Amanda Sahar D’Urso: Feminist Extraordinaire

I had the honor of meeting and looking up to Amanda when I was a silly little thing back in high school. Her very being emanates compassion, understanding, and erudition. I reached out to her because due to the current problems our country faces in regards to racial conflicts and gender restrictions, I thought maybe she would have something interesting to say. I was not disappointed at all. As a woman of color nerd myself, I understand the importance of safe and equal spaces in the geek community. Feminism and its many broader discourses of academia has allowed an amazing outpouring of diversity within different comics, graphic novels, and anime. However, we have much more work today in order to have the nerd and geek community be considered equal. I had the pleasure of being able to interview Amanda about the state of race issues in our country as well as the concept of feminism, so please enjoy! Black Nerd Problems: Amanda, please tell us a bit about yourself! Amanda Sahar D’Urso: I am currently a project consultant working on creating an immigration-related database with Dr. Filindra at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I will be starting a PhD program in political science at UIC, where I hope to study politics of the Middle East. I love to dance, make people laugh, and spend time with my loved ones (humans and animals alike!). BNP: How would you define feminism? Amanda: Feminism is women and men (and all genders): 1) expressing themselves however they choose, and 2…