Jennifer R. Scanlon
Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, Director of Gender and Women's Studies Program
Fall 2008
- Bearing the Untold Story: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States (AFRS 245)
- Feminist Theory (GWS 201)
| Phone | (207) 725-3882 |
| Title | Professor |
| Department | GENDER WOMENS STUDIES PROGRAM |
| 2nd Title | Program Director |
| 2nd Department | GENDER WOMENS STUDIES PROGRAM |
| Work Location | 23 24 College Street |
| jscanlon@bowdoin.edu |
Education
Ph.D. History, Binghamton University 1989
M.A. History, Binghamton University 1986
M.A. English, University of Delaware 1982
B.S. English/Secondary Education, SUNY Oneonta 1980
Current Academic Appointment
2002 -present Bowdoin College
Associate Professor, Gender and Women's Studies, 2002 - present
Director, Gender and Women's Studies, 2003 - present
Previous Academic Appointment
1989-2002 Plattsburgh State University of New York, Women's Studies Program
Research Interests
One of the most significant aspects of contemporary culture is consumer culture After centuries of what can be called mass consumer culture, we shape our identities, at least in part, through purchasing: adolescent white suburbanites wear baggy jeans as they purchase urban black identity; young families choose to drive either the minivan or the sports utility vehicle and view the other choice with some degree of disdain; everyday Americans spend vast amounts of money on bottled water, regardless of its source, so they can brandish a health-conscious identity. Many of us even pay corporations to let us advertise for them: we wear Nike caps, Tommy Hilfiger jackets, Gap t-shirts.
My research focuses on the historical aspects of consumer culture and identity, particularly in its gendered aspects. ; How is it, for example, that women serve as the primary consumers in U.S. society, simultaneously contributing enormously to the economy and facing ridicule as they "shop 'til they drop"? Why might we envision a suburban house decorated and furnished in a way quite different from a bachelor pad? I examine these and related questions through my explorations of U.S. cultural history. Women's magazines and advertising, my primary scholarly interests, promote consumer culture in interesting and sometimes predictable ways. They encourage women to seek satisfaction through consumerism. They nurture women, but they also promote a bit of anxiety; after all, readers must be lured back the next month, in the case of magazines, or the next season, in the case of, say, fashion advertising.
But women and men who are drawn in to consumer culture are not only acted upon, and my research focuses on what we get out of it. In my first book, I explored women's "inarticulate longings" as they were expressed in the Ladies' Home Journal and the advertising offered in that magazine in the early twentieth century. In my current research on Glamour magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, I explore the ways in which a mainstream women's magazine promoted consumerism but also made popular a revolutionary social movement, feminism.
Selected Publications
Books
Scanlon, Jennifer, ed. The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader. New York: NYU Press, 2000.
Scanlon, Jennifer, ed. Significant Contemporary American Feminists: A Biocritical Sourcebook. Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1999. (Named 
Outstanding Academic Title 1999, Choice Magazine; remains on American College and Research Libraries Core List in Women's Studies)
Scanlon, Jennifer, and Shaaron Cosner. American Women Historians, 1700s - 1990s: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Scanlon, Jennifer. Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies' Home Journal, Gender, and the Promises of Consumer Culture. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Articles
"Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore: Wal-Mart and the Commodification of Patriotism," forthcoming in The Selling of 9/11; How a National Tragedy Became a Commodity, ed. Dana Heller, Palgrave/St. Martin's, 2005.
"Reading and Rereading the Game: Reflections on West Indies Cricket," with Michael
Arthur, forthcoming in Race-ing: Critical Race Themes in Sports, ed. Amy Bass,
Palgrave/St. Martin's, 2005.
"Old Housekeeping, New Housekeeping, or No Housekeeping? The Kitchenless Home
Movement and the Women's Service Magazine," Journalism History 30 (April 2004): 2-10.
"Mediators in the International Marketplace: U.S. Advertising in Latin America in the
Early Twentieth Century," Business History Review 77 (Autumn 2003): 387-415.
"Material, Girls: Women and Popular Culture in the 20th Century," Radical History Review 66 (Fall 1996): 172-183.
"Empathy Education: Teaching About Women and Poverty in the Introductory Women's
Studies Classroom," Radical Teacher, Vol. 48 (Spring, 1996), 7-10. Reprinted in
Education is Politics: Critical Teaching Across Differences, A Tribute to Paulo Friere,
Vol. I, ed. Ira Shor and Caroline Pari. NY: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 2000.
"Culturally Diverse or Culturally Divisive: Entering the Debate on Multicultural Education," Diversity, Vol. 3 (Spring 1995), 9-17.
"Educating the Living, Remembering the Dead: The Montreal Massacre as Metaphor,"
Feminist Teacher, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 1994), 75-79. Reprinted in Best of
Feminist TeacherAnthology,Pedagogy and Politics: Writing From a Decade of
Feminist Teacher. NY: Teacher's College Press, 1997.
"The Truly Well-Lit Path: Toward a Violence-Free College Campus," Initiatives, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Fall 1994), 31-40.
"Feminist Pedagogy Meets Male Sports: A Workshop on Gender Sensitivity For the Men's Rugby Club," NWSA Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Fall 1994), 442-451.
"Boys-R-Us: Board Games and the Socialization of Young Adolescent Girls," in Images of the Child: Past, Present, Future, ed. Harry Eiss, Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1994, 100-111. Reprinted in Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-Century American Girls' Cultures. Ed. Sherrie A. Inness. NY: New York University Press, 1998. Reprinted in Signs of Life inthe U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Ed. Sonia Manik and Jack Solomon. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 2003, 2000.
"Land/Scape/Goat: Women, Environments, and the Politics of Safety," in Re-Naming The Landscape, ed. Jurgen Kleist and Bruce A. Butterfield, New York: Peter Lang, 1994, 227-238.
"Challenging the Imbalances of Power in Feminist Oral History: Developing a Take-and-Give Methodology," Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 16, No. 6 (November-December 1993), 639-645.
"Keeping Our Activist Selves Alive in the Classroom: Feminist Pedagogy and Political
Activism," Feminist Teacher, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1993), 8-14. Reprinted in
Education is Politics: Critical Teaching Across Differences, A Tribute to Paulo Freire,Vol. I, ed. Ira Shor and Caroline Pari. NY: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 2000.
"Feminist Pedagogy and Everyday Teaching: Results of a Women's Studies Program Self Study," Transformations, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 1993), 70-76.
Book Reviews
Book reviews published in Journal of American History, Journal of American Culture, American Historical Review, Journal of Design History, Journalism History, American Journalism, Gender and Society, NWSA Journal, The Women's Review of Books, Business History Review, Maryland Historical Magazine, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
Selected Honors and Awards
2002 ODK Faculty Leadership Award, Plattsburgh State University
2002 Student Association President's Special Award,
Plattsburgh State University
2002 Intellectual Renewal for Leaders Seminar, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard
2001 Scholar of Distinction, State University of New York
Research Foundation
2000 Fellow, Institute for Ethics in Public Life, Plattsburgh State University
2000 Invited Participant, Sandage Symposium on the History of Advertising,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2000 Invited Scholar, McNeese University, Louisiana
1998-1999
Fulbright Senior Scholar, Centre for Gender and Development Studies,
University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
1996 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, State University of NY
1992 Phi Eta Sigma Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching
1988 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Grant in Women's Studies
Works in Progress
Articles:
"The Making of the Feminist Mainstream: Ruth Whitney, Glamour Magazine, and the U.S. Feminist Movement of the 1970s"
"'If My Husband Calls I'm Not Here': The Beauty Parlor as Feminist Filmic Space"
"Advertising Oppression: Selling the New Right to Girls"