The poster has a green background, with white lettering for the title, reading “Feminist, Queer, and Indigenous Methods” in all capital letters, and black lettering for the course description, reading “Dr. Sandra McEvoy, Boston University. Spring 2022 - Tuesdays 4:30-7:30PM. This course will meet on Zoom and BU campus” in all capital letters. Beneath the description on the poster are three book covers, from left to right: Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Other, Please Specify edited by D'Lane Compton, Tey Meadow, Kristen Schilt, and Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. In the lower right hand corner of the poster reads “Application Deadline: January 6, 2022:

Tuesdays 4:30-7:30PM, Spring 2022

This course will be a mix of in-person on the BU campus and remote. The syllabus will outline which courses will be in-person and on Zoom.

We are monitoring the status of each campus, and at this point, it is our understanding that courses will operate in-person again. If that changes, we will update our plans.

While academic inquiry and research from the west/global north has been responsible for some of civilization's greatest achievements, it has also been a powerful tool of domination, oppression and erasure.  This interdisciplinary graduate seminar seeks to explore non-normative research methodologies that are robust, ethical, and culturally informed to counter this history and to enhance our own comprehension and awareness.  To begin, we will examine the types of questions asked, the assumptions that serve as foundations, the frameworks that structure the method of inquiry, and the values and power relations inherent in particular approaches.  Working at both a theoretical and practical level, the seminar will train students to interrogate the ways that normative approaches to knowledge production - especially in Western contexts - contribute to a blunting of understanding and a silencing of already vulnerable communities.  Drawing on in-class workshops, podcasts, art, film, global case studies, class visits from distinguished as well as promising young scholars, students will examine the underpinnings of cutting-edge methodological paradigms used throughout the world while gaining skills applicable to their own research inquiries/projects.

Faculty

Dr. Sandra McEvoy is pictured in her faculty headshot looking at the camera with fair skin, blue eyes, and short silver hair. She is wearing black rimmed glasses and a brown and pink floral scarf. She has on a black blouse, and silver hoop earrings. 

Sandra McEvoy is a Clinical Associate Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Boston University. McEvoy’s primary research interests include the dynamics of political change including women’s participation in political violence; and gender-focused strategies that incorporate perpetrators of political violence into long-term conflict resolution strategies. She has written extensively on the Northern Irish conflict including, the gendered motivations for women’s participation in political violence and the impact that such participation has on notions of men and masculinity. McEvoy’s secondary area of interest explores the vulnerabilities of LGBT+ populations during conflict and natural disasters. Her current project is as coeditor of The Oxford Handbook on Global LGBT Politics (expected fall 2019). The Handbook is one of the earliest collections that uses sexuality as a critical lens through which to understand global politics.