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"The Circle Game" - Joni Mitchell

When I walked into Taylor Hall for our first class meeting not so long ago, I have to admit that I was quite a bit nervous. Having never taken a formal course in Gender and Sexuality Studies, I was something of a small fish in a big pond. My familiarity with GenSex is entirely self-educated: several of my friends who’ve taken courses always joke that I should be a concentrator in this department solely because of the collection of pertinent literature strewn throughout my room.

This course has taught me an incredible amount of formal knowledge, specifically in regard to the interdisciplinary nature of our studies. I recently completed an interdisciplinary semester of study away from Bryn Mawr and was thoroughly excited to apply the principles of academic and personal connectivity to my studies back on my home turf. I knew that the three acts would flow into each other, but had no idea as to how seamlessly they would do so. Yes, there was a definite change in subject matter, reading material, and personal participation (I have much more experience with disability than I do with biological sciences, and was slightly more vocal in the former section than the later).

As we moved through the semester, however, I believe that I began to speak more as to what I thought, what my reactions to readings and postings were, and what I was confused about in regard to discussed topics. I liked being able to use the Internet as a means for discussion, specifically because I enjoy writing my thoughts and prefer having time to adequately articulate myself through prose than to simply speak in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. When posting on Serendip, I can take as much time as I desire to make sure that I’m using the correct words, add images or supplemental videos, and react to others’ comments and postings from behind the safe barrier of my computer screen.

But the world does not have an LCD screen to protect us from hearing what others truly think, just as some of the items we read and viewed did not have trigger warnings. We are vulnerable, regardless of whether we’re typing and writing our thoughts or speaking them through a method such as the People’s Microphone. When I post this in a few minutes, anyone who has the privilege of an Internet connection is going to privy to my thoughts and can critique them as such. Our class was a safe environment, one where we respected each others’ opinions even if we disagreed to the utmost degree. I’d like to think that this safe space has strengthened my desire to speak freely, to know how to handle myself when I encounter others with whom I do not see eye to eye.

I enjoyed the majority of our class readings, specifically the literature that pertained to activism and disability. As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, my background is not as strong in biological sciences; the readings we were responsible that were more scientific in language and topic proved to be challenging, but that’s where my classmates came in. Being that this was an interdisciplinary course, we all had our various strengths and weaknesses. I view no shame in not knowing something or being confused, so long as I make an effort to understand it. This symbiotic academic relationship helped me to grow stronger in the areas I was less familiar in and to help others obtain a better understanding for those in which I enjoyed and within which I was comfortable.

That this course truly let me expand upon traditional means of academia and to learn in a new way, one that emphasized the “Precarious, Performative, Playful, and Potential” nature of this course. While my first assignment was a more customary academic paper (though I supplemented it with images, audio, and video), I really wanted to branch out and express my understanding for the course material in a new way. My second web event was both creative in subject matter and presentation, being a children’s book that I wrote myself and then read/explained via video. My last two web events were completely artistic: creating a collage of the conflicting ideals of beauty within American culture, I developed a collage and attempted to create an “experience” for the viewer with music and video.

This course has reinforced the knowledge that I have learned within my personal readings on Gender and Sexuality, giving me a more formal understanding and appreciation of this multifaceted, ever-changing subject. I am interested in continuing my studies and must admit that I regret waiting until my next-to-last semester as an undergraduate to take a course in the department. However, I hope to use this course as a launching pad into more independent reading and research, and to bring a little more of the four P’s into my future studies.