Precarious Publics | Eileen Anderson, Building a Union at Duke

March 20, 2017
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Eileen Anderson is currently teaching language, writing, and culture courses in the Spanish Language Program at Duke University. She was on the Duke Faculty First Organizing Committee and witnessed the vote count at the National Labor Relations Board last March. She is currently part of the negotiations for the first contract of the bargaining unit with the Service Employees International Union.

Her scholarly interests have a wide range and her cross-cultural research provides new insights into the ways in which communities interact. In her dissertation, "Resisting Anglicization: Strategies of Identity Formation in Irish and Puerto Rican Communities in New York," she portrays the intersections of Puerto Rican and Irish communities in the U.S. and illustrates the parallels of their methods of cultural preservation in the shadow of economically and culturally powerful empires. This exploration demonstrates how common historical dynamics influenced their interactions when they came together in the shared spaces of New York City. Her latest project examines social change and labor activism in Puerto Rican communities in New York in the early 20th century.
The talk, entitled “Faculty Empowerment in an Age of Corporatization: Building a Union at Duke,” was part of the Precarious Publics Workshop at Duke on Feb 4, 2017 and was organized by Duke’s Department of Cultural Anthropology.
Humanities Futures is a multi-year exploration of the futures of the humanities, in the wake of the interdisciplinary developments of recent decades. For more information, please visit: http://humanitiesfutures.org/.