“Rethinking the Masculinization of the Postwar Labor Migrant” – The mid-twentieth century’s unprecedented economic growth led to the emergence of a new category of mobile person: the “temporary” labor migrant, eventually known as the “guest worker.” And by the 1950s, from the Americas to Africa to Europe, this worker had acquired specific characteristics: a solo male, traveling alone, leaving any family members behind as insurance to both societies that he would eventually return. Scholars have reasoned that if the goal of labor-recruiting societies was to ensure migrants’ stay would be only temporary, those societies would naturally aim to leave male migrants’ wives and children somewhere else. 

In this talk, Julie Weise examines archival sources from three continents to show that many who articulated both dominant gender ideologies and capitalist imperatives at mid-century found more reason to include women in temporary labor recruitment than to exclude them. Weise demonstrates contingency and provides alternative explanations for the masculinization of transborder recruitment programs that eventually occurred in the postwar years.

Julie M. Weise is an associate professor of history at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910 (UNC Press, 2015), which garnered an Organization of American Historians book award among others. The manuscript for her second book, “Guest Worker: Lives across Borders in an Age of Prosperity,” is under contract with UNC Press. Her research has been supported by Fulbright France, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the School for Advanced Research, the American Philosophical Society, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation among others. Her writing and commentary on immigration politics have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Conversation, and other outlets.

The Creative Writing Program invites you to a fiction reading with Karen Thompson Walker.

Karen Thompson Walker is a New York Times bestselling author of three novels, including The Strange Case of Jane O., which will be published in February. Her first novel, The Age of Miracles has been translated into twenty-nine languages and was named one of the best books of the year by People, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Financial Times, among others. Her second novel, The Dreamers, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Belletrist Book Club pick, and was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping. Born and raised in San Diego, Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. She lives with her husband, the novelist Casey Walker, and their two daughters in Portland. She is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon.  

Free and open to the public.

For more information about the Creative Writing Reading Series, please visit https://humanities.uoregon.edu/creative-writing/reading-series

Recent controversies in the United States and other countries have involved nonprofit organizations that are involved in political advocacy and political activities. In this talk Mark Sidel, a specialist in these issues, discusses how the United States and several other countries try to set policy and law on the extent of nonprofit political advocacy and activities.

Mark Sidel is Doyle-Bascom Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He serves on the boards of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, the China Medical Board, The Rights Practice (US), and other organizations. 

Cosponsored by University of Oregon’s Department of Anthropology; Department of Global Studies; Global Studies Institute; School of Planning, Public Policy and Management; and US-Vietnam Research Center.

Students taking WR 121z, 122z, or 123 are invited to drop by the Tykeson 3rd floor Writing Lab (glass room, 351) for candy and quick writing support. Our GE Writing Support Specialists (tutors) are available to help you with any part of a WR assignment, from coming up with ideas to reading to revising to polishing up a final draft. Join us!

Mondays 3-4 and Thursdays 2-3, beginning week 4, for the rest of Winter quarter 2025.