The 10th Anniversary of the FWSA Essay Competition: 'New Directions in Feminist Studies-Emotions, Activisms, Intersectionality'

In this special issue of the Journal of International Women's Studies (JIWS), the Feminist and Women's Studies Association UK & Ireland (FWSA) is delighted to present the winning and the shortlisted entries of the 10th anniversary of our annual student essay competition. The FWSA was founded in 1987 as a network of scholars with research interests in feminist and women's studies. Today we are a national association with over 300 members and our members' scholarship range from the social and health sciences to the arts and the humanities. It was in 2004 that JIWS published a special issue showcasing the winning and shortlisted entries from the FWSA's first student essay competition, and we are delighted that this collaboration has continued. Our sincere thanks go to Dr Diana Fox, the managing editor of the journal for her deep spirit of collegiality and genuine interest in amplifying early career feminist and gender studies scholarship. To honour the 10th anniversary of our essay competition and our enduring relationship with JIWS, the focus of this year's essay competition is on new directions in feminist studies, across disciplines and methodologies. 'Emotions, Activisms, Intersectionality', the theoretical focus of our 10th anniversary essay competition, has been the leitmotif of the FWSA's events in 2013-2014. These three interrelated themes are pressing issues for theory and praxis, within and outside academia, as feminist scholars and activists continue to strive for progressive social change within times of austerity, uncertainty and political unrest. Our 2013 Biennial Conference--'The Lady Doth Protest', mapped feminist movements, moments and mobilisations within academic and activist spaces. The conference featured keynotes from scholar-activists (to continue the feminist project to blur the boundaries between practice and theory), an advocacy and activism roundtable featuring The Feminist Library, AWAVA and WLUML (to showcase feminist organising's 'herstorical context' and her future), Dr Deborah Withers' exhibition Music & Liberation: Women's Liberation Music Making in the UK, 1970-1989, and a film screening of Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years followed by a Q&A session with the director Dr Dagmar Schultz. Similarly, our 2014 conference (Rethinking Sisterhood: The Affective Politics of Women's Relationships) broadened the widely debated and somewhat contentious idea of sisterhood through interactive workshops and papers and sought to reimagine and redefine sisterhood for a 21st century feminist politics. Both conferences provided a space for feminism's practice wisdom to be harnessed and blended theory, politics, and praxis with the aim of extending the boundaries of what counts as feminist knowledge making. To all those who submitted entries, and to Professors Mary Evans, Chrystina Hughes, Diane Negra and Imelda Wheelahan who acted as our external judges, we extend our sincere thanks. As Professor Diane Negra writes about this year's essayists: The authors consistently identified original and important lines of inquiry. Their ability to pinpoint not only un/under-addressed but compelling concerns suggests real hope for the future of feminist scholarship. The Essays This year's shortlist of essays is marked by varying explorations of feminist activism and intersectionality from a wealth of perspectives. The essays that comprise this special issue investigate the nature of feminist praxis and epistemologies, analyse contemporary forms of feminism and explore implications of feminist methodologies in social science research. Cultural phenomena ranging from theatre productions to reality television and contemporary adaptations of classical tales are portrayed and dissected in innovative feminist analyses that challenge masculine and patriarchal hegemony. Together, these essays showcase a budding area of feminist scholarship that engages with both feminist epistemologies and praxis, whilst maintaining intersectionality as a central consideration. …