Sarah Banet-Weiser is Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Communication. Her work centers on gender, media, and the ambivalent dynamics of contemporary popular culture. She reflects here on how feminist commitments, personal experience, and theoretical inquiry intersect in her scholarship. A central thread is the tension between popular feminism and popular misogyny, which circulate together rather than as opposites. She extends this analysis through the concept of “believability,” arguing that debates about truth obscure the longstanding problem of whose experiences are recognized as credible. Throughout, she treats theory as a resource for opening the world—offering language and perspective that make it possible to imagine alternatives. At the same time, she frames intellectual work as collective and ethical, grounded in care, responsibility, and an ongoing effort to make people feel seen.
