Semester of Diffraction

For me one of the most important parts of this class was the discussion, though it sometimes left me frustrated. I found I tended to either really enjoy and learn from a discussion-- as with the ones on Little Bee, Exile & Pride, and Margaret Price-- or be completely unmoved, confused and unsatisfied. Interestingly, this happened to me when we discussed Paul Farmer's work, which I'd reacted to very emotionally when reading it. Luckily, the productive and interesting discussions really outweighed the empty ones. I'm just not sure why each class fell firmly on one side or the other. Somehow the way we approached each text either really clicked for me or it didn't.

When it clicked I had a lot to say. I think I did a good job of bringing my ideas to the classromm and really listening to others as well. Sometimes I wish the class size had been a bit smaller-- I'm not sure that everyone was heard. But in general I think there was a good back-and-forth of ideas, wth the occasional going in circles.

Each “act” of the class had its own distinct flavor when it came to readings. I was particulalrly pulled in by the introduction and the last act of the course, but struggled more in the middle. I really appreciated Riki Wilchin's Queer Theory, Gender Theory as background for the exploration we were about to do, especially as I hadn't read much in the way of either queer or gender theory before. And I feel like in the last act we really got into the difficult questions-- questions of power and action. Reading Paul Farmer and Little Bee was eye-opening for sure.

The biology section was not in my area of expertise and was probably where I grew most as a reader. Yes, I had learned to read scientific articles before. But I spent my time trying to fully understand them, and I'm not sure I ever got past that level to really thinking critically about the results and how they were presented. Discussion in a larger group was helpful there for sure.

My writing was probably the weakest part of my participation in the course, which is unusual for me. I had a lot on my plate and my weekly serendip postings, in particular, were often afterthoughts or not well developed. One thing I am proud of-- I wanted our work online to be more like a conversation, so nearly every comment I posted was a reply to something that someone else had brought up. But few of these threads really took off, which was a shame. I guess with a course that can go in so many different directions it's a little harder to have an online dialogue.

My essays also suffered from lack of follow-through, especially the second one and final one. In both cases I had way too much to do, and while I came up with ideas that really interested me I ran out of time to flesh them out completely.

In the end I think the biggest difference between the beginning and end of this course is that I've connected subjects which are rarely connected in a traditional classroom; theory and activism, politics and biology, sex, gender, disability, and class, not to mention physics and queer theory. I have a whole lot of new theoretical terms and ideas running around in my head, though I've yet to meaningfully organize them.

And finally my reflection, diffracted through an online madlibs generator. I have changed the title of the exercise to Anne and Kaye's class:

Anne and Kaye's Class

There once was a classroom filled with precarious right relationships. These sexualities could often be heard shouting eep! when they did well on a Riki Wilchins. The students liked to diffract and reflect while Anne and Kaye taught intersex entanglement. Sometimes the class went queering and sometimes they Butlerized. Anne and Kaye liked their spectral communities. They wouldn't trade them for a entangled Karen Barad.

I swear, this is exactly how it came out. The words in bold are the ones I put into the mad libs generator. I'm very proud of myself for creating the verb “to Butlerize.” Create your own here: http://www.write-better-english.com/Create-a-silly-story.aspx