In class, it was mentioned that informal writing made material more personable. Decoding theories into basic terms helps some people relate to the information more easily and in turn, helped them apply it to their lives. In turn, this made me wonder: what are the boundaries of formal writing? If informal writing conveys the message with equal efficiency, is it even necessary to follow the rules of grammar? For those who don’t know certain terms or aren’t able to understand convoluted language, will they be barred from valuable knowledge and a certain level of critical thinking?

In this instance, I am reminded of my parents who are immigrants of this country. If they had not received the level of education that they had had, they would not have experienced their life in America and in turn, have the same opportunities as they do now. They would not have met the people that they do and learn from them. Even now, in being of a different culture, certain terms in the English language and certain actions as a language of our culture (eg. table etiquette, certain mannerisms, etc.) can still remain foreign to them . As a result, they may still have boundaries to overcome in order to achieve success in American society. In any case, as education is class coded and as education has deeply effected the way in which people are able to communicate, in turn, language can be class coded as well.

Speaking of activism, it would be great if y'all could sign this petition for safe schools legislation in Pennsylvania, put forth by the Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition, something that BMC's Rainbow Alliance and HC's SAGA are involved with.

http://www.change.org/petitions/pennsylvania-support-psec-and-safe-schools-legislation

The Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition is an entirely youth-led and youth-run organization dedicated to advocacy across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth. Comprised of leaders from youth-led LGBTQ organizations across Pennsylvania, we work in educational institutions and local communties on behalf of LGBTQ young people.

Our final ESem celebration and performances will be Sunday, Dec. 11, 7-9 pm in the English House Lecture Hall!  

Each group will have 10 minutes to present/perform/engage/teach and learn with us as you see fit …

Performance groups are:

Tanya, Meg, Samyuktha, Michaela, Jess

Nancy, Hayley, Jillian

Shannon, Serena

Ellen, Sam

Amy, Genesis, Sophia, Laura, Pan

Morgan, Elissa, Jia

Rae, Jacqueline, Mfon, Chandrea

Kamila, Jordan

…looking forward!

I had a bit of a revelation during our discussion of Little Bee on Tuesday, and since--in the midst of insight!--may not have been very clear about what I was suddenly seeing, I wanted to write it out here.

In 1899, Joseph Conrad published Heart of Darkness. In the late 1950's, Chinua Achebe critiqued the novel as "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." He then created a new work of fiction, the novel Things Fall Apart, to give life and flesh to the sorts of figures Conrad had objectified in his novel. In 1979, the appearance of Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood called attention, in turn, to the peripheral role women had played in Achebe's novel. In this sequence a story was repeatedly re-worked-- first in criticism, then in fiction-- in order to bring into the foreground the sorts of characters whose lives had been neglected in earlier fiction. In each case, the attempt to fill one gap unexpectedly created another one.

Something quite similar happened with Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre. Like Achebe's essay, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's 1988 discussion of "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" made problematic the fictional use of people of color as representations of the tortured psyches of Europeans. Spivak's analysis helps explain the generation of Jean Rhys's 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea, in which Bertha Rochester takes center stage (in Bronte's novel, she had been confined to the attic as a madwoman, a figure of Jane Eyre's unexpressed rage).

I enjoyed today's discussion and activity about class markers. I didn't feel like I was being called out when asked to write about my own life in a public setting, until I actually was called out. It will make it easier to tell you all that I am the one whose house has themed rooms. I can definitely see how that could be perceived as a class marker. However, in many cases, I don't believe it is. For example, I never expressed how many rooms my house is, which could also be an indicator of class. If I had said that while each room in my home is themed, I live in a two bedroom apartment, could that have changed things? Now I wonder, do people assume that I am from the higher class because my roommate and I have extensively decorated our room? Do decorations have to be expensive? or even cost anything? Personally, I didn't buy any of our decorations: I snipped from the NYT, printed my own photos and made coffee filter flowers. This is why I think that the idea that BMC's Project Dorm Room was classist isn't necessarily true, and also why I think today's activity was inevitably flawed. It's impossible to make class assumptions based on things like decoration, when there are so many other aspects at play that we aren't aware of. 

I stumbled upon this video today on the feminist site Jezebel...

What do y'all think? One thing that interests me about this documentary is that I find it very difficult to visualize a conmparative one about disabled women and a male sex worker, or about LGBTQ disabled individuals and sex workers (this is also a concern brought up in the comments on Jezebel). Of course, this documentary doesn't need to address the whole, multifaceted issue of disability and sexuality... but I think that the documentary, as previewed through the trailer, shatters some conceptions of sexuality (like the supposed asexuality of disabled people) while implicitly upholding others (like heteronormativity, or the greater male desire for sex). 

There was a Rent-A-Text copy of Little Bee left in the classroom last night.  It's now in my office.  Would someone like to claim it?