Voices & Visions: Student-Run Journal of Global Women's Voices Publishes Second Issue

While many college women around the world hold common values, their experiences are vastly different, says Christina Murray ’16, an editor of an online student-run journal launched last year at Smith.

Yet, college women have few opportunities to share those experiences, Murray says.

Voices & Visions, which published its second annual edition September 30, aims to fill that void by providing a forum for creative works by students at women’s colleges worldwide.

“By creating a journal such as Voices & Visions, voices that are commonly excluded can be heard and an appreciation for individual lives can begin,” Murray says.

The 2014-15 edition of Voices & Visions features more than 40 works of prose, poetry, art and photography.

That is nearly double the number featured in last year’s inaugural edition, which participants say signals growing interest in the publication.

Voices & Visions is published in conjunction with students and faculty at Lady Shri Ram College for Women in New Delhi, India. The journal emerged from a yearlong project of Smith’s Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, titled “Why Educate Women? Global Perspectives on Equal Education.”

That project, led in 2010-2011 by two Smith faculty—Rosetta Cohen, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of Education and Child Study, and Susan Bourque, Esther Booth Wiley Professor of Government and director of the Project on Women and Social Change—opened the way for several subsequent international initiatives. Among them was the faculty members’ participation in a 2012 conference of the Women’s Education Worldwide consortium in Dubai.

Inspired by that gathering, Cohen created the inaugural issue of Voices & Visions, appointing a student editorial board and issuing a call for submissions among international colleges and universities.

“There was no comparable online journal,” Cohen says. “These are voices that deserve a wide audience.”

Sharing creative work is also a wonderful way to bridge cultural boundaries, Cohen says, “and remind students from very different societies how much they have in common with one another.”

Voices & Visions is largely student-run. An editorial board of eight Smith students oversees production, collaborating on editing and gathering submissions with students and faculty at Lady Shri Ram University.

The 2014-15 edition, featuring a theme of “home,” showcases works by female students in Japan, India, China, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Sudan and the United States.

Voices & Visions invites an array of expressive formats, from observational and empirical to deeply personal. The new edition includes several photographs, as well as an essay, titled “Home,” by Zhang Xiaowen of China and a poem, titled “Faith,” by Afnan Linjawi of Saudi Arabia.

Murray says readers of Voices & Visions will encounter works they won’t find anywhere else.

“These are stories I would never be exposed to in a traditional online journal,” she says. “The fact that students are willing to share their own histories really demonstrates the value of the journal.”

A call for submissions for the 2015-16 edition of Voices & Visions will be distributed in the spring via email, social media and posters.

This photo by Megan Baker ’16 is among the offerings in the latest issue of the online journal Voices & Visions.