Karen Carr

Historian, professor, activist for social justice, caring daughter of aging parents, single mom of three very talented young adults: Karen Carr is a superb juggler of responsibility and a creative thinker. Her latest book, eight years in the making, is Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming. It's a stunning accomplishment. She looks at swimming from its first documented instance in 140,000 BCE in South Africa, swimming as practiced by Neanderthals, Assyrians, Mayans, Chinese. She describes flotation devices designed by Leonardo da Vinci, bathing houses designed for Victorians in England, myths about swimming, prohibitions against swimming. Most of all, she looks at race, gender, and power, and the intersections of those factors with swimming.

On the back flap, where there is usually a portrait of the author, there is no portrait, only a handful of words.

She is traveling around, giving book talks, and the sponsors always ask her for a photograph. But she didn’t have any. Till today. We had a photo session despite the heat (95F/35C). I asked her to bring a jacket, a scarf, and a few ways to change her image. We met late in the day, to get the soft afternoon sun, and I’ve sent her 25 images. I hope some of them work for her. 

Women academics, no matter how brilliant, are bombarded, as are we all, with sexist, ageist, and racist notions of "beauty." No matter how brilliant we may be, we are judged by how well we conform to a conventional ideal of feminity. So posing for a photograph can be daunting. I hope Karen is able to see in these photographs the lush, stunning beauty that she carries with her through the world.