A zigzag now in that nonlinear journey – back in time but ahead of it in thinking about places that contain gender in international relations. It is the 1950s. A rough and tumble New World America is suddenly supercharged, with ICBMs dug into Nevada landscapes and homegrown avant-garde art maneuvered to international attention. Missiles and Abstract Expressionism project the power and good taste of “the free world” and its leader. The art, no less than those missiles, also sends out lessons on the proper conduct of masculine foreign policy between states.

“Picturing the Cold War” is a newer piece, albeit with roots extending all the way back to my high school days. I audaciously joined the art club then, though I could not draw, and read art history texts (aloud) while the others sketched. One did what one could, and what I could hope to do was create words about what I saw. I looked and looked at pictures too, during regular excursions to the Yale Art Gallery in New Haven and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, making the acquaintance of illusionary Dalis, O'Keeffe pistils, yellow Van Gogh interiors, and Hopper's scenes of an eerily uncomfortable modern America. I was smitten. A little later, when New York became the day trip of choice, a Salvador Dali retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) planted itself inside my head.