Talking to the Girls wins PCA’s 2023 Susan Koppelman Award
Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti, editors of Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, have been awarded the 2023 Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited book in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture.
The annual literary award of the Popular Culture Association honors Susan Koppelman, a feminist literary historian and editor of critical collections of American women’s short stories. The award recognizes groundbreaking feminist work in popular culture.
The anthology is edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti. Guinta became interested in the Triangle fire as a young activist. At New Jersey City University, where she is a professor of English, she he has trained scores of students in the art of memoir and created a course on the Triangle fire. Trasciatti is a professor of Rhetoric and director of Labor Studies at Hofstra University in Long Island. As president of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, Trasciatti has devoted the past thirteen years to ensuring the creation of a Triangle Fire Memorial. The book was published by New Village Press in March 2022 on the 111th anniversary of the fire.
The first anthology on the Triangle fire, Talking to the Girls is a collection of original personal essays by 19 writers, artists, activists, scholars, teachers, and family members of Triangle workers. The authors explore the intersection of gender, class, nationality, race, ethnicity, and sexuality in the context of personal and public memory. Weaving the intimate and the political, Talking to the Girls exemplifies how to write about our place in history as individuals and as a community.
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City, killing 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women and girls. These workers produced cotton blouses known as “waists,” popularized by the Gibson Girl as a symbol of female independence, and worn by women of all classes, including suffragists, reformers, and the workers who sewed them.
The Triangle fire galvanized movements that shaped workers’ rights and unions. Today this activism comprises many forms – organizing and demonstrating, but also music, poetry, singing, teaching, painting, sewing, and the creation of memorial spaces in Italy and the first labor monument in NYC. Over a century after the fire, Talking to the Girls stands as an act of collective testimony with global relevance.
Congratulations to Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti for winning this prestigious award!
Authors of Placemaking with Children and Youth win 2019 EDRA Achievement Award
Victoria Derr, Louise Chawla, and Mara Mintzer, authors of Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities, received the 2019 Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Achievement Award for their publication at EDRA’s 50th anniversary conference. [Photo: Louise Chawla and Mara Mintzer at the May 24th awards program in New York.]
The book was nominated for this award by Dr. Janet Loebach (Centre for Addiction & Mental Health), Dr. Patsy Eubanks Owens (University of California-Davis), Dr. Adina Cox (University of Kentucky) and Dr. Sarah Little (University of Oklahoma).
Drawing on case studies from around the world, Placemaking with Children and Youth serves as an essential guide to engaging children and youth in the process of urban design. Through a comprehensive compilation of approaches, critical frameworks, and methods, the book situates children and youth as change agents central to the assessment, design, and planning of community environments. The authors offer particular strategies for working ethically with marginalized and vulnerable populations, presenting examples and case studies from both Global North and Global South contexts.
This publication has received endorsements from many of the most respected child/youth environmental researchers, practitioners and advocates. Maria Sitzoglou, an architect and urban designer who serves as the Child Friendly Cities Advisor for the 100 Resilient Cities initiative called Placemaking with Children and Youth “the most helpful guidebook I have read regarding our work with children!” The book, according to Stizoglou, “proves a holistic and comprehensive approach to genuine participation, providing valuable tools and methods that can be adjusted to different contexts and projects.”
Although the book was only recently released, its impact is noticeable. Practitioners and scholars from various fields have incorporated the principles and practices of this book into their work. Several university professors are using this book as a guide in their courses for conducting meaningful project-based learning. The publication’s impact, however, extends beyond the academic sphere; several municipalities and nonprofit organizations, including the City of Santa Cruz, have indicated that they will be hosting workshops on the topic of youth perspectives in city planning.
Coauthor Mara Mintzer recently delivered a TEDtalk which outlines the approaches presented in the book and the benefits for young people and their communities when they are included in design and decision-making. Since her talk, Mintzer has heard from viewers around the world working to implement the book’s practices. For example, a Fellow with Teach for India expressed how the book has inspired her to deeply engage with Mumbai youth in city planning and infrastructure design.
It is anticipated that this powerful and practical book will continue to be taken up by educators, researchers, and practitioners to support richer engagement with children and youth around the planning and design of their environments. We congratulate Victoria Derr, Louise Chawla, and Mara Mintzer on this tremendous honor!