Name: <\/strong>Lisa Gilson<\/p>\n\n\n\n Title: <\/strong>Assistant Professor of Politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n Degrees from: <\/strong>Yale University, Ph.D and M.A. in political science; Tufts University, B.A. in political science <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Bates: <\/strong>Postdoctoral fellow in social studies, Harvard University<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her work: <\/strong>Gilson focuses on political reactions expressed outside of mainstream political channels, from abolitionist movements to contemporary far-right groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A political theorist, she is working on a book about the relationship between such social movements and social critics, including artists and writers, and the idea that the various political actors involved in a movement \u201care each doing particular kinds of things. Each has strengths that are particular to what kind of organizing they’re doing and what kind of protest they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Example 1: <\/strong>In one chapter of her book, Gilson looks at Walt Whitman. While his writings were sympathetic to egalitarian and anti-racist ideas, his work didn\u2019t actively call out racists and Southern sympathizers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, as Gilson argues, political actors like Whitman must be viewed in context. Whitman was uniquely situated to speak to a particular audience \u2014 Southern whites \u2014 that otherwise would have been \u201cdisgusted by, or not respond well to, a broader anti-racist movement. He spent a lot of time really trying to target that audience and work with that audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, other actors in the movement, including Radical Reconstructionists, \u201cwere facing other kinds of demands. They couldn’t speak directly to white Southerners because the white Southerners obviously had no interest in listening to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Example 2<\/strong>: Gilson pointed to recent Twitter comments from U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responding to critics who said that Black Lives Matter activists\u2019 language around defunding the police doesn\u2019t play well among voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “We shouldn’t be attacking people for playing a role that is adapted to their specific situation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n AOC\u2019s response, in effect, sums up Gilson\u2019s book project. \u201cActivists who are trying to get people out into the streets will use language that might not poll well with the broader voting public. But it\u2019s not the activists\u2019 job \u2014 nor would it play to their strengths \u2014 to use language that polls well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While elected officials have to think about what language they use to further their goals, activists \u201cuse the language that works best for their specific and immediate goals,\u201d she says. \u201cFor example, the slogan \u2018defund the police\u2019 may appeal more to people who actually show up at protests rather than those who don\u2019t participate. And that\u2019s fine. We shouldn’t be attacking people for playing a role that is adapted to their specific situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ideas in the classroom<\/strong>: Gilson is teaching \u201cPolitics and Literature\u201d this fall, looking at how writers target \u201cdifferent audiences with work that\u2019s outside of what is traditionally considered to be \u2018political.\u2019\u201d For example, the class will read, among other works, Toni Morrison\u2019s The Bluest Eye<\/em>, which raises questions about race, class, and gender through its depiction of a young Black girl who believes that her dark skin makes her ugly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working outside traditional political spheres, writers like Morrison seek to \u201cchange our broader culture and the broader discourse that people have around certain topics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finding her path: <\/strong>Gilson grew up in a diverse area and says she quickly learned that her experiences as a white person were fundamentally different from those of her Black neighbors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In school, \u201cI started connecting my experiences growing up and being in a more racially diverse neighborhood and being treated better, and not having to think about my skin color, and how that related to my interactions with the police\u201d with a broader system of racist oppression \u2014 one she wanted to study and fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample lesson: <\/strong>Gilson often teaches introductory courses in political theory. In one class, after having her students read the works of theorists like Hobbes, Rousseau, and Marx, she gave them Politics of Piety, <\/em>by Saba Mahmood, a book that analyzed a women\u2019s piety movement in Cairo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe women who are in this piety movement are choosing these religious precepts which place them in submission to their husbands,\u201d Gilson says. \u201cMahmood makes a complicated argument that the women are expressing a type of agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorite things that I\u2019ve ever taught because it\u2019s challenging to me, and because the students themselves have to take a step back and ask, \u2018What does it mean to say that I support a position that [they wouldn\u2019t naturally agree with?]\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Assistant](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/09\/200814_Lisa_Gilson_0119-1.jpg\")
![\"Assistant](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/09\/200814_Lisa_Gilson_0033-900x900.jpg\")