ajnabieh | Feminist Memes!

Today, in my Intro to Feminist Political Theory class, we made internet memes and captioned photographs as a way of exploring (and hopefully communicating) some of the concepts we've talked about in class this semester.

Why do this exercise? I've got two motivations. The first is that, if you can figure out how to communicate a concept using an ironic collision of image and text, when you don't have a lot of space or a large number of signs to work with, then you actually are demonstrating mastery of the concept. Second, one of the key lines from one of our texts, was when bell hooks exhorted her readers to make a feminist intervention where they are. These funny images are a way of making an intervention; they provide a way to engage with the world, hopefully on the terrain of humor, in a way that cuts through barriers to feminist thought.

I've uploaded a bunch of them to an album here. And, under the cut, here are some of my favorites--the ones that made me, the boring prof, LOL.