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jfwright's picture

End of Course Self-Evaluation

Submitted by jfwright on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 4:56am

Throughout this semester, I have thoroughly enjoyed being an active participant in this course, and I hope that my contributions have been valued by my classmates and professors. I’ve tried to contribute to online conversation by responding to more posts than I created independently: only if I had a topic that I specifically wanted to broach online did I create my own post rather than contributing to someone else’s conversation. In class, I have tried to participate to the best of my ability without controlling class conversation. I will admit that not all of my comments have been fully-formed during in-class discussions, but I have tried to express myself fully and to provide salient information to class discussions. I have worked hard to contribute to the learning of others by providing new information and analyses both online and to class: if I have been discussing similar themes in another class or have found something outside of class, I will make a concerted effort to bring this information to the appropriate forum. In addition, I’ve helped a few of my classmates find information for their web events; I happen to have had a fairly decent knowledge base regarding gender theory coming into the class, and where I thought I could contribute productively to someone else’s learning, I offered to.

LittleItaly's picture

Class Slam -The Final Question

Submitted by LittleItaly on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 2:19am

So over the past weeks I've been feeling differently about how our society is. I'm beginning to believe that nothing can change. I think that is what I wanted to express in my slam poetry last Sunday. I feel like most of time we forget that ESEM is just another required class and while this was a great class, taught by great teacher, that provoked so many ideas and emotions, I sit here wondering what will be different. These will only become memories that we carry along with the rest of our accumulating baggage and we will reflect back on it once in a while. But has it really touched any of us? Are the people who sat their quiet during this process suppressing their thought, hesitating what to let go and share with us, really any more open? Or are they that much more closeted? Are the people that came to this class oblivious of many classed ideas really feeling the empowerment? Or was it just one of those little 'take a chance' moments we tell our kids about one day? With my poem I wished to have people think about the question, can we really change? I think as a group, we described our class on 'class' the way the people in the world do - differently. All these differen't connections and emotions that fill up a room, that create tension, silence, noice, freedom; I though were all conveyed in our group slam. I just wonder if anyone really heard us.

ssaludades's picture

In Class

Submitted by ssaludades on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 1:49am

For those of you still revisiting the forum, I just came upon this NYtimes article which rejuvenates the power of college education admist the end of semester season. I found that it touched based on some issues that we talked about in class. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/what-is-college-for/

sel209's picture

Color and Meaning- A Self-Evaluation

Submitted by sel209 on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 1:17am

Initially, I was a bit apprehensive about taking the core course in gender studies when I hadn’t spent much time in other Gen/Sex courses reading theoretical material. My apprehension grew into panic when we were assigned Barad during the Prologue- I thought I was in big trouble. How could I apply the study of gender to such complex material if I felt like I hadn’t even mastered the basics yet? Thankfully, I quickly discovered that my lack of experience with theory made very little difference (at least from my perspective) in my engagement in the course. In fact, I think it made me engage with material like Barad in pretty unique ways as I drew upon insights from psychology and biology to process what I was reading. Then again, this course has illuminated the fact that we inevitably end up drawing upon our own knowledge base to answer questions to which we have no immediate answer, and because of this realization I’m confident that I can now convince anybody that any course they’ve taken in the BiCo is somewhat interdisciplinary either because of the nature of the course itself or the lens that they approached it through.

Katie Randall's picture

Shifting Standards of Care and Right Relationships

Submitted by Katie Randall on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 11:40pm

 Back in October I posted a paper on this site exploring the relation between the medicalization of disability (as seen in Eli Claire's Exile & Pride) and the pathologization of transsexuality (as seen in Rachel Ann Heath’s The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset.

(read the full paper here: /exchange/node/11075 )

In The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset a lot of Heath's discussion of the medicalization of disability revolved around the standards of care (SOC), standards written by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to guide doctors with transsexual patients. The Praeger Handbook was published in 2006 and critiqued the 6th edition of the SOC, published in 2001. It was this critique that I incorporated into my own work.

But right around the same time that I posted my thoughts, something happened that I didn’t know about until later. A new and revised SOC was published.

S. Yaeger's picture

From One Confusion to Another

Submitted by S. Yaeger on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 8:57pm

Shannon Yaeger

Playful, Performative, Precarious, Perspective

Self Evaluation

 

I came into this class terrified.  It was my first semester at Bryn Mawr, and starting a class with juniors was incredibly daunting to me.  I spent a lot of the first half of the semester afraid to speak in class, though I did speak in break out groups.  Right from the beginning, I found the readings pretty interesting, though some of them were very confusing (I’m looking at you, Karen Barad).  As the semester wore on, I could not seem to shake the thought that I wasn’t ever fully grasping some of the scientific texts, but I did try to grasp them.  In terms of reading, I would say that I was a good reader for this class.

In terms of speaking, I did eventually start speaking more in whole class discussions, but I do wish that I had done so sooner.  I realize now that my silence may have really hurt me in terms of learning how to speak in class.  I feel like I learned in this area, but that I prevented myself from learning as much as I could have.

Amophrast's picture

Full Interview with M.T.HHS

Submitted by Amophrast on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 8:30pm

This is the full text of the interview I conducted via Skype chat with a freshman at Haverford High School.

[7:45:05 PM] Amophrast: Feel free to talk openly and freely about yourself and your experiences. This information will be published on Serendip, a website that is publicly accessible, but at this point or any point in the future you can choose an alias to go by or request that certain information or excerpts is/are made private. If you do not specify a particular alias, you will be assigned one based on your name, preferred gender (hypen will be used if preferred gender is none), and school. Example, my sister is C.F.HHS

[7:45:25 PM] Amophrast: do you have any questions?

[7:45:28 PM] M.T.HHS: Hmm

[7:45:44 PM] M.T.HHS: Can you have me be M.T.HHS or something with M first

[7:46:36 PM] Amophrast: sure, I will use M.T.HHS

[7:46:47 PM] M.T.HHS: Okay, thanks no more questions!

[7:47:07 PM] Amophrast: How do you perceive of the environment at Haverford High School?

think of it as kind of a campus climate report, and in terms of LGBTQ issues/individuals. For example, comments on bullying, freedom of gender expression, availability of safe spaces, other issues revolving around LGBTQ youth or individuals involved with LGBTQ issues

Amophrast's picture

Full Interview with CL.M.HHS

Submitted by Amophrast on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 5:29pm

This is the full text of the interview I conducted via Skype chat with a gay, male-identifying freshman at Haverford High School.

I think the questions flow a bit more smoothly than the first interview

[3:52:02 PM] Amophrast: okay, going to start with my official intro message

[3:54:07 PM] Amophrast: Feel free to talk openly and freely about yourself and your experiences. This information will be published on Serendip, a website that is publicly accessible, but at this point or any point in the future you can choose an alias to go by or request that certain information or excerpts is/are made private. If you do not specify a particular alias, you will be assigned one based on your name, preferred gender (hypen will be used if preferred gender is none), and school. Example, C.F.HHS

[3:54:25 PM] Amophrast: do you have any questions?

[3:54:56 PM] CL.M.HHS: not right now

[3:55:06 PM] Amophrast: alright

[3:56:40 PM] Amophrast: How do you perceive of the environment at Haverford High School?

think of it as kind of a campus climate report, and in terms of LGBTQ issues/individuals. For example, comments on bullying, freedom of gender expression, availability of safe spaces, other issues revolving around LGBTQ youth or individuals involved with LGBTQ issues

Amophrast's picture

Full Interview with C.F.HHS

Submitted by Amophrast on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 5:27pm

This is the full text of the interview I conducted via Skype chat with a female-identifying freshman at Haverford High School.

The general interview:

[3:21:53 PM] Amophrast: So I'm going to give you my intro message again even though i already said most of it

[3:22:49 PM] Amophrast: Feel free to talk openly and freely about yourself and your experiences. This information will be published on Serendip, a website that is publicly accessible, but at this point or any point in the future you can choose an alias to go by or request that certain information or excerpts is/are made private

[3:22:58 PM] Amophrast: do you have any questions before we begin?

[3:23:15 PM] C.F.HHS: nope

[3:23:59 PM] Amophrast: do you wish to use an alias, abbreviation, or different name for the purpose of this interview?

[3:24:26 PM] C.F.HHS: nope

[3:25:03 PM] Amophrast: ok.

[3:25:36 PM] Amophrast: How do you perceive of the environment at Haverford High School?

[3:27:24 PM] Amophrast: think of it as a kind of campus climate report--either in regards to bullying, freedom of gender expression, availability of safe spaces, other issues revolving around LGBTQ youth or individuals involved with LGBTQ issues

[3:34:23 PM] C.F.HHS: I find it decently peaceful. It's laid-back and everyone goes about minding their own business.

S. Yaeger's picture

Reconsidering Women's Colleges Through Butler, Barad, Kaleb, Dalke, and Ourselves.

Submitted by S. Yaeger on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 4:07pm

Often, when writing a paper, I feel like I am travelling down a rabbit hole.  I feel like I am being led, by the theorists and ideas with which I am engaging, into a strange and un-understandable world.  In thinking about this paper, that feeling has been stronger and more pronounced than it has with any other project.  Perhaps this heightened feeling of confusion and journey can be chalked up to the fact that I am writing it in a new place for me: a women’s college.  Or, it could be because this paper is something of a quarrel with the idea that there is one way to be a woman, and, by extension, one way to be a women’s college.  Alternately, it could be because I am writing about a topic with which I have nearly no personal experience. 

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