Karen Ruddy
Biography
Karen A. Ruddy holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Social and Political Thought from York University (Can.). She received her B.A. in Political Studies from Queen’s University.
Her areas of research and teaching specialization include critical social and political theory, gender and politics, communication studies, and adult education.
- “Teaching in the Global City: Feminist Literacy Education in Transnational Times.” Transformations: Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 19:1 (2008): 14-40.
- “The Ambivalence of Colonial Desire in Marguerite Duras’s The Lover.” Feminist Review 82:1 (2008): 75-94.
- “Global Citizenship and Transnational Feminist Critique: Reflections on Martha Nussbaum’s and Gayatri Spivak’s Theories of Global Justice Education.” Presented at the Canadian Society for the Study of Education Annual Conference. Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 31 May through 03 June 2015.
- “Feminist Imaginaries, Accumulation by Dispossession and the ‘New Sexual Contract’.” Presented in the Gender and Political Theory session at the 83rd Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 16 May 2011.
Karen’s research agenda is situated in the interdisciplinary field of anti-racist transnational feminist studies. She is currently pursuing three research projects. One project explores how feminist education in general and literacy education in particular have become central pillars of neoliberal development and post-war reconstruction efforts. A second research project draws from traditions of anti-colonial, indigenous, and postcolonial thought to re-imagine literacy as decolonial and freedom-enhancing feminist political practice. Her third research project examines the transnational politics of “post-feminism.”
Karen frequently teaches CPOL501 and POL501: "Women, Power, and Politics" in the Department of Politics and Public Administration and the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson.
Dr. Ruddy also has taught in the Departments of Political Science and Human Rights and Equity Studies at York University; the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at Trent University (Durham); the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto (Mississauga); and the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Karen has worked as a writing instructor in the Writing Department at York University and at the New College Writing Centre at the University of Toronto.