University College

  • Sustainable Development is a unit within Appalachian’s University College. University College consists of the university’s integrated general education curriculum, academic support services, residential learning communities, interdisciplinary degree programs and co-curricular programming – all designed to support the work of students both inside and outside of the classroom.

Cynthia Wood

Cynthia
 

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
Associate Professor
Office: Living Learning Academic 137
Phone: (828) 262-6492
E-mail: woodca@appstate.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf format)

 

  

 

 

Cynthia A. Wood has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include gender and development, Latin American economics, farmworkers in the U.S., and postcolonial feminist theory. Her work has appeared in publications such as Nepantla: Views from South , Struggles for Social Rights in Latin America , and Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics . Recent writings focus on gender and the World Bank's economic policy -- research which challenges standard development models implicit in the Bank's approach.

Her undergraduate degree in English through " Plan II ," an interdisciplinary honors program at the University of Texas, gave her early experience in small seminars, active learning and integrative thinking. Her teaching career has also emphasized interdisciplinarity -- she taught in the respected First-Year Program at St. Lawrence University before coming to Appalachian.

She has taught a wide variety of courses in IDS for both the major and Watauga College, including "American Stories," "Civilizations East and West," "Food and Famine," "Confounding Economics," "Latin America Today!,"  "Farmworkers," "Development, Globalization, and Resistance," "Transnational Feminisms," "Postcolonial Theories of Imperialism," "Frames," Interdisciplinary Praxis," and "Senior Seminar."

She has served as Acting Chair of the Department as well as Director of Watauga College.

 

Selected Publications:

"Different Commonalities: Gender Mainstreaming and the Marginalization of Difference in Economic Development" Canadian Journal of Development Studies (forthcoming, 2005).

"Economic Marginalia: Postcolonial Readings of Unpaid Domestic Labor and Development," pp. 304-320  in Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics , edited by Drucilla Barker and Edith Kuiper. New York: Routledge, 2003.

"Adjustment with a Woman's Face: Gender and Macroeconomic Policy at the World Bank," pp. 209-230 in Struggles for Social Rights in Latin America , edited by Susan Eckstein and Tim Wickam-Crowley. New York: Routledge, 2002. Reprinted in Feminist Perspectives on the World Economy, edited by Drucilla Barker and Edith Kuiper. New York: Routledge, 2005.

"And Now a Word From..." and "Answer This," Kie Connection, Spring 2002 : 2-3. Durham, NC: The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

"Authorizing Gender and Development: 'Third World Women,' Native Informants, and Speaking Nearby ," Nepantla: Views from South 2.3, 2001: 429-447.

"Transforming 'Them' into 'Us': Some Dangers in Teaching Women and Development," in Encompassing Gender: Crossing Disciplinary and Geographic Borders , edited by Mary Lay, Janice Monk, and Deborah Rosenfelt. New York: Feminist Press, 2001.

"The First World/Third Party Criterion: A Feminist Critique of Production Boundaries in Economics ," in Feminist Economics 3(3), 1997, 47-68.