About the AJS Gender Justice Caucus
Apply for 2023 Awards
Focus on Gender Equity in Publishing and Research
Founded in 1986, the AJS Gender Justice Caucus supports women and all marginalized genders in the profession and advances the study of gender and intersectionality within the Association for Jewish Studies and Jewish Studies. The Caucus welcomes people of all marginalized genders including women, trans people, non-binary people, intersex people, genderqueer people, and gender questioning people, and sexual orientations as members.
The Gender Justice Caucus sponsors sessions on gender, pedagogy, and other professional topics at the annual AJS conference.
We offer a number of competitive grants such as book subventions, paper prizes, a mentoring program for emerging woman scholars, and travel grants for graduate students.
The Caucus also publishes gender-inclusive and women's studies syllabi in Jewish Studies.
The Gender Justice Caucus holds an annual conference breakfast-time meeting, usually on Monday morning of the conference. Here, graduate students, independent scholars, contingent scholars, and junior and senior scholars meet, network, and share recently published work in gender as well as information on relevant conferences and fellowships.
Established at a time when feminist concerns and scholarship on gender were marginalized within the field of Jewish Studies, the Gender Justice Caucus has brought these issues to greater prominence within the Association for Jewish Studies and the larger scholarly community.
Chair: Jenny Caplan
For more information, email the Gender Justice Caucus at genderjusticecaucus@associationforjewishstudies.org.
What is the next step for Jewish feminist and gender studies? In what ways can recent theoretical trends in feminist, gender, queer, and trans-theory impact the various disciplines within Jewish studies? In recognition of the importance of these questions, the AJS Gender Justice Caucus invites submissions for its Prize for Innovative Scholarship in Gender and Jewish Studies. The prize will be given in recognition of a paper presented at the last AJS annual meeting within any discipline of Jewish Studies that opens up new areas of inquiry or advances Jewish feminist or gender studies. The prize carries a cash award of $500. To be considered, papers must have been prepared especially for presentation at the last AJS annual meeting held in December 2022.
Application Deadline: September 1, 2023
The AJS Gender Justice Caucus announces a grant of $1,000 to support scholarly publication in the area of Jewish Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Book proposals to be considered for the grant must make a clear argument for the ways in which the work represents a contribution to any of these fields and a subfield of Jewish Studies. The grant is open to scholars at all stages of their careers. While a contract for publication is not required at the time of application, funds can only be disbursed once a contract with a publisher is executed. In the hope that the subvention grant might help a scholar to secure a contract, the expectation is that the contract will be in hand within 12 months of receiving the award.
Application Deadline: September 1, 2023
To help draw attention to this issue, we are sharing a number of online pieces, including a series published by Feminist Studies in Religion on “manels,” “manthologies,” and the failure to include women scholars in academic ventures. Many of these pieces have been written by women in Jewish Studies.
See the series by Michal Raucher for Feminist Studies in Religion:
Mara Benjamin “On the Uses of Academic Privilege (@theTable 'Manthologies)"
Feminist Studies in Religion 27
May, 2019
Michal Raucher “Even the Allies Are Misogynist (@theTable: 'Manthologies')”
Feminist Studies in Religion May 28,
2019
Alison Joseph “It’s Not that Easy: On the Challenges Facing an Editor”
Feminist Studies in Religion May
29, 2019
Sarah Imhoff “404 Women Not Found Error"
Feminist Studies in Religion May 30, 2019
Kecia Ali “No Manthology Is an Island”
Feminist Studies in Religion June 4, 2019
Susanna Heschel “Women in Jewish Studies: Conversations from the Periphery”
Feminist Studies in Religion May
31, 2019
and also:
Robert Cargill “The Gender Divide”
Biblical Archeology Society May
24, 2019
