Radical Feminist Nuns: Spiritual Activism, Catholicism, and the Power of (Sister)Hood

Based on the readings of authors such as Gloria Anzaldúa, AnaLouise Keating, Leela Fernandes, and others, throughout the course of this semester, I have been able to develop my own definition of spiritual activism that I believe integrates the theories and concepts that these scholars have written about with my own experiences. Having done both intensive self-study and academic research, I have come to understand that spiritual activism is the act of transforming one’s self through personal and communal reflection in order to work towards transforming the world and set it on a pathway towards equity and social justice. Based on this definition, and my own interest in the topic, I decided to conduct research on specific groups of Catholic Sisters, and investigate both how they act as spiritual activists, and how spiritual activism plays a role in their daily lives. My research explores the question: are these nuns’ definitions of spiritual activism different from mine, and if so, how are they different

Renegotiating Liminal Spaces: Catholic Nuns as Spiritual and Feminist Activists

The objective of this thesis is to recognize the critical work being done by the women in two Sister-led organizations, Talitha Kum, and Network. Throughout this thesis, I make note of how the actions of these groups of nuns align with several values attributed to spiritual activism. Simultaneously, I discuss the complications that arise from doing social justice work within the confines of an institution that has perpetuated settler colonialism and white supremacy. My analysis is grounded in three theoretical frameworks; spiritual activist theory as articulated by Gloria Anzaldúa, Indigenous Feminism(s), and Womanism. In reference to the nuns\u27 status as both activists and committed Catholics, I explicitly call upon Anzaldúa’s theories of Nepantla, Nepantleras, and Nos/Otras ideology to argue that multiple truths can exist at once

Reimagining The Women’s College: A Critical Analysis of Historically Women’s College Transgender Admission Policies

Historically women’s colleges, particularly those which are predominantly white, have a long and complicated history with their relationship to both feminism, equity, and transgender justice. Using a trans liberation framework, I have critically analyzed the trans student admission policies from four historically women’s colleges. Those institutions are: Bryn Mawr College, Hollins University, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. My analysis includes how these policies both perpetuate, and reinforce harmful gender and sex binaries. Additionally, my research explores how these policies work to create an environment that ultimately does not best serve trans, nor cisgendered students. By calling on scholarship by key figures in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies such as Judith Butler and Bobby Noble, I explain how these schools, as well as all single sex institutions, can and should shift from institutions that primarily serve cisgendered women, to institutions that serve all who fall under the category of “gender oppressed”

Taking a Stand and Changing Systems

Taking a Stand and Changing Systems (speakers in order of appearance) Megan Bull \u2721 “Examining Bias in Facial Recognition Programs” (Faculty Sponsor: Giancarlo Schrementi) Facial recognition has been a breakthrough in the development of Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence. However, when used in a real-world setting, rather than just a testing dataset, specific programs will misidentify women and people of color far more often than white men. As facial recognition becomes more widely deployed, these mistakes can have serious consequences. When police departments use biased technology to find suspects, it can lead to wrongful arrests and even convictions, as in the case of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams. The presenter plans to create a facial recognition program in which the algorithm is trained on a dataset that proportionally represents both men and women and people of color. To do this, the presenter will use Google Colab and TensorFlow to create Neural Networks to train on a proportionally representative dataset, aiming to create a more accurate program than one trained on a dataset that is disproportionately white men. Emily Lauletta \u2722 “Radical Feminist Nuns\u27: Catholicism, Spiritual Activism, and the Power of (Sister)hood” (Faculty Sponsor: LeeRay Costa) This presentation discusses two major concepts related to spiritual activism: first, how Catholic nuns throughout history have served as spiritual activists and advocates of social justice based on the critical theoretical framework created by key feminist scholars such as Gloria Anzaldua and Leela Fernandes; and second, how Catholic sisters who participate in acts of social justice have recently been labeled as radically feminist” by the Vatican. This research not only examines whether or not this is an appropriate label for these women, but also examines the dichotomy between performing feminist activism within a religious social institution, and how this division may or may not affect the way the Sisters feel about their identities as both Catholic, and as advocates for social reform, equity and justice. Rooted in scholarship on spirituality, feminism, and its intersections, the project includes an additional interview conducted with Sister Emily TeKolste from the non-profit organization NETWORK. NETWORK focuses on spreading awareness of social justice issues that the Sisters believe accompany Catholic liturgy, centering activism within the Catholic institution. Kaitlyn Phillips \u2721 “Mothers, Morals, and Godly Motivations: Women in American Conservatism from Anticommunism to The New Christian Right” (Faculty Sponsor: Rachel Nuñez) This presentation focuses on conservative women\u27s activism from the 1960s to the early 1980s, centering on women who were part of the larger focal shift on social issues that occurred in the American conservative movement in the middle of the twentieth century. This project came out of a curiosity to better understand what conservative women gained from their involvement in social activism. This research utilizes books, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and journal articles to analyze and draw conclusions. A variety of groups and individuals are examined, including the anticommunist activism of the Minute Women, Phyllis Schlafly\u27s anti-ERA, pro-family, pro-life fight, and evangelical Beverly LaHaye who used religion as her justification for active political involvement. Conservative women\u27s activism proves that women can seek power and influence, even if the movement they supported limited women\u27s autonomy

In Community - VAC 119

VAC 119 Belinda Isaro, Chasing Beauty Through the form of poetic documentary, I explored the complexities and nuances of being a woman of color. Poetic documentary creates a particular mood and feeling, and lacks a linear narrative resulting in character growth or resolution to a problem. This best reflects the “working title” theme of the project, as the documentary reflects an ongoing exploration of these ideas. Therefore, it is always a work in progress. Through music and poetry, I explore how race and gender intersect with other identities pertaining to sexual orientation, colorism, and ability. These intersecting identities create a harmonious and disharmonious lived experience for an individual. The project draws heavily upon my own personal experiences, as well as current research on intersectionality. Emily Lauletta, Renegotiating Liminal Spaces: Catholic Nuns as Spiritual and Feminist Activists Over the past few years at Hollins, I have performed specific case studies of Catholic nuns and their roles as social justice activists within the Catholic Church. In this project, I work to critically analyze the work of two Sister-led social justice organizations; Network and Talitha Kum. Throughout my paper, I discuss how their actions do or do not align or share commonalities with a spiritual activist framework. This particular framework is informed by the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, Womanism, and Indigenous feminism(s). Prakriti Pandey, Time Series Analysis to Predict COVID Cases in the United States Predictive modeling can help us quantitatively better understand diseases like COVID-19, aid in decision making, and take preventive measures sooner than we otherwise would. In this research, I predict the evolution of COVID-19 in the United States. Using a response variable of the first developed stage of COVID-19, I apply statistical and mathematical models, including time-series analysis, ARIMA modeling, and best fit modeling, to predict the number of COVID-19 cases at the later stages. The predictions and results show that the predictions remain constant after a few values. The performance of the learning models is examined and values such as the mean absolute error are used to determine the effectiveness of the model. I also discuss several time-series analyses previously performed by other statisticians for various countries using models such as ARIMA and kth moving average. Similar predictions were done annually by the quadratic time-trend model for a different epidemic called Lassa Fever in Liberia in the 2000s. Non-time series regression for COVID in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Manaus was also performed by several researchers using statistical and cluster analysis to find the best explanatory variables for predictive models. In addition, i consider the work by Fokas et al., 2020 which predicts the time evolution of the cumulative number of individuals reported to be COVID infected in a given country