By Azza Basarudin

Karina Eileraas received her BA from Wesleyan University in 1993 and her Ph.D. in Women's Studies from UCLA in 2003. Her primary areas of interest include nationalism, sexuality, and revolution in the Maghreb; colonization and visual culture; and transnational feminist art, theory, and literature. In 2003-2004 she was a Research Scholar with UCLA's Center for the Study of Women and an Instructor in the Women's Studies Program at UCLA where she taught an upper-level seminar on Sexuality, Revolution, and Exile in the Middle East and North Africa. In the Fall of 2004, she will begin a 2-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Carlton College in Minnesota.

AB: Why did you decide to pursue a Ph.D. in Women's Studies?

KE: In college, I majored in Women's Studies, International Politics, and French. When I graduated, I swore that I would never go back to school. However, several experiences after college graduation inspired me to pursue a Ph.D. in Women's Studies. First, my professional experiences forced me to seriously reflect on what it was that I loved doing, and how I could transform my passions into a career.

Given my love of reading, research, writing, debate, and counseling, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. Because there were only one or two U.S. graduate programs in Women's Studies at the time, I decided to enter a Ph.D. program in French (at Northwestern University), which afforded me the freedom to pursue postcolonial and gender studies as well. Midway through the program, my advisor transferred to UCLA. One year later, after being admitted to the first class of Ph.D. students in Women's Studies at UCLA, I decided to take a risk, follow my passion (and advisor!), and move to Los Angeles!

AB: What was your experience with the Women's Studies Program? Were there specific issue/s you would improve upon or try to change?

KE: The biggest drawback of the WSP, at least from a student's perspective, is that there are no core faculty. On one hand, I love taking courses from faculty trained in a wide range of disciplines. This experience actually made my dissertation much stronger, since I had to satisfy the expectations and methodological concerns of scholars in a broad range of disciplines, rather than scholars who shared one, common critical vocabulary. On the other hand, having no "core" faculty makes it difficult to establish a certain sense of camaraderie and intellectual exchange within the Program. This can be done, but it takes much more effort on students' part. The retention of a core faculty would of course be a step toward departmentalization, which I advocate because it would provide students with a stronger support network (to help out with exam preparation, publishing, the academic job search, etc).

AB: Can you tell me about your dissertation? What particular experiences led up to the selection of this topic?

KE: My dissertation, entitled Between Image and Identity: Fantasy, Transnational Trauma, and Feminist Misrecognition, addresses the autobiographical art and literature of postcolonial women from the Maghreb and Southeast Asia. I consider how these artists choose to represent-and often reinvent-experiences of transnational trauma such as colonization, revolution, sexual violence, and exile.

I first became interested in feminist theory, anticolonial revolution, and violence against women as an undergrad at Wesleyan, where I wrote my BA thesis on nationalism and sexuality in the Algerian revolution. In graduate school, I became more interested in the personal stories and voices of postcolonial women writers. As I read the literature and autobiography of primarily Francophone women in the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Middle East, I became very interested in the intersections between nationalism, sexuality, ethnicity, anticolonial revolution, and Orientalist imagery.

I found myself particularly drawn to the stories of women who situated themselves "in between" two nations due to experiences of war, sexual violence, colonization, exile, and/or immigration. This notion of in-between-ness or "hyphenated identity" was especially compelling to me because of my own family's background as immigrants from Norway. My final dissertation topic evolved from this web of interests in sexual violence, revolution, autobiography, feminist postcolonial theory, and the "wounding" potentials of imagery.

AB: Can you describe the process of completing your dissertation? What was the most challenging aspect of it?

I never felt daunted by the task of writing a dissertation. When I told friends that I "only" had to write my dissertation in order to complete my degree, they laughed. But I have always loved writing, and genuinely looked forward to the challenges and surprises of a long-term research and writing project.

One of the hard parts of writing my dissertation was to establish a "writing routine". Never a morning person, I suddenly felt compelled to wake up early and rush to my desk with a cup of coffee-maybe to reinforce the illusion that this was indeed a "real job"! There were of course other, much greater challenges and obstacles along the way, but these were personal rather than academic.

AB: What do you hope your research will contribute to the field of Women's Studies?

KE: In a nutshell: impassioned, compassionate, and engaged scholarship. I definitely want to keep working on the interface between representation, politics, and identity. And I intend to keep pushing at the edges, boundaries, and limits of traditional disciplines. I also hope to contribute to feminist activist efforts.

AB: You are probably among the first individuals in the country to hold a doctorate degree in Women's Studies and the very first from UCLA. What are your thoughts on this?

KE: Well, that is a generous question! I have thought about the latter part of your question--the fact that I am the first student to receive a Ph.D. in Women's Studies from UCLA. This is very important to me; given my desire to take risks in life and to be a pioneer of sorts. I am definitely motivated by the energy and excitement of doing something that has not been done before, in a field that is so meaningful to me and that has enriched my life personally, politically, and intellectually. I feel honored to have earned this distinction in UCLA's history.

AB: How competitive is the academic job market for a person with a Ph.D. in Women's Studies?

KE: Actually, the academic job market is even more competitive than average for students in interdisciplinary programs, because we are competing with students from conventional departments as well. Although several job postings these days specifically seek Women's Studies Ph.D.s, most searches are open to candidates from a wide range of disciplines. Also, in times of economic hardship, interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies tend to be among the first to lose funding for open positions.

AB: What is your feminist pedagogy?

KE: I try to structure the classroom as a lively and ongoing conversation about issues and texts that are stimulating, provocative, and never fully "resolved". I also try to foster sensitivity to, and respect for, the different positions from which each student speaks. Ultimately, I hope to inspire passion for learning, and awareness of the ways in which knowledge functions as a form of empowerment (which of course has both positive and negative implications). I try to encourage students to think about everything, every debate or idea, as vastly more complicated, nuanced, or "layered" than it might initially appear.

AB: What has been the most rewarding aspect of being a Women's Studies professor?

KE: The most rewarding aspect of teaching Women's Studies is watching students grow personally, politically, and intellectually. I love the moments when things suddenly "click" for students: when they start to become passionate about ideas, and to challenge even their own assumptions without feeling threatened by whatever opens up in that process.

AB: What is your advice to other Women's Studies Ph.D. students in terms of selecting courses, working with faculty advisors, participating in conferences, and the dissertation writing process?

KE: Many questions are rolled into this one! In general, my best advice is to trust your own instincts. Take courses that will challenge, inspire, and spark new ways of seeing. Don't rule anything out at first--be as open-minded as possible. I routinely scoured the course catalog for classes that might be of interest in every single discipline.

It takes time to find faculty advisors, but this time pays off once you find someone with whom you have a good rapport. Classes, lectures, and the suggestions of other students are a great way to meet faculty from a wide range of disciplines.

Conferences offer a great forum in which to present your ideas or research findings to a broader audience. They are a mainstay of academic life and - at least potentially - a good way to meet and exchange ideas with people who share similar interests. From this perspective, it is useful to begin to attend relevant conferences once you have developed an in-depth paper or research outline that you would feel comfortable addressing to a broad academic audience. In most cases this will happen naturally during your second or third year of graduate school. Around this same time, it is important to be on the lookout for paper contests and journal/publishing opportunities, as well.

As for dissertation writing, my best advice is to stay creative and open, yet focused. Force yourself to write a little every day, and set firm deadlines (for outlines, chapter drafts, revisions, etc) with your advisor and other committee members. These small measures will keep you organized and productive by breaking down the dissertation-writing process into more manageable pieces or phases.

The greatest challenge of this phase of the Ph.D. program is that it presents you with unprecedented stretches of free time, many of which are spent alone. Although it might feel like a luxury at first, this freedom can quickly become daunting.. Figure out what you need to keep things in perspective, whether that is watching films or television, volunteering with a local women's organization, keeping in close touch with family and friends, taking long baths, eating good food, riding your bike, dancing, or taking a hike!

Azza Basarudin is a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Women's Studies Programs