The PoMos

Members of our cohort like to refer to ourselves as the PoMos (short for Post Modernists). It's not necessarily the case that we consider ourselves to be Post Modernists. Rather, the nickname has come about from our required Fall Quarter class called Foundations of Modern Political Science. In the last week of class, Bryan was giving his presentation of that week's readings. It was the last week of the quarter and we were tired and stressed out. We were zoning in and out of Bryan's presentation, not really paying attention to what he was saying. Then he decided to abbreviate Post Modernist, calling them PoMos. Naturally, this got our attention. We exchanged a few raised eyebrows and chuckles. Since then, we have called ourselves the PoMos.

Last weekend we finally got around to making cohort t-shirts. We are such huge nerds, and our shirts are references to political science terms and political scientists. The front of my shirt says 'social whip' and the back has a photo of the current Majority Whip, James Clyburn (D-SC).

I am the Social Coordinator for the department this upcoming year, so I will be responsible for organizing social events for the grad students. My friends say that my title should be "Social Whip" instead because whenever I organize get togethers for my friends, I verbally "whip" them and get them to come hang out. This is kind of like in the House of Representatives, where the Majority and Minority Whips are responsible for getting members to vote with the party and to actually show up for a vote. (Hey, I told you that we were geeks!)

(Katie, me, Heidi)

Katie's shirt pays homage to political scientist Robert Putnam and Heidi's shirt pays homage to the I (heart) NY shirts.