Bio
Sarah-Anne Gresham is an Antiguan and Barbudan feminist who received a Fulbright scholarship in 2018 to pursue an MA in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at George Washinton University. She recently graduated as a Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Distinguished Scholar in recognition of her leadership in WGSS and her interdisciplinary MA thesis titled, "Polyphonic Symphonies: Istwa as Alter/native Feminist Historiography."
Sarah is the co-founder of Intersect which is a feminist organization that connects 'Queeribbean' and Caribbean feminists through storytelling art, and gender justice advocacy. Through Intersect, she has launched a Caribbean Feminist Stories Project to curate 'istwa' such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art to agitate for transformative social change and gender justice. Sarah is also the former research officer at the Directorate of Gender Affairs in Antigua and has co-written, edited, and presented country reports on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (Belém Do Pará), as well as gender and the Sustainable Development Goals. She also organized Antigua's first national gender-based violence forum in 2017 titled, 'Love Shouldn't Hurt.' In her spare time, she enjoys ballet, tango, and reviewing books on Instagram at the handle, @booklempt.gyal.
Sarah is deeply invested in the Haitian Kreyòl term, 'istwa,' which means history, story, and memory. For her MA thesis-which is grounded in Caribbean feminist and decolonial thought- she argued that denaturalizing disciplinary boundaries that erroneously separate history and story (i.e. literary fiction) into discrete and opposing categories can make way for istwa as a genre and an alter/native source of historical knowledge about subalternatized women who are not epistemically traceable in official historical records. She is also very passionate about pursuing scholarly research that challenges liberal feminist discourses around Black women's empowerment and their sexual/aesthetic labor on digital social platforms. She is invested in exploring the connections of these performances to capitalism & settler colonial power when adopted by 'influencers' whose highly configured and abled bodies are called upon to represent the nation.
Preferred Pronoun: She/Her/Hers
Fellowships/Grants/Awards:
- Graduate Distinguished Scholar (2020)
- Emily B. Proctor Research Award (2020)
- Service to the Community of Women Award (2020)
- Ruth Helm Osborn Research Fellowship, (2019)
- Graduate Prize for Feminist Scholarship (2019)
- Student Professional & Career Development Award (2019)
- Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship (2018)
