Feminist Cyberspaces ― Pedagogies in Transition

Sharon Collingwood received her PhD from The University of Western Ontario and teaches in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. In 2007, she received grants from The Ohio Learning Network and the Department of Continuing Education at Ohio State to develop a teaching and research space in the virtual world Second Life; she has been teaching distance courses there since that time. In 2010, a grant from the American Association of University Women allowed her to develop the Women's Virtual Community Project, a series of lectures, concerts, workshops and other events that encourage dialogue and collaboration in Second Life communities. Alvina E. Quintana received her PhD from the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and teaches in the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Delaware. Her publications include articles on multicultural literature and cinema studies. Aside from book chapters and articles, she has published two books: Home Girls: Chicana Literary Voices (Temple University Press) and Reading US Latina Writers: Remapping American Literature (Palgrave/Macmillan Press). Her research interests focus on feminist theory; sexuality and difference; new technologies, transnational gender studies with a particular emphasis on the intersections between US Latino/as and Latin American cultural practices; multiculturalism in the USA and abroad; the internationalization of American Studies. Caroline J. Smith is Assistant Professor in The George Washington University's Writing Program, where she teaches freshmen writing classes themed around her interests in women's literature and popular culture. Her book, Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit (Routledge Press, 2007) focuses on how the genre of chick lit interfaces with magazines, self-help books, romantic comedies, and domestic-advice publications. Her current book project, The Politics of the Kitchen: Postfeminism and Women's Food Writing, is a scholarly analysis of the work of contemporary female food memoirists, looking specifically at the way in which these women construct their identities in relation to the kitchen.