28.3 Editorial Introduction: From Arizona to Oregon

I begin writing my first introduction to an issue of Feminist Formations on a beautiful fall morning in Oregon, as the leaves turn brilliant shades of orange and red, and it’s clear that transitions are taking place all around us. I return to it a few weeks later, in Montreal for the 2016 National Women’s Studies Association conference, while many of us are deep in the process of collective mourning post-election. I’m thrilled to be assuming the editorship of what is considered by many to be a flagship journal within the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. But I’m reminded of the critical urgency of our work here and now, as we acknowledge the reality and consequences of a Donald Trump presidency.

Many of us are not exactly shocked that so many people in the U.S. voted for an openly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, ableist candidate, an alleged perpetrator of sexual assault who aligns himself with white supremacists. But still, it’s a painful reminder of a long history of institutionalized oppression. As we organize and move forward together, I take comfort—and hope you will as well—in the illuminating analyses provided by the authors and artists included in this issue, who consider themes of trauma and war, affective labor, resistance to heteronormativity, and multiple forms of feminist and anti-racist activism.

I’m deeply grateful to Sandy Soto, Liz Kinnamon, and Susana Sepulveda, the University of Arizona-based editorial team who worked with our new editorial team at Oregon State University and supported us through each phase of the transition to a new editor and new institutional home. While Feminist Formations is now housed in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Oregon State University, the articles in this issue were carefully selected by Sandy Soto, and it was her vision and guidance that brought them together here.

I am joined by an excellent new editorial team here at Oregon State University. Rebecca Lambert, a doctoral student in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University, is the new Managing Editor of Feminist Formations. Rebecca earned her Bachelors Degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University and since then gained extensive experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. She received her MA in Gender and Women’s Studies from Minnesota State University, Mankato. Her research interests include anti-racist social movement organizing, feminist pedagogy, and feminist praxis.

LK Mae, our new Editorial Assistant, is also a PhD student in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University. LK holds a BA in English from York University and both a Bachelor’s of Education and a Master’s of Education with a Women’s Studies specialization from Lakehead University. LK’s research interests include decolonizing methodology, indigenous knowledge, spirituality, queer identity, and the ways in which we find and create community.

We are grateful to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the School of Language, Culture, and Society, within the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. In particular, Leonora Rianda and Karen Mills have enabled our work here and we appreciate their support. We are also indebted to the staff of the Johns Hopkins University Press, who have supported the transition to Oregon State University in multiple ways.

We begin this issue with Zoë Brigley Thompson’s “Beyond Symbolic Rape: The Insidious Trauma of Conquest in Marguerite Duras’s The Lover and Eileen Chang’s ‘Lust, Caution.’” Through her analysis of these two narratives, Thompson explores what Ann Cvetkovich refers to as an “archive of trauma,” focusing on the “everyday trauma” inherent within war and conquest. Thomspon juxtaposes the representations of women’s experiences of “insidious” or everyday trauma in The Lover and “Lust, Caution,” with the symbolic rape used by the directors who adapted these narratives for the big screen. By demonstrating how Duras and Chang reject the use of rape as a symbol of colonialism, Thompson powerfully highlights the ways these two writers “uncover an archive of trauma that indicts the imperialist mindset and its...