One of the founders of feminist criticism and women studies, Catharine R. Stimpson is a public intellectual, author and editor. In 1974 she founded Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, one of the first journals of feminist scholarship. Catharine R. Stimpson is her formal name but most people (including her website editor) call her Kate.
Kate was born in Bellingham, Washington; one of seven children, she was educated at the Campus School, Bellingham High School, Bryn Mawr College, Cambridge University, and Columbia University. Her academic career began at Barnard College, where she became the first acting director of its Women’s Center.
Since then she has worked at Rutgers University, The MacArthur Foundation, and New York University. She has lectured at approximately 400 institutions and events in the United States and abroad. As of September 2022, she is Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita at New York University.
Kate is married to the musicologist Elizabeth Wood. They currently reside on the North Fork of Long Island.
The Latest:
Kate at the No King’s protest, Riverhead, NY on Oct 18.
Lots of sunshine, lots of good energy.
Love Letters
Liz and Kate were recently the subjects of a short documentary: Love Letters. See the film trailer here. The film was showcased at CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival, which was founded in 2015 to celebrate exceptional films directed by women from around the world. It won the award for best short film doc at the Queens Global Film Festival, as well as several other awards on the festival circuit. The film was featured at the CUNY Graduate Centre on March 14th with a panel discussion featuring Greta Schiller, Andrea Weiss, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin.
It is Not America Without Dissent
Kate recently published an article for Open Society Foundations’ The Ideas Letter:
“On Christmas Eve, 2016, three grandmothers made a late afternoon pilgrimage to a small pizza place on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC. On previous visits, they had walked with their grandchildren down the Avenue to eat pizza and pasta there. Now their visit had a different purpose…”
From the editor:
I haven’t lived in Canada for more than 10 years, and I have never been especially patriotic, but then Trump started talking about making Canada the 51st state… It’s a strange time to be living in the U.S. as a non-American. My international friends joke that we jumped on a sinking ship. Some Canadians are vowing not to cross the border into America for the duration of Trump’s presidency, while others don’t seem to be bothered by annexation at all. Both responses reek of willful blindness and passivity to me, but what is the alternative? Nationalism and its inevitable violence?
— Zoe Patterson (webmaster, “Canadian”)
[Cartoon by editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder for The Globe and Mail.]
“”If I remember what I remember then why do I remember that. I did remember that but it did look like that and so I did not remember that and if it did not look like that then I did not remember that. What was the use.””
— Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography
Skirball Center Gala, 2025. Kate was honored along with the dancer Eiko Otake and the director Daniel Fish. As a surprise, Eiko and Kate did a dance together.
Photo by Greg Kessler.
Tracks
Welcome to Tracks: a collection of Kate’s current observations. Kate writes to unearth and design new ways of moving through spaces that are contentious, joyful, wild and too often agonizing.
Latest posts:
- Forget It
- Portfolio for Processing III
- “Let Them Rumble”
- A Joint Obituary for Two Stalwart Scholars
- On Living in a Kakistocracy
Honorary degrees
Doctor of Literature, Upsala College, 1989.
Doctor of Humanities, Monmouth College, 1989.
Doctor of Laws, Bates College, 1990.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Florida International University, 1991.
Doctor of Humane Letters, SUNY/Albany, 1992.
Doctor of Letters, Hamilton College, 1992.
Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Arizona, 1992.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Wheaton College, 1996.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Hood College, 1996.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Union College, 1997.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Holy Cross College, 1998.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Santa Clara University, 1999.
Doctorate, Honoris Causa, University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria, 2002.
Doctor of Letters, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2007.
Doctor of Letters, Emory University, 2012.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Simmons College, 2012.
Doctor of Humane Letters. Western Washington University, 2018.
Docteur de l’Université, University of Ottawa, 2018.
Archives
Kate’s archives can be found at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies and Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections at Western Washington University.
Curriculum Vitae
Complete vitae available on request from catharine.stimpson@nyu.edu
Bellingham High School: A good place, where Kate got her high school degree and reinforced her values of public education. The team was called the Red Raiders. 
The gateway, Barnard College New York, where Kate began her academic career in 1963 teaching one section of first year English. 
The sunset over Bellingham Bay, the scenery with which Kate grew up. 
The Collegiate Gothic of Bryn Mawr College: the site of a transformation through education. 
Stairway to the beach, East Marion New York, where Kate in the late ‘60s and ‘70s had a beach shack with an outdoor shower and a typewriter. 
The Stimpson Family Nature Reserve near Bellingham Washington: a gift from Kate’s family to the community.
Catharine Stimpson 