Hangin' with Dr. Enloe

This year I had the amazing opportunity to take a class with Dr. Cynthia Enloe, world renown scholar and the woman who literally wrote the book on Feminist International Relations. I know I've gushed about her incessantly, but I wanted you to see some pictures of our class. I'm the one in the middle, sportin' a brown sweater I picked up at the massive Clark student yard sale in August. God, I look so uncomforable for some reason--like I'm waiting tables or something. Cynthia is in the front row, second to last on the right (though politcally, she's on the far left). She's in her mid-60s, goes to the gym every day, and travels around the country almost weekly to give talks. Anyway, our class ended ceremoniously this past Monday with a discussion on Nicaraguan feminists during the Sandanista revolution and trafficking along the Burma-Thailand border. Then we went to dinner at local taco joint Tortilla Sam's.

I knew the class would be amazing, just because Cynthia's analytical abilities and sheer volume of knowledge are such. But Cynthia taught me how read carefully and personally. She taught me how to do a "feminist reading" of academic literature--the personal IS the political. She made sure we always read the dedication pages, and to find out as much about the author and WHY she wrote the book as possible. I never thought to pay attention to things like what language the book was originally written in (Cynthia told us some hilarious stories about "the politics of feminist translation"), or whether it started as a dissertation. It was a short 7-week class, but one that was invaluable to me as a feminist scholar. Not to mention, Cynthia is pretty much the cutest lil' professor I've ever had. She stands a tidy 5'4", but I sense she could she hold her own in fist fight...