I am an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island and earned a PhD in history from SUNY Binghamton with a concentration on women’s history in the 20th century.
My current book project, “Creating Transnational Feminist Networks, 1940-2000,” traces the genealogy of transnational feminist praxis in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It presents a collective biography of non-state woman activists from various regions of the world who participated in international conferences, organizations, and networks in the late twentieth century. It aims to understand why women looked to the international realm in the first place; what challenges they faced in doing so; how international, regional, national, and local contexts shaped their advocacy; and how their activism influenced international discussions. Women of interest include Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, Indian economist Devaki Jain, and African American reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross. This project will use individual women’s stories to analyze how feminist ideas traveled across borders and were adapted, adopted, rejected, or co-opted in various regions of the world.
My first book, Women’s Antiwar Diplomacy during the Viet Nam War Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), was named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2017 by CHOICE magazine. It provides a window on the nature of the relationships forged between U.S. women in civil rights, peace, and women’s liberation organizations and their Vietnamese counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s. In the summer of 2015, I was lucky enough to travel to Viet Nam to interview former people’s diplomats as part of my research for this project.
My work has been recognized by the Organization of American Historians and the American Association of University Women. I have received financial support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Sally Bingham Center at Duke University, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection at Swarthmore College, among others. At the University of Rhode Island, I enjoy teaching on social movements, environmental justice, and human rights issues in courses that consider gender, race, and class central categories of analysis.
Jessica M. Frazier, PhD 