Josephine Kipgen

Jo is an international student and a PhD candidate in the WGSS department. She has M.A. degrees in English and Women’s and Gender Studies. Her research interests include reproductive politics, feminist body politics, multicultural feminism, and postcolonial and transnational feminisms. Her dissertation examines the socio-historical and contemporary contexts for the practice of sex-selective abortion (SSA) in India. By using data from in-depth qualitative interviews with a range of policy researchers, scholars, NGOs, and service providers, her study delineates key stakeholders’ accounts of how they have observed women that choose SSA exercise agency. Her dissertation research has been funded by the Doctoral Student Research Fund (2017) and Summer Research Scholarship (2019) from the Office of Graduate Studies at KU. Jo recently co-authored a paper on gender nonconformity in non-Western contexts, and has revised and resubmitted the paper for publication.

Jo has taught WGSS 101: Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, WGSS: 333: Politics of Physical Appearance, and GIST 555/WGSS 555: Global Feminisms. She is teaching WGSS 555: Global Feminisms in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020.