Robin LeBlanc to Deliver Lecture in Honor of Her Appointment to the William Lyne Wilson Professorship in Political Economy LeBlanc’s talk, “How I See Power,” will be held Oct. 30 in Northen Auditorium.

By Brian Laubscher
October 8, 2024

Robin LeBlanc, professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, will present a public lecture to mark her appointment to the William Lyne Wilson Professorship in Political Economy at W&L.

LeBlanc’s lecture, “How I See Power: Studying and Writing Democracy at the Grassroots in Japan, Italy and Here at Home,” will be held at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Northen Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.

In her discussion, LeBlanc will investigate how she sees power in a dual sense, mirroring a long-term habit in her scholarship. She will navigate a range of topics including gender identity, social movements and urban space in sites as distinct as Bologna, Italy, and multiple sites in Japan.

“On the one hand, I will describe the ethnographic methods that I have employed to observe operations of power among ordinary people in various community settings,” says LeBlanc. “On the other hand, I will explain what I have learned about the power available to non-elites in modern democracies. I’ll also share a third, both ethical and practical, dimension of how I see power – my pursuit of social science writing as a form of art that aims to capture the citizen’s imagination.”

LeBlanc joined the W&L faculty in 1998 as assistant professor of politics. She was promoted to associate professor in 2002 and became a tenured professor in 2008. LeBlanc held the Cannan Term Professorship from 2012-2014 and is a core faculty member in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, serving as the program head on multiple occasions.

She has been awarded Fulbright Research Fellowships three times, once as a student and twice during her time teaching at W&L. LeBlanc is also a recipient of a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She has authored two books, “Bicycle Citizens: The Political World of the Japanese Housewife” and “The Art of the Gut: Manhood, Power, and Ethics in Japanese Politics,” and co-authored the fourth edition of the book “Comparative Politics: Integrating Theories, Methods and Cases.”

LeBlanc earned a Bachelor of Arts in English language and literature from Berry College and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oklahoma.

The William Lyne Wilson Professorship in Political Economy was created in 1991 by a bequest from William Lyne Wilson II ’27, in memory of his grandfather, who served as university president at the turn of the century. This bequest was added to a smaller fund honoring the former president, which was created soon after his death to establish the Department of Economics at W&L. Wilson professors are selected from faculty serving in either the Department of Economics or the Department of Politics.