Teaching Global, Considering the Local: Compassion, Locations of Authority, and Feminist Approaches to Instructing IR

Students encounter global politics in the palm of their hands at any given moment. They are exposed to International Relations (IR) in practice every day, reading or watching different news stories and social media posts offering diverging perspectives on global affairs as they unfold. So, how does a teacher make an undergraduate course like “Theories of International Relations” engaging and useful for students today? In this chapter, I dive into my practical experiences as a newcomer to instructing IR at an R1 institution in the United States. I reflect on the challenges—and possibilities—for critically engaging with concepts of gender and race, within a context of restrictive state politics which censors discussion of such terms as “critical.” Ultimately, my goal is to share a practice I’ve learned through practice, of teaching IR with compassion, problematizing traditional student–teacher (and state) hierarchies.