Researching Gender in History

The Tri-University Graduate Student Association is pleased to announce the upcoming Researching Gender in History graduate student research panel. It includes four graduate students from across the Tri-University Graduate Program (Laurier, Guelph, and Waterloo), who will share their research on topics related to gender.

Panelists

Kess Carpenter (Laurier), Politics & Pleasure: Battles Over Pornography in 1980s America.

Kess Carpenter is a PhD candidate in history at Wilfrid Laurier University. They completed their MA at the University of Windsor where they examined gender, sexuality, and post-World War II culture through the lens of Playboy Magazine. While at Laurier, Kess has undertaken specialized study in the history of gender and sexuality, cultural history, and the Cold War. Their current research explores the intersections between culture, politics, activism, and pornography in 1980s America.

Rui Li (Guelph), “Good Wife, Wise Mother” and Manchukuo Women’s Education under the Kingly Way

Rui (Raymond) Li is a first-year Ph.D. student in history at the University of Guelph. He earned his first master's degree in history from the University of Macau in 2018 and his second master's in history from the University of Guelph in 2023. Raymond's research interests lie in the history of modern Northeast Asia, especially the ideological propaganda issues of Manchukuo, Japan and China. In particular, it focuses on the rise and dissemination of nationalism and feminism in modern Northeast Asia, and their effects in modern Asian societies.

Jake McIvor (Guelph), Boys and Their Toys: Gender, Geoengineering, and the Men Who Would Destroy the World

Jake McIvor is a 2nd year MA student at the University of Guelph. He is the current Guelph TUGSA co-president, and is enrolled in Guelph's first cohort of the Sexualities, Genders and Bodies graduate program. Jake is researching the history of geoengineering and is exploring its heavily gendered dimensions. Geoengineering will soon become increasingly important to the global climate debate, but it represents an unmistakably male approach to science and the environment. Jake's research aims to uncover not only how geoengineering is informed by masculinity, but also maintains the current gender hierarchy in the face of climate change.

Vera Zoricic (Waterloo), The Black Women’s United Front: “Forward with the Struggle”

Vera Zoricic is a second-year PhD student studying under the supervision of Dr. Ian Milligan. Her research topic focuses on the digitization of the black freedom struggles during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. She is particularly interested in how the issues of race, class, and gender intersect to shape individual and group experiences in Canada and the United States. Panel chair: Dr. Kristina Llewellyn from Renison College.