About the FREE Center
Ohio State’s Center for Feminist Research, Education and Engagement (FREE Center), housed in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, launched in fall 2023. As a hub for community-engaged feminist research and teaching, FREE aims to inspire, generate and support collaborative research and community engagement projects rooted in feminist approaches and perspectives. Led by a faculty board and administrative staff, the FREE Center seeks to create a collaborative, accessible space where theory meets practice.
Funding
The FREE Center provides a variety of different funding opportunities for faculty, staff, students and community partners. During the 2025-26 academic year, FREE provided small grants to 17 graduate students to help with their research efforts and conference attendance. FREE also co-sponsored several events across campus, including workshops, artist talks, film screenings and exhibitions.
Writing Groups
There are two interdisciplinary writing initiatives created and supported by the FREE Center. FemSem, a semester-long writing cohort for faculty members, and FREE Writes, a bi-weekly writing group for Ohio State graduate students interested in feminist scholarship. Both initiatives provide participants with the opportunity to build connections across different departments, as well as a quiet, dedicated space to work on individual writing projects such as dissertations, grant proposals and journal articles.
Macarena Gómez-Barris: Pacific Sea Edge Remnants, Memories, and Movements
In March 2026, the FREE Center welcomed Macarena Gómez-Barris, Timothy C. Forbes and Anne S. Harrison University Professor & Chair in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University to campus. The day began with Professor Gómez-Barris in conversation with Professor Aaron Katzeman, writer, curator, and Assistant Professor of History of Art at The Ohio State University. In the afternoon, Professor Gómez-Barris gave a public talk, entitled Pacific Sea Edge Remnants, Memories, and Movements. This talk focused on thinking with and alongside art practices and performances that reside in the non-binary space between land and sea.
Transforming the Landscape: Revisiting Feminist Research & Teaching in this Moment
The FREE Center's fall 2025 kick-off event drew 30 feminist scholars—faculty, staff, and graduate students—from across the University, who mingled and connected over shared research and pedagogical interests. Participants enjoyed robust dialogues and offered one another advice on managing current teaching and research challenges. The event theme echoed a February 2025 panel on "Feminist Teaching and Research in this Political Moment," also organized by the FREE Center.
Research and Connection Clusters
Initially launched in Spring 2024, the FREE Center’s Research and Connection Clusters bring together faculty, graduate students and community partners to advance feminist scholarship around shared areas of interest. As part of an ongoing commitment to supporting feminist research across campus and the community, these clusters represent a wide range of disciplines. In addition, thanks to support from Global Arts + Humanities, FREE has been able to fund two larger, community-engaged clusters, each of which is examining collaborative research based in feminist theory.