Elisabeth Jay Friedman

Elisabeth Jay Friedman was awarded her BA by Barnard College (1988) and her MA/PhD by Stanford University (1997). She is the author of Unfinished Transitions: Women and the Gendered Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936-1996 (Penn State Press, 2000), and the co-author of Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State-Society Relations at UN World Conferences (SUNY Press, 2005). She has also published articles on transnational women's organizing, women's rights in Latin America, and same-sex marriage. Her book, Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America (University of California Press, 2016), provides the first in-depth exploration of how Latin American feminist and queer activists have interpreted the internet in order to develop their identities, construct communities, and hone strategies for social change. By translating the internet into their own vernacular, they have also transformed the technology.

Friedman is also the editor of the collection Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide (Duke University Press, 2019), which brings together 15 scholars from North and South America to explore to what extent the left-leaning governments of the “Pink Tide” have promoted the rights of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and engaged feminist and queer movements. It is available in Spanish as: Género, sexualidad e izquierdas latinoamericanas: El reclamo de derechos durante la marea rosa (CLASCO 2020).

• gender and politics
• Latin American feminist and queer movements
• social and political meaning of the internet

• Department Chair, Politics
• Co-Editor-in-Chief, International Feminist Journal of Politics
• Co-Coordinator, USF Global Women's Rights Forum

• BA, Barnard College
• MA/PhD, Stanford University

• University of San Francisco College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Scholar Award for Achievement in Research, 2020

• University of San Francisco Sarlo Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 2010

• Friedman, Elisabeth Jay, ed. (2019) Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Spanish translation: Género, Sexualidad y izquierdas latinoamericanas: El reclamo de derechos durante la marea rosa. CLACSO, 2020.

• Friedman, Elisabeth Jay. (2016) Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

• Friedman, Elisabeth Jay. (2005) Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State-Society Relations at UN World Conferences New York: SUNY Press.

• Friedman, Elisabeth J. (2000) Unfinished Transitions: Women and the Gendered Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936-1996. Penn.: Penn State Press.