Founded in 1976, as the Curriculum in Women’s Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As of July 1, 2009, we officially became the Department of Women's Studies.

(pictured: Sallie Walker Stockard, First Woman to Graduate from Carolina, 1898. From UNC Digital Libraries)

Joanne Hershfield works in the area of Mexican cinema and popular culture and has recently completed a book on the visual representation of the modern woman in post-Revolutionary Mexico

Karen Booth has worked on the local politics and global science of women and HIV/AIDS in Africa. She is currently writing a book on the global history of AZT.

Michele Tracy Berger studies gender and community activism and in her most recent book, Workable Sisterhood, examines how sixteen stigmatized HIV-positive women became skilled political actors in Detroit.

E. Jane Burns' most recent book, Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women's Work in Medieval French Literature, examines literary portraits of medieval heroines who deploy silk as a cultural currency to traverse religious and political barriers while also crossing lines of gender and class. Dr. Burns is currently working on a book-length study of the woman-headed serpent Melusine.

Barbara Harris, author of a book on English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550, is now working on their neglected but significant role as patrons of art in churches.

Tanya Shields's work focuses on the relationship between literary production and political change throughout the Caribbean. This statue represents "Solitude," a pregnant biracial woman who fought the reimposition of slavery in Guadeloupe. She stands for the often submerged stories of women who fought and continue to fight for Caribbean freedom.
Photo: Josely Lacroix Sculptor: Jacky Poulier.

Silvia Tomášková was trained as an anthropological archaeologist whose fieldwork takes place mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. Interested in the social lives of people who lived during the Paleolithic, some 20-40 thousand years ago, she is currently tracing the emergence of the "shaman" as a standard figure in archaeology.