December 2007
Education
Ph.D., Sociology, 1979, University of California, Los Angeles
M.A., Sociology, 1970, University of California, Los Angeles
B.A., Sociology, 1964, Reed College
Employment
1992-present Professor, Women’s Studies/Sociology
1999-2005 Chair, Women’s Studies Department
l982-1999 Coordinator, Women's Studies Certificate Program
l988-1991 Associate Professor, Women's Studies/Sociology
198l-l987 Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies/Sociology
Portland State University
1980 (Fall) Lecturer, Sociology
California State University, Long Beach
1981 (Spring) Instructor, Sociology
University of Southern California
1976-1979 Installer/PBX Installation Technician
Pacific Telephone, Los Angeles
Dissertation
Public Higher Education in “Post-Industrial” Society: The Case of California, 1979
Director: Prof. Lucie Cheng
Refereed Publications or Other Creative Achievements
1. Books
Johanna Brenner, Women and the Politics of Class , Monthly Review Press, 2000
Barbara Laslett, Johanna Brenner, Yasmin Arat, Rethinking the Political: Women, Resistance, and the State, University of Chicago Press, 1995
2. Book Chapters
Johanna Brenner, “Socializing Care, Reinventing Family Life,” Toward a New Socialism , eds. Anatole Anton and Richard Schmitt , Lexington Books, 2007, pp. 211-230
Johanna Brenner, "Intersections, Locations, and Capitalist Class Relations: Intersectionality from a Marxist Perspective," The Socialist Feminist Project, ed. Nancy Holmstrom, Monthly Review Press, 2002
Johanna Brenner, "Beyond Essentialism: Feminist Theory and Strategy in the Peace Movement," Reshaping the U.S. Left: Popular Struggles in the 1980's, eds. Mike Davis and Michael Sprinker, Verso, l988, pp. 93-113.
Johanna Brenner and Barbara Laslett, "Social Reproduction and the Family," The Social Reproduction of Organization and Culture, ed. Ulf Himmelstrand, Sage, l986, pp. ll6-l3l.
Johanna Brenner and Nancy Holmstrom "Autonomy, Community, Women's Rights," The Year Left: V. I., eds., Mike Davis, Fred Pfeil, Michael Sprinker, Verso, l985, pp. 24l-267.
3. Articles
Johanna Brenner, "Transnational Feminism and the Struggle for Global Justice," New Politics, v. 9, n. 2, (2003),pp. 78-87
Reprinted in: World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, ed. Jai Sen et. al., The Viveka Foundation Press, 2004; German Edition, 2004; Spanish Edition, 2004, 2nd Edition, Black Rose Books, Canada 2008
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, "Twenty-First Century Academic Feminism in the United States," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society v. 25, n. 4, (summer, 2000), pp. 12311-1236.
Reprinted in: Feminisms at a Millennium, eds. Judith A. Howard and Caroln Allen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp.225-229.
Johanna Brenner and Jan Haaken, "Utopian thought: Re-visioning gender,family, and community," Community, Work and Family, n. 3 (2000) pp. 333-347.
Johanna Brenner, “Utopian Families” Socialist Register 2000 ,eds. Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (Merlin Press, 2000), pp. 133-144.
Johanna Brenner, "The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: U.S. Feminism Today," New Left Review, no. 200 (July/August 1993), pp. 101-160.
Reprinted in: Mapping Women’s Movements: Feminist Politics and Social Transformation in the North, ed. Monica Threlfall, Verso, 1996
Reprinted in: “Socialistische Zeitung” (Supplement, November 1995)
Sy Adler and Johanna Brenner, "Gender and Space: Lesbians and Gay Men in the City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, v. 16, n. 1 (March, 1992), pp. 24-34.
Johanna Brenner and Barbara Laslett, "Gender, Social Reproduction, and Women's Self-Organization: Considering the U.S. Welfare State," Gender & Society, v. 5, n. 3 (1991), pp. 311-333.
Reprinted in: Race, Class & Gender: Common Bonds, Different Voices., eds. Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, Doris Wilkinson, Maxine Baca Zinn (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996)
Johanna Brenner, "Toward A Feminist Perspective on Welfare Reform," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Fall 1989, pp. 99-129.
Johanna Brenner, "Feminism's Revolutionary Promise: Finding Hope in Hard Times," Socialist Register l989, eds. Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch and John Saville, Merlin Press, 1989, pp. 245-263.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, "Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives," Annual Review of Sociology 15 (1989), pp. 381-404.
Johanna Brenner, "Work Relations and the Formation of Class Consciousness," Critical Sociology v. 15, n. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 83-90.
Reprinted in: Debates on Classes , ed. Erik Olin Wright, Verso, l989
Johanna Brenner, "Feminist Political Discourses: Radical vs. Liberal Approaches to the Feminization of Poverty and Comparable Worth," Gender and Society, v. l, no. 4 (December l987), pp. 447-465.
Reprinted in: Casebook on Women and the Law, ed. Mary Jo Frug,. (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1993)
Reprinted in: The Social Construction of Gender, eds. Judith Lorber and Susan Farrell (Sage, 1991), pp.193-210.
Reprinted in: Class and the Feminist Imagination, eds. Karen V. Hansen and Ilene J. Philipson, Temple University Press, 1989, pp. 491-507.
Johanna Brenner and Maria Ramas, "Rethinking Women's Oppression," New Left Review, no. 144 (March/April, l984), pp. 33-7l.
Reprinted in: British Feminist Thought, ed. Terry Lovell, Basil Blackwell, 1990
Reprinted in: Social Stratification: The International Library of Critical Writings in Sociology , ed. John Holmwood, Edward Elgar, 1996
4. Book Reviews
Johanna Brenner, Marriage: A History, Contexts , v. 5, n. 4 (2006), p. 60.
Johanna Brenner, The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917-1942, Gwendolyn Mink, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, Linda Gordon in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, v. 23, n. 1 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 232-238.
Johanna Brenner and Bill Resnick,, The Mean Season: The Attack on the Welfare State, Fred Block, Richard A. Cloward, Barbara Ehrenreich, Frances Fox Piven, (with Bill Resnick) in Administration in Social Work, v. 14, n. 1 (1990), pp. 161-165.
Johanna Brenner, Women of the Upper Class, Susan Ostrander, Contemporary Sociology, v. l3, no. 6 (May, l985), pp. 36l-362.
Johanna Brenner, Review Essay: "Marxist Theory and the Woman Question," Contemporary Sociology, v. 13, no. 6 (November, l984), pp. 698-700.
Beyond the Fragments by Sheila Rowbotham, Hilary Wainwright and
Lynn Segal, Contemporary Sociology, v. l2, no. 2 (March, l983).
Non-Refereed Publications or Other Creative Achievements
Johanna Brenner and Nancy Holmstrom “After 9/11: Whose Security?” Against the Current (March/April 2005), pp. 10-17
Johanna Brenner, "Feminism in the New Gender Order," Against the Current (March/April 2002), pp. 19-21.
Johanna Brenner, “Gender and Labor in U.S. History,”Monthly Review, V. 50, no 6 (November, 1998), pp. 1-15.
Reprinted in: Rising from the Ashes? Labor in the Age of “Global” Capitalism, Ellen Wood et. al, eds. ,Monthly Review Press, 1998
Johanna Brenner and Nancy Holmstrom, "Feminism and the Left in the United States," L'Homme et La Societe, v. 23, n. 3 (1989), pp. 101-114.
Johanna Brenner and Bill Resnick, "Baby M, Family Love, and the Market in Women," Against the Current, v. II, no. 3 (new series) (May/June l987), pp. 3-6.
Johanna Brenner, "Poverty and Pay Equity: A Socialist-Feminist View," Sojourner: The Women's Forum, v. ll, no. 8 (April, l986), pp. 26-28.
Johanna Brenner, "Some Thoughts on Women and the Peace Movement," Against The Current January/February, l986), pp. 29-36.
Johanna Brenner and Nancy Holmstrom, "Women's Self-Organization: Theory and Strategy," Monthly Review, v. 34, no. ll (April, l983), pp. 34-46.
Johanna Brenner, "Women, the Family, and the New Right," Against The Current (Winter, l982), pp. 20-26.
Johanna Brenner, "Women's Self-Organization," Against The Current (Fall, l980), pp. 24-32.
Reprinted: "Auto-organizacion de las Mujeres," Brecha, no. 3 (Spring, l987)
Presentations at Professional Meetings
“Beyond the Family Household and the Bureaucratic Welfare State,” Institutions for Gender Egalitarianism, Havens Center, University of Wisconsin, November 2006
"Feminist Politics and the Global Justice Movement," Left Forum 2005, New York, April 2005
"What's Happened to Patriarchy? Global Capitalism, the State and the New Gender Order," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, August 2002
"The Future of the Women's Movement: Class, Race and Globalization," Annual Socialist Scholars Conference, New York, April 2002
“Welfare Reform: Activist Notes,” National Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, Santa Fe, June 1999.
“Citizenship and Welfare Reform: Activist Notes,” Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, Chicago, August 1999.
"Somewhere Between Victimization and Power: A Socialist-Feminist Perspective on the Sexuality Debate," Gender Studies Annual Symposium, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, April 1994.
"Gender and Space: Lesbians and Gay Men in the City," Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Diego, April 1992.
"Work Engendered: A Critical Assessment of Feminist Labor History," Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 1991.
"Interest and Need in the Struggle for the Family Wage," Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, November 1990.
"Gender, Social Reproduction, and Women's Self-Organization: Considering the U.S. Welfare State," (with Barbara Laslett) American Sociological Association Sponsored Conference on "Socialist Feminist Theory: Towards Class, Gender and Racial Ethnic Integration," Portland, January 1989
"Gender, Social Reproduction and the State," (with Barbara Laslett) Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.,
November 1989.
"Toward A Theory of Social Reproduction and Gender," (with Barbara Laslett) Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, November l988.
"Strategies for Connecting Women's Studies with the Lesbian Community," National Women's Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, June l988.
"Notes Toward A Feminist Perspective on Welfare Reform," Feminism and Legal Theory Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison, June, l988.
"Class Structure and Gender Inequality in Capitalist and State Socialist Societies," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, August l987.
"New Directions in Class Analysis: A Comment on Classes by Erik Olin Wright," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, August l987.
"Social Reproduction and Class Structure in Capitalist and State Socialist Society," British Sociological Association Theory Group Conference on Feminist Theory in Sociology, University of Leeds, September l8-l9, l986.
"Feminist Theory/Sociological Theory and Marxism," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., August l985.
"Gender Gap Politics: Problems and Prospects," National Women's Studies Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, June l985.
"The Real Demand for Highly Educated Labor: A Reassessment of the Post-Industrial Model," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Detroit, September l983.
"The Employment Crisis in the University--How Should We Respond?" Professional Workshop, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San francisco, February l98l.
"Family and Nation: The Social Bases of New Right Political Ideology," Plenary Session, Union of Radical Political Economists, Annual Meeting, San Francisco, February l98l.
"State Support for Higher Education and Theories of the State," Pacific Sociological Association, Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, April l979.
Invited Lectures (selected)
“Marxist Feminist Approaches to Sociological Questions,” Department of Sociology, University of Southern California, March 2003
At the Race/Class/Gender Intersection: Some Questions for Feminist Theory and Politics," Havens Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, February 1995
"Feminist Theory in Sociology," Chinese Sociological Association, Beijing, January 1993
"Women's Studies in the United States," Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, January 1993
"Gender and the State: Women's Self-Organization and Social Policy in the United States," University of California, Irvine, April 1992
"Feminism's Revolutionary Promise," Carleton University, Institute of Political Economy, March 1991
"Gender and the Historical Struggle for the Family Wage," University of California, Berkeley, Department of Sociology, April l988
"Class Structure and Gender Inequality in Capitalist and State Socialist Society," University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology, March l986
"Women's Biology, Class Power, Male Dominance," University of Wisconsin-Madison, Visiting Scholars Program, October l985
"The Liberal Discourse in Feminist Politics," University of Wisconsin-Madison, Women's Studies Program, October l985
"Current Debates in Socialist-Feminist Theory," Iowa State University, Speakers Board, October l985
"Women's Biology, Class Power, Male Dominance," Oregon State University, University Seminars in Criticism, January l979
Honors, Grants and Fellowships
2005 Oregon Commission for Women, Woman of Achievement Award
2005 PSU Alumni Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
1999 John Elliot Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
l988 PSU Hoffman Award for Faculty Excellence
1995 Visiting Professor, Havens Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Visiting Professor, Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
2003-5 Center for Academic Excellence Grant: "Teaching Toward Activism
2002-3 Center for Academic Excellence Grant: "Difference/Power in Community-based Learning"
1998-2000 American Association of Colleges and Universities-Two Year Grant for Curriculum Integration of Women's Studies and Sciences [Co P-I with Prof Linda George] $20,000
l988-l989 PSU Faculty Development Grant $2,500
1988-1989 American Sociological Association "Problems of the Discipline" Grant (with Nona Glazer) $5,000
1988-1989 Oregon Committee for the Humanities Grant $1,500
l987-l988 PSU Faculty Research Grant (with Seymour Adler) $2,500
Other Teaching, Mentoring and Curricular Achievements
Masters and Ph.D. Committees
Megan Foster, M.S. Sociology, 2005, Kerry Greer, Sociology, 2005, Kevia Jeffrey, M.S. Psychology, 2004, Shelley Smith, M.S. Sociology, 2004; Sonja Vegdahl, Ph.D., Social Work, 2002; Irene Fischer-Davidson, Ph.D., Urban Studies, 2000; Vicki Lovell, Urban Studies, Ph.D.,1999; A.J. Arriola, M.S. Sociology, 1995; Wazir Ishmael, Ph.D. Urban Studies, 1993; Gloria Gostnell, Ph.D. Education, 1992; Kathleen Morrow, M.S. History May 1990; Julie Reynolds, M.S. Psychology April 1990; Carol Welter, M.S. Psychology, May 1990; Thomas Wolbrecht, Ph.D. Education, March 1990; Marlene Smith, Ph.D., Urban Studies 1989; Susan Moscato, Ph.D. Education, May l987; Joyce Korschgen, M.S. Psychology, June l987; Heidi Gambi, M.A. English, June l987; Dee Ann Thompson, M.S. Counseling, May l986; Janna Schweitzer, M.S. Psychology, May l986; Robert Brown, M.S. Counseling, May l984; Corinne Oishi, M.A. English, March l984.
Committee Chair: Dawn Creach, M.S. Sociology 2002; Marcella Gemelli, M.S. Sociology 2002, Catherine Wilson, M.S. Sociology, 2001,Tonia Burkett, M.S. Sociology, 2001;Carol Holdt, M.S. Sociology, 1999; Mary Ann Barham, M.S. Sociology, March 1991; Isik Akay, M.S. Sociology, May l985.
Courses Developed and Taught
WS Core Curriculum: WS 101, WS 215, WS 301, WS 307, WS 3l5, WS 415
WS/SCI: Science, Gender, and Social Context
WS/SOC Special Studies: Women of Color in the U.S., Women, Race, and Dialogue; Politics of Reproduction; Gender and Work; Democratic Practice in Groups; Women and Technology; Power & Knowledge, Women, Class and Activism
HONORS/SOC/WS Courses: Sex, Gender and Human Nature; Marxism: Theory and Politics
WS/PSY: Victimization, Identity and Politics
Sociology Courses Taught
U.S. Society, Sociology of Women, Marriage & Intimacy
Other Community Outreach Achievements
2003-present Portland Workers’ Rights Board
1993-present Board Co-Chair, Women's Community Education Project
1992-present Board Member, Oregon Human Rights Coalition
1989-1994 Co-producer, "Old Mole Variety Hour," KBOO radio
1989-1994 Portland Reproductive Rights Committee, member
1987-1993 Board of Directors, Mackenzie River Gathering
Foundation
1987-1992 Advisor to International Women's Day Celebration Committee
1986 Healthlink Advisory Board
1985- present Talks at Grant High School, Jefferson High School, Port of Portland, Reed College, Willamette University, Oregon Public
Employees Union, Childcare Workers Organizing Committee, Red Rose Community School, Eastrose Fellowship, Unitarian Church, American Association of University Women Portland and Beaverton branches, Oregon Historical Society, Unitarian Women’s Alliance
Governance Activities
University
