Josephine Kipgen, Ph.D.

Hi, folks! I am an assistant professor in the REGSS department. My teaching assignments include Introduction to WGSS, Feminist Theories, Transnational Feminism, and Women of Color Feminisms. My research interests are situated at the intersections of distinct but interrelated subfields: the sociology of gender and health, reproductive politics, gender-based violence, and transnational feminist theory. Specifically, I am interested in examining social norms, government policies, and legal frameworks that are often used and co-opted as social control to regulate women’s bodies, sexuality, and reproductive capacities.

My pedagogy utilizes the critical interdisciplinarity and transformative features of feminist politics and centers on the theoretical self-sufficiency of knowledge systems and intellectual discourses other than those standardized by mainstream hegemonic/dominator systems and societies. As a feminist educator from the global south, I strive to identify connections between local and emergent global resistances and how local struggles come to create local feminisms.

In addition to my teaching and research, I am excited to be the lead faculty for an immersion program in India. This program offers undergraduate students from diverse academic backgrounds the opportunity to engage in collaborative partnerships and cultural exchange with students and faculty members from Delhi University, feminist scholars and activists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and members of the local communities.