Gender and Women's Studies

Ruth Nicole Brown

Ruth Nicole Brown is an assistant professor with the Gender and Women's Studies Program and Educational Policy Studies.  Her areas of interest include American politics with focus on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and inequality; cultural politics and theories of social construction; and critical race and feminist theories and practices. Her current research project focuses on the political socialization of African American girls.

Education

University of Michigan Ann Arbor      

2005      Ph.D., University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Political Science

2000      M.A.  University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Political Science & Women’s Studies Certificate

1998      B.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Political Science, with honors, May 1998.

 

Academic Employment

2006-07    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Postdoctoral Fellow

2005-06    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, African American Studies and Research Program, Postdoctoral Fellow

Selected Publications

“Persephone’s Triumph: Reflections of A Young Black Woman Becoming A Real Political Scientist.” Qualitative Inquiry. Forthcoming.

“Remembering Maleesa: Theorizing Black Girl Politics and the Politicizing of Socialization.” National Political Science Review. Forthcoming.

"Mentoring on the Borderlands: Creating Empowering Connections Between Adolescent Girls and Young Women Volunteers.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge. Forthcoming.

Feldman, Martha S., Kaj Skoldberg, Ruth Nicole Brown, and Debra Horner.  “Making Sense of Stories:  A Rhetorical Approach to Narrative Analysis.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp.147- 170, 2004.

“On Community Activism: Talking With Cuban Popular Educator Esther Perez.”  The Journal of the International Institute, Vol. 9, no. 3, p.4, 2002.

    Works in Progress

Endangered Girlhood: The Drama and Politics of Growing Up Black, Young, and Female. (Book manuscript).

“Endangered Black Girls” (play/ethnodrama). 

“Speaking Free and Fully: The Political Significance of Black Girls’ Way With Words” (essay). 

Brown, Ruth Nicole & C.Vanover. “Teaching Love: An Introduction to Teaching the Power of the Word: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in a Chicago Public High School” (performance ethnography).

Courses Taught

The Poetics and Politics of African American Girlhood; Women in Politics; Black Politics, Introduction to Women's Studies