Granada land

I am in the second week and last week of the summer school program for women's studies graduate students. It has been a really fantastic and intense experience so far. Our days start at 9:30 when we have two 1 1/2 hour lectures and then (thank god for Spain) we have a 3 hour lunch/siesta followed by 3 more hours of discussion. The theme of the summer school is "Performing European Feminist Futures: 1968 & 1989". Last week was a lot of heavy theory including boat loads of psychoanalysis with a bit of Deleuze (which I really enjoyed) and a lot of sexual difference theory rooted in Irigaray. Even though every day ended with my head swimming in pools of somewhat intangible theories, it has been really exciting to interact with Continental Feminism, which doesn't reach our classrooms in large amounts. More than the content of the lectures, though, it has been such a pleasure to hang out with young feminists from all over Europe. As corny as it sounds, everyone has so much to contribute and is so invested in their studies, it is really an inspiring environment start the semester in. 

A friend from my study program and I have spent almost every dinner with Amy, who is doing her PhD on the representation of women in sports in the media at the York University in England and we now have an open invitation to visit her any time (which she told us in her very charming English accent so it will be pretty hard to turn down). Beyond Amy, in my the small discussion group, there is a guy from Taiwan named Chi Chi who is trained in fashion design and doing his masters in Women's Studies at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands and dresses half in male clothes and half in female clothes and is otherwise as normal as you can get. We have also seen some pretty well-known European feminist scholars speak and they have come into the small tutor groups which has been a pretty unbelievable experience. Just today, actually, our first lecturer was talking about gender-sensitive analysis of photographs when she casually mentioned a conversation she had had with Judith Butler earlier this month. WOAH!

The residence we are staying in is 360 years old and absolutely beautiful. I also got lucky and I have a shower in my room. 

And a great view of the court yard. 

Not only are the dorms nice, but Granada is a beautiful city. All the streets are cobble stone and some are so narrow it's amazing a car can fit through. Because of the old Moorish influence, there are a lot of really bright colors and beautiful imports in small shops that are pretty much built into the hill sides. It is also a really accessible city. From our residence, the longest walk anywhere important is around 30 minutes. But really to get to the city center only takes ten minutes and includes a stunning view of one of the large churches. 

We saw an introduction to Flamenco performance, and the studio was in the gypsy part of town and had this fantastic view of the city from above.