I was so happy tonight at the final performances--I had loved reading people's public "essay" #11, and this seemed like another outlet for expressing things that maybe are a little messier or more raw than what we've been assigned to write previously in this semester.

That being said, I definitely felt like my project was outshone by a lot of yours! I loved the creativity of playing Apples to Apples, Jeopardy, 20 Questions, and all the videos--I thought that they were so intriguing and fun, and only wished we'd had more time to explore them.

I still felt that my group's project was worthwhile--we had planned on breaking the group up, discussing what we had written down, etc. But of course, time flew, and so we were not able to follow through on that. But I thought that leaving things up to individual interpretation might be even more in the spirit of the exercise--it whets your appetite, if you're interested, in continuing our class (in both meanings of the word) disscussions, and bringing up taboo or private thoughts even if it's scary. If your thoughts were left in the bag as mine were, I'm sorry that we couldn't get to you--but maybe that can be incentive for you to make yourself heard elsewhere?

In any event, I have loved this class so much, and felt incredibly privileged to get to learn and work with all of you and to call you my friends.

First of all, for tonight, I'd say that our final performances are really a "happy ending" for our esem class while it's also a good start point for all of us to carry on our discussion.

Words about our project:
The reason we choose this particular topic is that we noticed the disparity between "how we feel when we stay here" and "who are we." Bryn Mawr is such a special place that the designing of the campus and the way it has been used are so "classist." A space is somewhere need to be occupied while as a part of the "Bryn mawr" structure, we, as students, have to face the pre-occupied spaces (the connotations of upper class) on campus and balance it with our own identity. After some many years, education, space and students changes a lot; however, there is one thing that remains to be  true, people would have mixed feeling about themselves on campus when we first come here and find our own way to settle down in a comfortable way. For the time we staying here, all we want is to convert the place into home, a place we feel comfortable doing everything and grow.

For my project I did a prezi called Class for Dummies. I was kind of trying to mimic the series of books “blank” for dummies. I found that explaining class is a difficult endeavor because there are so many elements that determine an individual’s class. I tried to convey in my prezi that class is very complicated and not always based on the things that society tells us their based on. I used the prezi to take the reader on a journey through the concepts I’ve learned about class in ESEM. My target reader is all of society because it is relevant information for people with money and people without and those somewhere in the middle.

Lee Wacker

12/10/11

GenSex 290

Self Evaluation

At the beginning of this course I was slightly terrified. My attitude was rooted in my fear that I had never taken a gender and sexuality studies course that wasn’t cross-listed with another department (silly, I know, because the nature of gender and sexuality studies within the tri-co is that it is inter-disciplinary). So I automatically believed coming into the class that there would be no room for intersectional, inter-textual and entangled scholarly work. My, my, how wrong I was!

I assumed that since I was taking two other Flexner Lecture Seminars I would do the bulk of my inter-disciplinary learning in those classrooms and the heavy theory work would be done within my gen-sex core course. If anything I found the opposite to be true. Our core-course was a site of theory knowledge and also mainly of theory gestation through the intra-action of our extensive and overlapping class acts. I found myself applying the heavy theory from my other Flexner courses onto the material in our core course and vice versa. A mirroring pattern and diffractive engagement thus developed between my academic classes that provided space for layered deep critical thinking.

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The Arc

Written on the wall, to be seen as the first thing when entering the exhibit:

“Right relationships are human relations in which each (or all) seek, without abandoning themselves, to be attentive and responsive to the needs and emotions of one another, quite apart from considerations of entitlement. There are also several important “negative” markers of right relationships, namely they must be free of systematic oppression, exploitation or manipulation. That is, a relationship is not “right” if participants seek to overbear in power (oppress), to overreach in resources (exploit), or to mislead for selfish advantage (manipulate).” – John A. Humbach1

The introduction to this exhibit, to also be printed on the wall:

http://prezi.com/sr_m-hpllgpp/class-for-dummies/ 

My piece  is titled 'We All Live in a White Man's World' The color represents the different perceptions in the world. I could not find a canvas anywhere so I resorted to using paper. The white is suppose to represent the the upper class that shapes our society and controls what is 'proper' and what is not. I used a typewriter to create the words. The picture in the middle is the close up of the center of the piece. It reads 'see past the colored lens, look in their eyes' and I also put the single words a majority of us chosse in class, 'noise' and 'jail' because I thought they were not only great descriptions of class but of my piece connecting that the 'white man's world' is a jail and the perceptions are the noise. If I had a frame I would have framed it and hidden on the back is a clipped on 'Guide to Naming Your Class.' I spoofed on an old-aged article of who is who.