Teaching from Experience
She hosts an Asian Pacific American public affairs radio in Portland, has toured three continents while teaching in the Semester at Sea program, and created a documentary about a young survivor of an acid attack hat was screened at a series of international human rights film festivals.
This fall, Dr. Patti Duncan will embark on her second year with the College of Liberal Arts as an Associate Professor of Women Studies.
“I knew I wanted to be a professor the first time I stepped in front of a classroom as a graduate instructor at Emory,” Duncan said. “It just felt right. I love working with students, and I love the academic life of teaching and research. In all the years I’ve been doing this work, I still get excited every term about the first day of class and each new group of students I have the opportunity to work with.”
As a woman of color herself, Duncan said it was important for her join a program that was supportive and open to discussions about race and racism, and the experiences of women of color. With a long history and strong foundation, Duncan said the women studies program at OSU has been a wonderful experience for her.
Duncan’s Korean mother met her American father in South Korea, where he was stationed as part of the U.S. occupation there. Duncan was born in North Carolina, but spent the first few years of her childhood in Tehran, Iran, where her father was stationed, before settling in Colorado.
At Vassar College in upstate New York, Duncan majored in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Studies. She spent her junior year living and studying in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After Vassar, Duncan went to the only school in the country where she could get a Ph.D in Women’s Studies at the time – Emory University.
Before moving to Corvallis, Duncan was an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at Portland State University for eight years.
While working on a previous film in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Duncan saw several survivors of acid attacks in public markets, begging for food or money. Surprised and disturbed by how stigmatized they were by society, she started doing research on the topic. Duncan learned that most victims of acid throwing are young woman and they are often attacked for alleged gender transgressions. Later on, Duncan and partner Skye Fitzgerald decided to make a documentary film about acid violence in Cambodia and chose to focus the film on Tat Marina.
Marina was a rising star in Cambodia’s karaoke music scene and was forced into a relationship with the Undersecretary of State, Svay Sitha, when she was only 16-years-old. His wife attacked her with acid in the middle of a crowded market, but because of Sitha’s position in society, no one was ever arrested, Duncan said.
The film, Finding Face, premiered at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, was screened at the International Film Festival on Human Rights in Sucre, Boliva, and was shown at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. Last spring, the documentary was the feature of OSU’s International Feminist Film Festival.
Duncan said she is expected to bring more attention to diversity at OSU.
“My teaching centers on the histories, writings, and experiences of women of color, so I hope that I can develop more courses here on the connections between gender and race, with more emphasis on specific experiences of different groups of women of color,” she said.
Duncan said she hopes she can do more outreach to female students of color, who are often marginalized in mainstream institutions and struggle to find support.
By Taryn Luna