God is stalking me part 3: NOISE

I started school yesterday too--grad school, I should say. For the two weeks that are here in Bologna, we are attending the NOISE summer school, which has masters and doctorate level women's and gender studies students from all over Europe. The students on my program are the only undergrads here, so which means we are reading and discussing at crazy high theoretical levels with students from an academic format and philosophical tradition that we are unfamiliar with. Despite not really having read the readings (and the Mary Wollstonecraft was a chapter that I hadn't read before), I managed to put in enough. But then again when you talk about feminist theory you get to a certain point and you can put semi-coherent theoretical concepts together and almost sound like you know what you are talking about. Or just remember everything you learned in Intro to Women's Studies.

So, about this school thing. I was really sad about having to do a semester of school while traveling through Europe. I have so gotten used to meandering the piazzas and sitting on park benches eating gelato. So instead aimlessly wondering Bologna's porticos, I entered a convent. NOISE classes are being held in the 17th century Santa Cristina's Convent, so I am seriously wondering why I left one convent school to go to another! Our main lectures are held in an old chapel (like what was formerly the main chapel for the nuns prayers) and the little five person discussion group is in a little chapel off of the main courtyard. I think it's great and a little ironic that we have brought our outrageously radical feminist selves to site of one of the Pope's former outposts of feminism. Feminists have infiltrated the Church!

Yesterday was a general introduction to the summer school, and we look at what constitutes a feminist manifesto and liberal feminism by reading Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe deGouges. I was so tired that I found my self sleeping through a lecture by the leading feminist philosopher in Europe. Today we examined radical feminism and violence by reading the SCUM Manifesto. I am really excited for the reading for the next couple of days on African American feminism and intergenerational feminism, because one of the readings for the intergenerational is by the one and only Astrid Henry.

So yeah, after I realized that I am going to school in a convent, I realized that God is following me throughout Bologna (I am actually kind of religious). It's really pretty awesome, and I have to pinch myself (or just itch the mosquito bites I have from being outside so much). I am really homesick (which is pretty uncharacteristic for me), but I'm Italy so Italy makes things so much better! I think I need some gelato for dinner. Ciao!