Feminist Images of Public Intellectualism: An Interview with Lisa Wade, PhD

© 2014 by the board of trustees of the university of ill inois Perhaps, given Feminist Teacher’s interdisciplinary readership, the name Lisa Wade is unfamiliar. But whether you know it or not, you’ve encountered her work via Sociological Images. The blog has taken public intellectualism to a new level and introduced feminist criticism to an audience of startling proportions. The site, which offers savvy criticism of popular imagery and insightful discussion of current events, receives five hundred thousand visits per month. The Fall 2010 issue of the magazine Contexts describes Sociological Images in this way: “[I]nstructors discover the blog is a great resource on media and culture. Activists find insightful media criticism and a passionate community discussing each post in the blog’s comments section . . . Its content begs to be shared—whether it’s insightful, clever, outrageous, or just plain funny—with friends and colleagues.” Lisa Wade may be best known for Sociological Images (a collaboration with sociologist Gwen Sharp), but her scholarly work on college hook-up culture, female genital cutting, and the potential of putting biology into conversation with social theories of the body help to further feminist questions. Yet Wade stands as an exemplary feminist teacher, too, especially in the ways she allies students. She demonstrates unyielding support for students at Occidental College in their legal struggle against the university for deliberate indifference to sexual assault on campus—both as an active participant in the Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition and through writings for media outlets including The Huffington Post and the Ms. Magazine blog. Here, Wade talks about Sociological Images, public intellectualism, and teaching a new generation of feminists: