Judith Arcana | |
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Born | 5 February 1943 Cleveland, Ohio, United States |
Language | English |
Nationality | American |
Notable works | What if your mother |
Website | |
juditharcana.com |
Judith Arcana is an American writer of poems, stories, essays and books. She was a teacher for forty years and her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies since the early 1980s. She has been an activist for reproductive justice since spending two years in the Jane Collective, Chicago’s underground abortion service (1970–72). Arcana is notable for her insistence on the organically political nature of art and literature.
Born February 5, 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio, she is the daughter of Anne Solomon and Norman Rosenfield. Following the death of Anne Rosenfield in March 1944, Norman Rosenfield married Ida Epstein in July 1945. Mothering, perhaps as a consequence of her mother's death, has been one of Arcana's primary subjects. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
Judith Arcana’s first teaching job was at the high school she graduated from, Niles Township High School (East Division) in Illinois. She did her student teaching there in spring of 1964 and returned in the fall as a full time teacher. She taught at Niles until the spring of 1970, when the school board fired her – despite tenure – along with two other teachers (John Palm and Nancy Tripp). The three were considered radically innovative, and even dangerous, by the school board.
Her last teaching job was at the Union Graduate School (which has since morphed into the Union Institute & University). She began work there as a dean in early 1989 and left, as faculty emerita, in the early 2000s. At Union, Arcana was a dean in the Graduate College, Founding Director of the Center for Women, adviser to interdisciplinary doctoral students, and a convener of residential colloquium and seminars.
Judith Arcana is an experienced speaker and performer of her work with TV/radio experience and years of performances at bookstores, colleges and community events. She has received awards and grants from Oregon Literary Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women, the Puffin Foundation, the Rockefeller Archive Center and the doctoral faculty of the Union Graduate School, as well as residencies and fellowships from Ragdale, Soapstone, the Montana Artists Refuge, the Mesa Refuge and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.