote a speech called "Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers", focusing on the shift towards an equal and just gender representation in literature but away from racial and cultural issues because of the rise of female writers and theorists. She also stressed in her essay the power of writing to create a world that would compensate for what

7744-434: The challenge of being a woman of color. From the beginnings she was exposed to her own people, to her own family's racism and "fear of women and sexuality". Her family's internalized racism immediately cast her as the "other" because of their bias that being white and fair-skinned means prestige and royalty, when color subjects one to being almost the scum of society (just as her mother had complained about her prieta dating

7865-507: The city in court. Three years later in 1988, Judge John Forte ruled in favor of the City of Lawrence. The river-front site in Lawrence was proposed as the new campus for the college. However, as real estate values in Boston dropped and the costs of constructing a new campus increased, the plans were put on hold and eventually abandoned when Koenig resigned as president in 1989. In 1988, the college bought

7986-609: The college agreed not to dismantle the union. In September 2007, students in Emerson Alliance for Gays, Lesbians, and Everyone (E.A.G.L.E.) as well as the Student Government Association (S.G.A.) received the gender neutral bathrooms they had pitched to the administration in the spring. In September 2016, every bathroom on Emerson's campus was converted into a gender inclusive restroom. On December 2, 2009, President Liebergott announced she would step down in June 2011. On September 8, 2010,

8107-524: The college announced she would be succeeded by M. Lee Pelton of Willamette University . On March 18, 2010, the newly renovated Paramount Center officially opened, with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino illuminating the Paramount's original art deco marquee , which Emerson had restored. In addition to the 590-seat Paramount Theatre, the Paramount Center also houses an experimental black box theater ,

8228-578: The college completely outside of Boston. As soon as he was inaugurated in 1979, Koenig initiated talks with Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts to relocate Emerson and merge the two schools. However, an agreement was never reached and the plan was dropped entirely. At the start of the 1980s, Koenig made a proposal to the board of trustees for a major renovation of the college's facilities. The plan allowed for new performance spaces, classrooms, and faculty offices at Brimmer Street; remodeling

8349-510: The college in 1949 after being selected as president of the University of the South , and Godfrey Dewey served as Acting President until 1951. At that time, Jonathon French was appointed as Acting President, and he became president in December of that year, despite never being formally inaugurated . The college suffered from a severe financial crisis in 1952, and sought $ 50,000 in emergency funding. At

8470-518: The college rented a new building at 30 Huntington Avenue in Copley Square . The college was also granted the right to award Bachelor of Literary Interpretation (B.L.I.) degrees. In addition, Emerson became the first school with a collegiate-level program in children's theater in 1919. The school offered its first course in Journalism in 1924. The college purchased its first piece of real estate with

8591-494: The college to the Washington Street Theatre District . In the mid-1990s, a planning document of the college's future plans was drafted and public hearings were held. The college also extended health care benefits to domestic partners of gay and lesbian faculty, administration and staff. Under the plan, dental coverage and tuition waivers were also available. That same year, the college debuted online with

8712-548: The college's namesake public opinion poll, Emerson College Polling. Originally based in Boston's Pemberton Square , the college moved neighborhoods several times, and is now located in the Theater District along the south side of the Boston Common . Emerson owns and operates the historic Colonial , Paramount , and Cutler Majestic theaters, as well as several smaller performance venues. Charles Wesley Emerson founded

8833-464: The connection between language and identity, Anzaldúa also highlighted that language is a bridge that linked mainstream communities and marginalized communities. She claimed language is a tool that identifies marginalized communities, represents their heritage and cultural backgrounds. The connection which language created is two-way, it not only encourage marginalized communities to express themselves, but also calls on mainstream communities to engage with

8954-455: The dangers Anzaldúa considers women writers of color deal with, dangers that are rooted in a lack of privileges. She talks about the transformation of writing styles and how we are taught not to air our truths. Folks are outcast as a result of speaking and writing with their native tongues. Anzaldúa wants more women writers of color to be visible and be well represented in text. Her essay compels us to write with compassion and with love. For writing

9075-489: The development of Kitchen Table was the racism within the mainstream women's movement during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As a result, women of color decided to come up with their own alternative. In her essay "A Press of our Own: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press", founder Barbara Smith describes the beginnings of the press this way: "In October 1980, Audre Lorde said to me during a phone conversation, 'We really need to do something about publishing.'" Smith recounts how "it

9196-523: The eldest of four children born to Urbano and Amalia ( née García) Anzaldúa. Her great-grandfather, Urbano Sr., once a precinct judge in Hidalgo County , was the first owner of the Jesús María Ranch on which she was born. Her mother grew up on an adjoining ranch, Los Vergeles ("the gardens"), which was owned by her family, and she met and married Urbano Anzaldúa when both were very young. Anzaldúa

9317-580: The electronic library resources at the University of Texas at Austin, and $ 500". In 2007, three years after Anzaldúa's death, the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa (SSGA) was established to gather scholars and community members who continue to engage Anzaldúa's work. The SSGA co-sponsors a conference – El Mundo Zurdo – every 18 months. The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize is awarded annually, in conjunction with

9438-562: The end of the 2019–20 academic year. Under the agreement, finalized on July 23, 2020, Marlboro gave its endowment to Emerson, which created the Marlboro Institute of Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. Marlboro students were guaranteed admission and tenure-track faculty were guaranteed teaching positions at Emerson. At that time, Marlboro had approximately 150 students. In December 2020, President Lee Pelton announced his planned departure from Emerson College in June 2021 to assume

9559-712: The faces of the braceros that worked for my father. Los braceros were mostly indios from central Mexico who came to work the fields in south Texas. I recognized the Indian aspect of mexicanos by the stories my grandmothers told and by the foods we ate." Despite her family not identifying as Mexican, Anzaldúa believed that "we were still Mexican and that all Mexicans are part Indian." Although Anzaldúa has been criticized by Indigenous scholars for allegedly appropriating Indigenous identity, Anzaldúa claimed that her Indigenous critics had "misread or ... not read enough of my work." Despite claiming to be "three quarters Indian", she also wrote that she

9680-533: The first course in Radio Broadcasting was taught by the program director of WEEI , a Boston AM radio station. The purchase of buildings at 130 Beacon Street and 128 Beacon Street a year later began the presence of Emerson College in Boston 's Back Bay . Emerson kept ownership of these buildings until summer 2003. In the following years, a professional training program in Speech Pathology (1935) and

9801-455: The first president to have no prior association with the college, used his background as a dean of students to enhance extracurricular activities, including the establishment of a student activities fee. These efforts led to the first publication of Emerson's student newspaper, The Berkeley Beacon , in 1947, which is still in production today. Emerson also saw major development in its broadcasting program. A one-year Certificate of Broadcasting

9922-602: The first undergraduate program in Broadcast Journalism (1937) were offered for the first time in the United States. Construction of a theater behind 128–130 Beacon began, and the institution was granted the right to award Master of Arts degrees. In the post-war era, the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Broadcasting curriculum contributed to the rebalancing of the student body from a primarily-female population to an equally-balanced population of men and women. Boylston Green,

10043-513: The following year as WERS-TV. The first annual spring musical, Lady in the Dark by Moss Hart , was presented. Later, the school was authorized to grant honorary degrees, Bachelors and Masters of Science in speech, and a Bachelors of Music in conjunction with the Longy School of Music . As the 1960s started, 373 Commonwealth Avenue was sold to purchase a dormitory at 100 Beacon Street for 609 undergraduate and 29 graduate students. A year later,

10164-892: The graphic presentation of their books and the images that were used on the covers and throughout the books. Smith has written, "We are all too aware of the inaccurate and denigrating images of women of color and people of color, generally, in all aspects of media." Kitchen Table decided to use traditional graphics from indigenous African , Asian, Latino and Indian cultures in the cover and text illustrations of their books. Smith argues that Kitchen Table's graphic design in turn influenced other book designs by and about women of color. Some of Kitchen Table's most popular titles include: 1984 anthology by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa titled This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and Barbara Smith's Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology , first published in 1984. Audre Lorde's I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities

10285-750: The group's influence. In de la tierra's Latina lesbian magazine, Esto no tiene nombre , she published the works of many female writers of color like Cherríe Moraga , Achy Obejas , and Luz María Umpierre . Among the first three publications of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press included three significant anthologies of literary works still highly regarded: Alma Gómez and Cherríe Moraga's Cuentos: Stories by Latinas (1983); Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa 's This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1984, 2nd edn; originally published by Persephone Press in 1981); and Barbara Smith's Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983; reprinted by Rutgers University Press , 2000). In order to reach

10406-409: The ideology, the politics, the aesthetics" and that the "touching, kissing, hugging, and all came later". Anzaldúa wrote extensively about her queer identity and the marginalization of queer people, particularly in communities of color. Anzaldúa self-identifies in her writing as a feminist, and her major works are often associated with Chicana feminism and postcolonial feminism . Anzaldúa writes of

10527-582: The language and culture of marginalized communities. Anzaldúa experienced at a young age, symptoms of the endocrine condition that caused her to stop growing physically at the age of twelve. As a child, she would wear special girdles fashioned for her by her mother in order to disguise her condition. Her mother would also ensure that a cloth was placed in Anzaldúa's underwear as a child in case of bleeding. Anzaldúa remembers, "I'd take [the bloody cloths] out into this shed, wash them out, and hang them really low on

10648-441: The many dimensions of her culture. Anzaldúa emphasized in her writing the connection between language and identity. She expressed dismay with people who gave up their native language in order to conform to the society they were in. Anzaldúa was often scolded for her improper Spanish accent and believed it was a strong aspect to her heritage; therefore, she labels the qualitative labeling of language "linguistic terrorism." She spent

10769-477: The marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that develop along borders, including on the concepts of Nepantla , Coyoxaulqui imperative , new tribalism , and spiritual activism . Her other notable publications include This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), co-edited with Cherríe Moraga . Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas on September 26, 1942,

10890-463: The name changed again to Emerson College of Oratory and was later shortened to Emerson College in 1939. The college expanded and rented space at 36 Bromfield Street , and moved to Odd Fellows Hall on Berkeley and Tremont Streets in the South End of Boston . With the new location, the college's first library was established in 1892. Henry Lawrence Southwick , a faculty member and alumnus, became

11011-424: The newly purchased Commonwealth Avenue buildings, Lawrence, Massachusetts , was soon being discussed as a new location for Emerson College, about 44.5 km (27.7 mi) away from Boston . The Mayor of Lawrence announced that the necessary land would be taken by eminent domain and sold to Emerson for a token payment of $ 100. However, the five affected private landowners disagreed with this arrangement and fought

11132-539: The oppression she experiences specifically as a woman of color, as well as the restrictive gender roles that exist within the Chicano community. In Borderlands , she also addresses topics such as sexual violence perpetrated against women of color. Her theoretical work on border culture is considered a precursor to Latinx Philosophy . Anzaldúa has been criticized for neglecting and erasing Afro-Latino and Afro-Mexican history, as well as for drawing inspiration from José Vasconcelos ' La raza cósmica without critiquing

11253-485: The organization. Smith explained the name of the press as "the kitchen is the center of the home, the place where women in particular work and communicate with each other." The imagery of the kitchen table refers to the organization's grassroots function . The group decided that they would publish books aimed at promoting the writing of women of color of all racial/ethnic heritages, national origins, ages, socioeconomic classes, and sexual orientations. The target audience of

11374-658: The past rather than contemporary indigenous movements". Additionally, her work Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza was recognized as one of the 38 best books of 1987 by Library Journal and 100 Best Books of the Century by both Hungry Mind Review and Utne Reader . In 2012, she was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of the LGBT History Month . Anzaldúa died on May 15, 2004, at her home in Santa Cruz, California , from complications of diabetes . At

11495-416: The press was "not solely women of color or lesbians of color, but the entire gamut of our communities." The project resulted in the world's first publishing company run autonomously by women of color . Smith describes this as "one of (the group's) bravest steps", as "most people of color have chosen to work in their separate groups when they do media or other projects." The organization was founded on examining

11616-617: The racism, anti-blackness, and eugenics within the work of Vasconcelos. Josefina Saldaña-Portillo's 2001 essay "Who's the Indian in Aztlán?" criticizes the "indigenous erasure" in the work of Anzaldúa as well as Anzaldúa's "appropriation of state sponsored Mexican indigenismo ." Juliet Hooker in "Hybrid subjectivities, Latin American mestizaje, and Latino political thought on race" also describes some of Anzaldúa's work as, "deploy[ing] an overly romanticized portrayal of indigenous peoples that looks onto

11737-463: The real world does not offer. Anzaldúa's essay '"La Prieta" deals with her manifestation of thoughts and horrors that have constituted her life in Texas. Anzaldúa identifies herself as an entity without a figurative home and/or peoples to completely relate to. To supplement this deficiency, Anzaldúa created her own sanctuary, Mundo Zurdo, whereby her personality transcends the norm-based lines of relating to

11858-456: The registrar's office, Tufte and 3D computer labs, Digital Production labs, and the Media Services center. The former Union Bank building at 216 Tremont Street houses the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and the in-house clinic, The Robbins Speech, Language and Hearing Center . Also located here are the offices of Student Financial Services, Health Services, Career Services,

11979-435: The resistance to such an important part of her work. In her later writings, she developed the concepts of spiritual activism and nepantleras to describe the ways contemporary social actors can combine spirituality with politics to enact revolutionary change. Anzaldúa has written about the influence of hallucinogenic drugs on her creativity, particularly psilocybin mushrooms . During one 1975 psilocybin mushroom trip when she

12100-403: The self to go deeper, to transcend the lines of convention and, at the same time, to recreate the self and the society. This is for Anzaldúa a form of religion, one that allows the self to deal with the injustices that society throws at it and to come out a better person, a more reasonable person. An entry in the book, titled "Speaking In Tongues: A Letter To Third World Women Writers", spotlights

12221-429: The solution" and that racism and sexism do not come from only whites but also people of color. Throughout her life, the inner racism and sexism from her childhood would haunt her, as she often was asked to choose her loyalties, whether it be to women, to people of color, or to gays/lesbians. Her analogy to Shiva is well-fitted, as she decides to go against these conventions and enter her own world: Mundo Zurdo, which allows

12342-461: The specific situations and issues that women of color face. By being able to publish and promote the writing of women of color, Kitchen Table would ideally serve to allow women of color to control a significant means of communication, which would in turn allow for the foundation of practical social and political change. "Until this society completely transforms itself, and justice for all people prevails," wrote Barbara Smith, "there will undoubtedly be

12463-527: The street from the Ansin Building and next to Emerson's Majestic Theatre . Restoration was completed on the facades of the college's buildings at 126, 128, 130, 132–134, 168 Beacon Street, and 21 Commonwealth Avenue. In 1998, Emerson purchased the Walker Building (Boston) at 120 Boylston. The building currently hosts the school's Department of Television, Radio, Film Production, the Institutional Advancement (Alumni and Development) department, and

12584-537: The time Texas was part of Mexico, but the land was lost due to "carelessness, through white peoples' greed, and my grandmother not knowing English". Anzaldúa wrote that she did not call herself an "india", but still claimed Indigenous ancestry. In "Speaking across the Divide", from The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader , she states that her white/ mestiza grandmother described her as "pura indita" due to dark spots on her buttocks. Later, Anzaldúa wrote that she "recognized myself in

12705-532: The time commercial publishers did not publish women of color who openly identified as lesbian: "Our commitment to publishing feminist and lesbian writing has sometimes made our relations with our communities difficult and even painful, but the longer the press has existed, the easier it has become to get an intelligent and open response to this work, and we have been met with increasing interest and understanding." Jaime M. Grant, in her 1996 essay "Building Community-Based Coalitions from Academe: The Union Institute and

12826-695: The time of her death, she was close to completing the book manuscript, Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality , which she also planned to submit as her dissertation. It has now been published posthumously by Duke University Press (2015). Her children's books include Prietita Has a Friend (1991), Friends from the Other Side– Amigos del Otro Lado (1993), and Prietita y La Llorona (1996). She also authored many fictional and poetic works. She made contributions to fields of feminism , cultural theory/ Chicana , and queer theory. Her essays are considered foundational texts in

12947-445: The time of her death, she was working toward the completion of her dissertation to receive her doctorate in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz . It was awarded posthumously in 2005. The Chicana/o Latina/o Research Center (CLRC) at University of California, Santa Cruz offers the annual Gloria E. Anzaldúa Distinguished Lecture Award and The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for Independent Scholars and Contingent Faculty

13068-637: The time, the Chairman of the Corporation stated that without these funds, the college had three alternatives: go broke, sell out, or merge with another institution. Led by the National Alumni Council, a grassroots campaign was launched to improve the financial situation of the college. The efforts led to the resignation of the Council of Trustees, which was then replaced mostly by alumni. The new board elected

13189-758: The world rather than to specific groups. Scholar Ivy Schweitzer writes, "her theorizing of a new borderlands or mestiza consciousness helped jump start fresh investigations in several fields -- feminist, Americanist [and] postcolonial." In the same way that Anzaldúa often wrote that she felt that she could not be classified as only part of one race or the other, she felt that she possessed a multi-sexuality. When growing up, Anzaldúa expressed that she felt an "intense sexuality" towards her own father, children, animals, and even trees. AnaLouise Keating considered omitting Anzaldúa's sexual fantasies involving incest and bestiality for being "rather shocking" and "pretty radical", but Anzaldúa insisted that they remain because "to me, nothing

13310-681: Was "stoned out of my head", she coined the term "the multiple Glorias" or the "Gloria Multiplex" to describe her feeling of multiplicity, an insight that influenced her later writings. Anzaldua's works weave English and Spanish together as one language, an idea stemming from her theory of "borderlands" identity. Her autobiographical essay "La Prieta" was published in (mostly) English in This Bridge Called My Back , and in (mostly) Spanish in Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos . In her writing, Anzaldúa uses

13431-510: Was a descendant of Spanish settlers to come to the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries. The surname Anzaldúa is of Basque origin. Her paternal grandmother was of Spanish and German ancestry, descending from some of the earliest settlers of the South Texas range country. She has described her father's family as being "very poor aristocracy , but aristocracy anyway" and her mother as "very india, working class, with maybe some black blood which

13552-632: Was afraid she was "violating Indian cultural boundaries" and afraid that her theories could "unwittingly contribute to the misappropriation of Native cultures" and of "people who live in real Indian bodies." She wrote that while worried that "mestizaje and a new tribalism" could "detribalize" Indigenous peoples, she believed the dialogue was imperative "no matter how risky." Writing about the "Color of Violence" conference organized by Andrea Smith in Santa Cruz, Anzaldúa accused Native American women of engaging in "a lot of finger pointing" because they had argued that non-Indigenous Chicanas' use of Indigenous identity

13673-471: Was also published by the press in 1986. An additional publication that the press printed in Alma Gómez and Cherríe Moraga's Cuentos: Stories by Latinas in 1983. By 1983 the press was also distributing more than 100 titles by women of color from other independent presses. "In addition to these books, in 1986, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press published its Freedom Organizing Pamphlet Series, which included

13794-814: Was announced that the buildings at 96, 100, and 132 Beacon had been sold and would be vacated by the Fall 2006 semester. Construction of a new 14-story residence hall at 150 Boylston Street began in March 2004, and was completed in September 2006. It is the first entirely-new residence hall in Emerson's history. The facility includes residential suites, athletic facilities, offices and meeting rooms for student organizations, informal gathering places for off-campus students, spaces for small-group rehearsals and performances, and dining facilities. The school purchased Boston's historic Paramount Theatre on Washington Street in 2005, with plans to build

13915-415: Was at first hesitant to combine cultural and ideological work with grassroots organizing and activism by founding Kitchen Table, in 1989 Smith acknowledged that she believed Kitchen Table had played an important role in making political change. Smith has said that if Kitchen Table and other independent feminist presses did not exist, the writings of lesbians of color would be virtually unavailable, since at

14036-477: Was at that meeting that Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was born. We did not arrive at a name or announce our existence until a year later, but at that initial meeting we did decide to be a publisher for all women of color." In an interview with Joseph F. Beam in Blacklight Magazine , Lorde spoke to the need to "develop those structures (like Kitchen Table) that will present and circulate our culture." As

14157-465: Was displayed in the Iwasaki Library. The set, Will and Grace's living room and kitchen, remained in the library until 2013, when it was moved to Emerson's Los Angeles campus. The 11-story building is home to two television studios, two performing art theaters, the Huret and Spector Gallery, set and costume studios, classrooms, and the offices of the Department of Performing Arts. The fifth and sixth floors of

14278-470: Was five eight ten." One of Anzaldúa's major contributions was her introduction to United States academic audiences of the term mestizaje , meaning a state of being beyond binary ("either-or") conception, into academic writing and discussion. In her theoretical works, Anzaldúa called for a "new mestiza," which she described as an individual aware of her conflicting and meshing identities and uses these "new angles of vision" to challenge binary thinking in

14399-669: Was offered via evening classes. The FCC awarded the college a 10-watt license in 1949, and WERS , the first educational FM radio station in New England , was born. The station's power was increased to 300 watts three years later, and 18,000 watts by 1953. At the start of the decade, in 1950, Emerson College became a member of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools , an accreditation association for schools and colleges in New England. President Green left

14520-469: Was part of the nationwide college protests against the Israel-Hamas War . As a result of the controversies, and because students did not feel safe, the Student Government Association called for the resignation of President Bernhardt on April 26th, 2024. As of October 2024, he still acts as the president of Emerson College, even amidst continued criticism. Emerson College's permanent move from

14641-513: Was written as an outlet for her anger and encourages one to be proud of one's heritage and culture. In chapter 3 of the book, titled "Entering Into the Serpent", Anzaldúa discusses three key women in Mexican culture – " La Llorona , La Malinche , and Our Lady of Guadalupe – known as the "Three Mothers" ( Spanish : Las Tres Madres ), and explores their relationship to Mexican culture. Light in

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