Claire Moses

Ph.D. (1978) and M.Phil. (1972) George Washington University, A.B. (1963) Smith College

Professor Emerita Claire Moses was the first faculty hired in Women’s Studies (in 1977) and offered the program’s first interdisciplinary courses. Over the course of her career, including as chair (1993-2003), she oversaw the program’s reorganization into a department along with the approval of the BA, MA, and PhD. Her work in building the field of Women’s Studies extended beyond the university to the level of the national (Program Directors and Administrators of the National Women’s Studies Association) and the international (the 53-country Worldwide Association of Women’s Studies/WOWS; and the Feminist Knowledge Network of women’s studies journals from more than 20 countries). From 1977-2011, she also served as Editorial Director of Feminist Studies, the pioneering interdisciplinary women’s studies journal. In 2003, she was recognized as the university’s Outstanding Woman of the Year. Dr. Moses’s research and teaching interests focus on feminist theory and histories of feminist organizing (U.S., French, international, transnational) and on the history of European women. Her publications include U.S. Women in Collective Struggle, ed. with Hartmann (1995); Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism, with Rabine (1993); French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (1984), winner of the Joan Kelly Prize for the year’s best book in women’s history; and “Made in America: ‘French Feminism’ in the Academy,” Feminist Studies (Summer 1998), which also appeared in Australian Feminist Studies (1996), Nouvelles Questions Feministes (in translation, 1996), Cinquantenaire du Deuxième Sexe, ed. Delphy and Chaperon (in translation, 2002), and Beyond French Feminisms: Debates on Women, Politics, and Culture in France, 1981-2001, ed. Cèlestin, DalMolin, and Courtivron (2003).

Major Areas of Research: Feminist theory History of feminist movements European women’s history Colonialism The political economy of globalization