Curriculum vitae

Jennifer McDowell, Ph.D.

Ph.D. dissertation title, "Religious Elements in Soviet Rule." Specialties: political sociology, sociology of religion, foreign policy.
Studied at Sorbonne in Paris. Other languages, Spanish and Russian.
Four years of university music study, attaining Sigma Alpha Iota. Music teacher-clarinet.
Music tours: Albertson College of Idaho, University of New Mexico, University of California at Berkeley.
Singing on radio: duets on radio, Hot Springs, New Mexico

Special Education

Over four years, McDowell had the privilege of hearing performances from one of America's great music collections. It belonged to the late music critic, Herbert C. Pendergast, Jr. It included many jewels such as Toscanini rehearsals, Charles Kullman's and Kerstin Thorborg's 1936 performance of Gustave Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, as well as the "art" of the inimitable Florence Foster Jenkins.

Five years of study with Leonard Auletti, one of America's outstanding composers, especially remembered for "The Bunny Hop." Auletti was a bandsman, jazz piano player, and extraordinary human being. Played for many years at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Honored at The Center for Performing Arts along with symphonist James Marso.

Research Areas

Contemporary popular music in relation to American foreign policy, women's issues, French feminists' response to the veil crisis, the Dreyfus Case's effect on contemporary France, Middle-Eastern studies, the Stalin period, contemporary American-Russian relations, the sociology of fear, the Founding Fathers and Mothers in the U.S., the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s in America, establishing authenticity of contested political documents.

Teaching Experience

Lecturer for U.S. Census Bureau and high school English teacher, Abraham Lincoln High School, San Jose, CA

Athletic Participation

Rodeo rider, two blue ribbons, one red. Also a rodeo princess.
Varsity basketball, tennis (women's singles and doubles), and Women's Rifle Team
Band maneuvers at half-time football games, including the Sun Bowl

Editor of University of California Graduate Student Journal and the Berkeley literary tabloid, The Open Cell.

On-Staff Magazine Experience

Health, nutrition and food writer for Buffalo Soldier and Exodus

Writing Experience for Popular Magazines and Newspapers

Have written profile pieces, humor essays, arts and mental health essays, stories, reviewed celebrity chef cookbook for such magazines as The Key and caesura. Celebrity chef interviews include: Kirke Byers (The Village Pub), Patrick Farjas (Plumed Horse), Victor Martindale (Country Gourmet), Jesse Ziff Cool (Flea Street Café), David Gingrass (Hawthorne Lane), Mary Evely (Simi Winery), Tyrone and Sharon Spencer (Spencers). Received runner-up award from Quaker Oats for an oatmeal recipe.

Publication in the Arts

CDs

SHE, A Tapestry of Women's Lives, 2004 album. Includes song, "Money Makes a Woman Free!" first published in Paid My Dues a magazine for women in music. It was included in conferences on Women and Computers and Women and Money, in Nancy Gilsenan's Harold C. Crain award-winning play Simple Gifts, showcased at San Jose State University's Theatre, and venues elsewhere. Freedom of the Press termed it a "classic of the women's movement." This song was rewritten to celebrate how courageous the women of Afghanistan were in surviving Taliban rule. The excesses of Taliban rule focused the eyes of the world on women's rights in a way nothing else could have. In this rewritten form, "Money Makes a Woman Free!" was included in SHE.

Three women's athletic music CDs: Our Women Are Strong (tennis and soccer), 2000; Our Women Are Strong (winter sports), 2002; The Wearing of the Green Burkas, 2003.

A Heart Full of Love CD single, 2001.

Songs Published Singly

"Money Makes a Woman Free!"was published singly as noted above. "To Veggies We Pledgee" from musical comedy, Under the Moscow Moon, was published in anthology Mixing My Own Colors, edited by Mary Ann Cook (San Jose, CA: Willow Glen Writers' Group, 1996), 22-29.

Essays

"Passport to Magic," The Key, 113 (Spring, 1996), 24-25. Essay on Music.

"Foundations, Getting Underneath It All," The Key, vol. 111 (Winter, 1995), p. 47. Humor piece.

"Sensitivity and the Artist," caesura, November, 1994, pp. 4-5.

Levitating Above the Glass Ceiling," The Key, vol. 111, (Spring 1994), p. 10. Humor piece about discrimination against women.

Numerous pieces in The Open Cell.

Poems Published

"I Loved My Country," in collection edited by Ruth Jacobs, We Speak for Peace.
"La Dukecaracha," Spartan Daily.
"Freedom," "Those Were the Days," "Like Tigers," "People Risk Their Lives," "Like Air," Women Talking, Women Listening edited by Sharon Lee.
"This Garden in Space" and 'We Don't Live So Differently from Trees," Snowy Egret.
"Aristocrats Made in Childhood," X, A Journal of the Arts.
"The Graves of Verdun" and "Time" in the University of Cornwall's literary magazine, Chock.
Ronnie Goose Rhymes for Grown-ups, self-published by Milton Loventhal and Jennifer McDowell, for Fritz Mondale campaign. Gorgeous illustrations by San Jose State University art students. Marvelous geese.

Plays and Musicals Performed, Including One Published in Book Form

"Our Women Are Strong," tennis version, given trial run by Lou de La Rosa's mixed chorus at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Jose, 2000.

Songs from Under the Moscow Moon, plus two others, performed at Oddstad Cultural Arts Center in Pacifica, CA by Barbara Lymberis of Opera San Jose, accompanied by Stephen Boniface. Songs: "I Am a Shark!" "At Fifty," "Cinderella with a Ph.D." and "I'm A Secret Agent for the K.G.B."

"To Veggies We Pledgee" performed at mixed arts event sponsored by Jean Emerson of the Willow Glen Writers' Group, sung by Linda Carney and Herschel Higgins, 1996.

Play with music, "Bella and Phyllis," published in play anthology Goddesses, Witches and the Paradign Shift, edited by Meg Bowman of the Sociology Dept. at San Jose State University. Publisher: Women and Religion Task Force, Santa Cruz, CA, 1994, 155-164.

"Hooray for the Pigs in Guam!" sung at mixed arts event sponsored by Willow Glen Writers Group, in San Jose, sung by McDowell, 1996.

Play co-written with Milton Loventhal "Betsy Meets the Wacky Iraqi" performed and televised at the Burgess Theatre, Menlo Park, CA.

Four Plays with Music performed Off Off Broadway at Playhouse 51, August 1986, directed by Magda Anastasia: "The Estrogen Party to End War," "Betsy and Phyllis," "The Oatmeal Party Comes to Order" and "Mack the Knife Your Friendly Dentist." The first two were festival plays. The festival plays also were performed in Northern California, and used in classes at San Jose State University by Professor Meg Bowman.

"Harmonic Divergence," play excerpt from 'The Estrogen Party to End War," was published in Old Oregon (Winter 1987).

Three songs featured in Nancy Gilsenan's Harold C. Crain Award-winning play Simple Gifts performed at San Jose State University's theatre are "Bright Shelters in the Rain," "Money Makes a Woman Free!" and "Coffee's My Religion."

Songs featured in year-long radio show, The Parade of American Music, are "Pine Needles," "The Earth Will Be Free!" and "I Must Go Back to the Sweet Smell of Sage."

Scholarly Publications

"A Reply to Michael Reiman and Ingmar Sütterlin," Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 39, No. 1 (1991), 148-150.

"The Retreat from Communism in 1934," San Jose Studies, vol. 7, (May 1981), 66-103.

"The Methodology for the Stalin Resolutions," San Jose Studies, vol. 7 (May 1981), 66-109.

"The Stalin Resolutions and the Road to World War II," San Jose Studies, vol. 6 (November 1980), 79-104. This article won the Bill Casey Memorial Award in Letters.

Contemporary Women Poets, An Anthology of California Poets, edited by Jennifer McDowell and Milton Loventhal (San Jose, CA: Merlin Press, 1977). Won the Service
To Poetry Award, by the Poetry Organization for Women.

"Soviet Civil Ceremonies," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 8 (September 1974), 265-279. Lead article.

Black Politics: A Study and Annotated Bibliography of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (San Jose, CA: Bibliographic Information Center for the Study of Political Science, 1971).

"George Orwell," Bulletin of Bibliography, vol. 23 (January-April, 1963), 224-229; Part II, vol. 24 (May-August 1963), 19-24; and Part III, vol. 24 (September-December 1963), 36-40. The largest bibliography on Orwell. Cited in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 1972.

"1984 and Soviet Reality," The University of California Graduate Journal, No. 1 (Fall, 1962), 12-19. Listed in the 100 best articles on George Orwell, a compilation made by Orwell scholar Jeffrey Meyers.

Papers Presented

"The Authentication of Foreign Policy Resolutions from Stalin's Politburo, 1934-36," co-written with Milton Loventhal. Presented at the April 1998 Conference of the Rocky Mountain Slavic Association, with the Western Social Science Association, held in Denver, CO.

"The Kirov Crisis: Breaking the Covenant," co-written with Milton Loventhal. Presented at the April 1998 Conference of the Rocky Mountain Slavic Association, with the Western Social Science Association, held in Denver, CO.

"The Commissar and the King: A Comparison Between the Cults of Stalin and Elvis Presley," co-written with Milton Loventhal. Presented at the November 1997 Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association.

HONORS AND AWARDS

The Nobel Institute collected SHE on July 21, 2004, for their 2003 Peace Prize winner, Iranian human rights attorney, Shirin Ebadi, fighter for women, children and democracy. "Shirin" means sweet.

Grant for 18-song album, SHE, A Tapestry of Women's Lives, and for its accompanying eight section musical revue, by California State University - ERFA Foundation, 2004.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History collected Black Politics: A Study and Annotated Bibliography of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1992, and Intern Girl, a cassingle (music), in April 2003.

Bill Casey Memorial Award in Letters for research in Soviet studies (article)

Eight Awards from the American Song Festival

Service to Poetry Award from the Poetry Organization for Women, for Contemporary Women Poets, An Anthology of California Poets

Parade of American Music, three songs featured: "Pine Needles," "The Earth Will Be Free" and "I Must Go Back to the Sweet Smell of Sage"

Doctoral fellowship from the American Association for University Women

Sigma Alpha Iota (music), Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Phi Mu (Librarianship)

Play awards for full-length plays, from finals to honorable mention: Under the Moscow Moon and Russia's Secret Plot to Take Back Alaska.

Forthcoming Work

Tasty Tunes, Perfect Harmonies in Food and Music, includes songs with the recipes. Examples: "Potato Concerto Soup in Pea Flat" and "Stormy Waffles"

Five books of women's athletic songs, including poetry. Due out 2005.

Other Public Service Work

Donated important research material to Hoover Institution's archives, and assisted in clarifying a highly-significant set of research materials from the Soviet period.

Organized a successful campaign at my townhouse complex for repairs, using the legal process. Helped the California State Bar Association disbar a corrupt attorney.

Was a Precinct Leader in the Dukakis campaign.

Professional Societies

Sigma Alpha Iota, Beta Phi Mu, Phi Beta Kappa, American Sociological Association, Dramatists Guild Quarterly, American Association of University Women

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