In my March message to you, I commented on Spring being here, the lifting of restrictions, the attack on Ukraine, and the fact many of our co-workers at GPS are in high demand to share their expertise and analysis in the media. All this is still true along with the mixed feelings it brings forth. I have seen more of you at Niagara, and I hope this trend continues. Later in the semester and after the end of the semester we will have an exam mingle for the students and our own summer mingle, and I hope to see most of you then. In a few days on April 5, Nazem Tahvilzadeh is giving his Associate professorship lecture, and this too is a good reason to meet and  celebrate.

On International Women’s Day (8 March 2022), as part of a day of celebrations coordinated by MAU’s Gender Research Group, the Gender & Postcolonial PhD Cluster at GPS organized a panel discussion in celebration and commemoration of the late bell hooks. The PhD Cluster was founded by students at GPS but has since been joined by students from across the university. Panelists included Oda-Kange Midtvåge (PhD Candidate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Rahel W. Sebhatu (PhD Candidate in Global Politics at GPS), as well as Kristin Järvstad  (Professor of Gender Studies and Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at MAU). In a wide-ranging conversation, the panelists discussed the impact and influence of bell hooks on their own research, their experiences in the university space and the pedagogical practices which hooks inspired. The panel was moderated by Isobel Squire (PhD Candidate in Global Politics at GPS).