What is something you learned, and something that you taught, during the times we walked and talked w/ one another on Tuesday? (If you weren't able to join us then, name something in the last week that you learned, and something that you taught--not necessarily in school.)

I want to be clear in this post that I am only speaking for myself, and that I am not attempting to invallidate anyone else's thoughts or feelings about last night's discussion of Eve Ensler's piece.

That said, it was a very triggering discussion for me, which came on the heels of dealing with a triggering text in another class. 

I've been dreading that sort of thing since the beginning of the semester, even though I assumed that it was inevitable that I would encounter some texts and some discussions which would recall past traumas and elicit a very emotional reaction. I expected that when this happened, I would become quieter and would feel even less like I belonged in the class as that is how I've experienced triggering materials in other classes.

What surprised me was that last night's call for litanies and group discussions actually compelled me to be louder and more assertive. 

I yanked the following cartoon off a friend's tumblr page, and I think it's a neat way to question standardized testing.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Leymah Gbowee, who led the women's movement that leveraged public protests and sex strikes to end Liberia's civil war in 2003.  She now works internationally to help women build peace in their countries. Jon Stewart interviewed her on the daily show on Monday: http://www.thedailyshow.com/extended-interviews/402235/playlist_tds_extended_leymah_gbowee/402213

I thought some of you might be interested in the most recent issue of On Campus with Women published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) that focuses Higher Education and Global Gender Equity.  Articles include:  "Nelly Stromquist of the University o

Kaye and I had designed our class tonight in search of the "right relationship" between theory and action, in which we were nudging you all repeatedly to think about the ways in which the intra-active thinking of Barad, Butler, Humbach and Welch might help us construct a concrete activist agenda or political response.

By the end of our discussion, though, we both realized that we'd activated a much more insistent dynamic than that of theory and action: that of reason and emotion--perhaps particularly because we'd chosen to structure the class around the repetitive exercise of reading passages aloud, passages that, in their evocative echoes, evoked a range of strong emotional responses. Our action in the world might well be guided by theory (as Butler has been saying). But it is also clearly always motivated by other sources, those of experience and emotion. As Humbach observes in his thinking "Towards a Natural Justice of Right Relationships,"the results of reason alone never directly determine the specifics of people's actions...we can be reflective, but we can never hope to exert rational control over the selection of things that we reflect about."

Anne and I had designed tonight's class intending to diffract theory and action and to explore how Butler, Barad, Humbach and Welsh might inform and strengthen our work for social justice.  However, our lesson plan (or apparatus in Barad's term) revealed a different dimension of this phenomenon.  The political responses you shared at the end of class addressed (as we had hoped) important problems of gender and sexuality and were theoretically informed, but what struck me was their raw emotional power.  I had not anticipated this irruption of emotion, for theory often presents itself as abstract, rational, distant and can be interrogated using just our intellect.  What generated this more visceral response?  Unquestionably, rape is a charged, emotional, non-abstract experience for too many people.  Yet, we can write papers about rape culture, post responses on Serendip, critique representations in the media.  But, perhaps those formats don't engage us the same way as what what we asked you to do tonight?  In some ways, academic papers don't ask students to "appear" as whole people, but let them just engage intellectually.  Perhaps, academic papers and postings on Serendip are not really public, not really private, but exist in some interstitial zone?  I also wonder how much the reading of Ensler's litany and the power of repetition, the speaking out of the violations, the rhythm of her words resonate with our bodies and evoke a more embodied response?  I remember the first time I went to a display of the AIDS quilt an

We're currently in class completing break-out groups that discuss Butler, Barad, Welch, and Humbach, specifically in regard to Eve Ensler's Huffington Post piece "Over It" (11 November 2011). In her writing, Ensler says that she is over "rape pages on Facebook" and "the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame." Three of my peers questioned what a rape page is - I'm attaching a link also printed by the Huffington Post entitled "Facebook Pulls A Few Controversial Rape Pages, But Many Remain" (9 November 2011) to clarify Ensler's words and to create more awareness for this specific issue.

The workshop was kind of awkward for me, yet very beneficial. I invited people that I had constant disagreements/fights because of class. My original idea was for them to go to the workshop and maybe see might point of view better, yet I actually was one who learned a lot. A lot of comments hit very close to home and I definitely took them to heart. Overall, the workshop I feel was a success yet, there definetly should have been more time to futhur discussion and it also felt very isolated. Like the only people who could possibly benefit were the ones present. If we could some how get more people involved and thinking about this more critically, than I am sure than we can have some serious change on Bryn Mawr College.Yet, for the most part, I believe the workshop was a total success that needs to be repeated to more of the college's population.