Remembering Martha Hudson, whose literary salon inspired UC Berkeley’s women’s studies program

Marsha Hudson. Courtesy: Norman Brown

Ground-breaking feminist activist and early proponent of women’s studies at UC Berkeley, Martha Hudson Ph.D., 80, died at her home in Santa Cruz on Dec. 14, 2025.

In 1969, when higher learning was still largely the province of men, Marsha, a graduate student in the Comparative Literature Department, posted notices across the Cal campus proposing a feminist literary salon in her Berkeley apartment. The purpose was to discuss women’s literature, since female writers were largely ignored in the classroom.

Marsha eventually brought her salon to campus and founded the Comparative Literature Women’s Caucus, an activist collective that established the first women’s literature classes in Comparative Literature, conceived and taught by graduate student women. Caucus members helped produce the first major translation anthologies of women’s world-wide poetry, encouraged women to write feminist dissertations on women authors, and researched discrimination against women in the department. 

This energy resulted in the creation of a women’s studies major and program at Cal, an effort led by Gloria Bowles, Ph.D. Comp Lit, and eventually an interdisciplinary department now known as Gender and Women’s Studies.  

On hearing of Marsha’s death, Lisa Gerrard, Emerita Faculty in UCLA Writing Programs, wrote, “Marsha was my first friend in the Comp Lit Department, and we stayed close for many years. She was a bravely outspoken critic of the patriarchy and a model for how women could work together with generosity and kindness instead of with the competitiveness fostered by academia and the culture at large. Thank you for all you’ve given us, Marsha.”

Judy Wells and Marsha Hudson at Bateau Ivre, Berkeley in October 2014. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection

Another early Comp Lit colleague, Ann Freeman, Emerita Professor of English, San Mateo College, echoed this sentiment: “I am thinking about how much she did for all of us, as our leader and raiser of consciousness. But I am also thinking about how far she went in her own personal growth, her inner strength and spiritual development. I am grateful to have known her.” 

Marsha received her B.A. at Cal in 1968, a double major in English and Anthropology. In her sophomore year, she was arrested in the Free Speech Movement demonstration and had to take a semester off from school to pay the $166 fine as she was solely self-supporting throughout her entire academic career.

She received both her M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) in the Comparative Literature Department, supporting herself with jobs ranging from legal secretary to topless dancer-barmaid. As Hudson stated in her personal essay, “Dancing in a Cage,” in The Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution: Essays from Marsha’s Salon (McFarland 2005), “Patriarchal stereotypes prevailed in respect to women’s work whether I was clothed and behind a typewriter or unclothed and carrying a beer. … In either capacity men perceived me in terms of my utility to them and related to me according to their projected fantasy.” Marsha did not mince words in defining patriarchal culture. 

Editors of Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution at Cody’s Bookstore on Fourth Street. Left to right: Doris Earnshaw, Marsha Hudson, Judy Wells and Bridget Connelly. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection

When Marsha finally qualified to be a university instructor in the Comp Lit Department, after completing her M.A. and passing her Permission to Proceed to the Doctorate exam, she reflected that her topless dancer-barmaid job was more lucrative than her academic post! She received her Ph.D. in 1978 on completion of her dissertation on American poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser, known for her commitment to social justice and feminism.

Marsha did not obtain her life-long dream of being employed as a full-time academic professor of literature and poetry (similar to many Ph.D.’s who also did not obtain full-time jobs in the late 1970s in the humanities). Pained but undaunted, she developed a career in the financial services industry rising to the level of senior-vice president with responsibility for an $11 billion portfolio. Hitting the glass ceiling in that career, she returned to her academic roots, teaching composition, critical thinking, and women’s studies part-time at various California colleges, ending with Santa Cruz. 

Marsha embarked on a third career as a certified gestalt practitioner and dream worker, studying under the (late) Jeremy Taylor, using his archetypal projective method and Jungian methodology. With her Comparative Literature background in classical and modern poetry, Marsha liked to make the connection between the figurative language of poetry and the metaphorical imagery of dreams. 

Marsha’s core belief about dreams was, “I agree with Sandor Ferenczi that ‘dreams are the workshop of evolution’ and that the more we bring our dreams into our awareness and share them with others, the more we are participating in our personal and collective evolution. Today dream working is more important than ever across the planet at this critical juncture brought on by climate change.” For many years she facilitated dream groups, workshops, and individual sessions from her home office in Santa Cruz. 

Marsha Hudson in 2015. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection

In 2018, Marsha co-founded The Love and Power Institute for Planetary Sustainability in Santa Cruz with her partner Norman Brown, Ph.D. The Institute’s stated mission was “to support the evolution of human consciousness as a critical path toward resolving the global climate crisis.” They recognized a missing link in most environmental and justice movements: the inner emotional world of human beings, and sought to facilitate workshops to help people become more empathic in order to create a more loving human presence on the planet. And to change the conversation around traditional emotional roles for men and women.

Marsha’s background in feminism, leading women’s groups, teaching, gestalt therapy, and dreamwork and Norman’s background in leading men’s groups, years of psychotherapy practice, teaching, and commitment to feminism, and their mutual love of the natural world, made for an effective and loving partnership, that ended all too soon with Marsha’s sudden death in December 2025 from pancreatic cancer.

On hearing of Marsha’s passing, another Comp Lit colleague, Carol Urzi, attorney, wrote, “She was a huge and courageous soul, so influential to me and so many others, by her outspoken leadership. I’m sure that, in recent years, she continued to influence people’s lives in her Love and Power Institute.” 

Survivors include Marsha’s beloved partner/husband, Norman Brown, Ph.D., and her many colleagues and friends in her endeavors over a lifetime.

Recently, an archive on founding women’s studies in the Comparative Literature Department has been established at the Bancroft Library at Cal by Gloria Bowles, Ph.D., Bridget Connelly, Ph.D., Carol Urzi, M.A. J.D., Kathleen Weaver, M.A., and Judy Wells, Ph.D. 

A Celebration of Life is planned for Marsha Hudson on Sunday Feb. 15, 2026, 2 p.m. to 4-4:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Santa Cruz County, 6401 Freedom Boulevard, Aptos, CA 95003 (831-684-0506).

Donations in Marsha’s memory can be made to the Love and Power Institute.

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