Introduction

Introduction Tracey Jean Boisseau (bio) and Adrianna L. Ernstberger (bio) "Women Studies Departments in Indian Universities Face Threat of Closure," Policy Studies (blog), July 24, 2017.1 "For Scholars of Women's Studies, It's Been a Dangerous Year," The Chronicle, February 11, 2018.2 "From Kabul to Budapest, You Can Ban Gender Studies but You Can't Silence Us," Euronews, October 10, 2018.3 "Hungary's PM Bans Gender Study at Colleges Saying 'People Are Born Either Male or Female,'" CNN, October 19, 2018.4 "Global Attack on Gender Studies," Inside Higher Ed, December 4, 2018.5"Academic Feminists Beware: Bolsonaro Is Out to Crush Brazil's 'Gender Ideology,'" The Loop, October 16, 2020.6 "How Covid-19 Is Devastating Women's Studies Programs across the U.S.," Ms. Magazine, December 3, 2020.7 "Women Studies Scholars Worry Their Programs Are at Risk for Being Cut amid Tightening Budgets," Diverse Issues in Higher Education, March 4, 2021.8 "Did 'Gender Studies' Lose Afghanistan?," The Spectator, August 19, 2021.9"First, the Book-Banners Came for CRT and LGBTQ. Now They're Censoring Women's History: Wyoming Moves to Ban Gender Studies, Further Bringing GOP in Line with Russia's and Hungary's Authoritarian Crackdown," Salon, March 1, 2022.10 "Parents Are Going on Offensive to Fight Indoctrination in Education," Heritage Foundation, April 27, 2022.11 "Political Attacks on Women's Studies at Kuwait University Increase Scholars' Resolve," Al-Fanar Media, May 7, 2022.12 End Page 17 "Turkey Funds Women's Groups to Counter 'Feminist Threat': Government-Operated Women's Organizations Are Drowning Out Genuine Feminist Voices in Turkey," openDemocracy, May 20, 2022.13 "How an LGBTQ Court Ruling Sent Kenya into a Moral Panic," Al Jazeera, March 15, 2023.14 "Florida Legislation Threatens Gender Studies and Intersectionality: What Does It Mean?," USA Today, April 19, 2023.15 "Professor, Two Students Stabbed in Gender Studies Class at Canadian University," Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2023.16 "'Gender' Is at the Core of Attacks on Democracy in the U.S. and Abroad," Ms. Magazine, July 18, 2023.17 The cacophony of media and news is so loud we only hear their buzzing nonsense. There's so much noise we can't hear ourselves think or speak. So many trees we can't see the forest or a path we might take out of it. WSQ: Pandemonium cuts a swath through the clamorous forest of news media to locate a clearing in its midst for generative contemplation regarding the state of our field. Here, we stage a festival of our own making. Leading the way is a parade of academic feminist voices documenting and reflecting on the tumultuous upheaval we are experiencing and pointing us in a collective direction. Rather than simply denying the confusion of our moment or plugging our ears to the noise produced by those who seek to diminish, demonize, or dismantle us, Pandemonium offers a forum for us to air our concerns and hear one another's stories. Included within are as many tales of triumph as tribulation. This is a party, not a wake. Pandemonium returns Women's Studies Quarterly to its roots dug half a century ago, when, as its golden jubilee anniversary issue (WSQ: 50!) attests, it started as a newsletter for women's studies practitioners, scholars, educators, and readers. The goal was not merely to serve as an organ for the dissemination of our research. The original purpose animating the creators of the newsletter was to knit our discipline into being by giving us the tools and opportunity to talk to each other about what was happening in our own monodisciplines, in our institutions, with our research and teaching, in our careers, and in solidarity with our students at the interface between the academy and the "real" world of feminist struggle, radicalism, and activism. Our End Page 18 right-wing "anti-woke" and "anti-gender" adversaries are correct in one way at least: self-consciously intentional and self-reflective from the outset in the 1970s, the discipline of women's studies was never merely about creating yet another area of research and abstruse academic knowledge to add to the traditional fields represented in...