Feminist Media Studies and Community

摘要

I want to thank the Console-ing Passions program committee for the invitation to be here today, especially Melissa Click who helped get me situated so nicely. I realize that I haven't attended Console-ing Passions in 10 years so it's nice to return and be able to help begin a really exciting conference theme that attempts to conflate community and feminist media studies. This theme dovetails nicely with my ongoing but really pressing concerns about the academy, scholarship and our ability to construct the world we want to inhabit as opposed to being complicit in its stasis. I want to frame my remarks in the context of a quote I took from Gloria Steinem in this month's O magazine. The title of her article was "Find a Way to Keep Elephants Out of Their Gardens." Steinem (2014) concludes, "Helping begins with listening. Context is everything. People who experience a problem know best how to solve it. Big problems often have small solutions. And, finally, do whatever you can."