Connections

In reflecting upon my journey through my second-to-last semester, I realize that I have filled in many more of my intellectual "grey areas" in these past several weeks; not only have I finally reached a place of comfort in summoning the term “intersectional” in daily conversation – but I am now better able to articulate my own hopes for change… I would have to put it out there that this was my most emotionally-engaging course “ever”’, and that this distinction within my own history of coursework was well-combined with the situated/positional knowledge model!

One observation I made (with regards to myself) was that I had begun to listen more than speak in our class. As I realized the extent to which my own theories had lacked to fully explain or problematize an event… I realized the importance of adapting what others are saying (because you’re doing that anyone) more effectively to my understanding is crucial to developing my own critical capabilities.

But, if I had a few things to request more information on in future iterations of this course… coming from what I wanted to understand better… I’d start with Gender as Performance – I think that the answers to a lot of my remaining Grey Areas lie in understanding the construction more thoroughly. In a more personal note, I’d like to see the lack of queer representation in the mainstream media flip OVER.

Then, the water that we’ve been in, and trying to conceptualize, will run out and then we’d have to explain everything, really, really fast! (Actually… I’ve learned kind of the opposite through this semester: that tolerance/acceptance/justice must work both ways, and that extreme patience and willingness to work hard is still a prerequisite to building any lasting alliances for positive social change.



Overall, I wish that Macalester could have hit a stock market fluke so that we could keep courses like this continuing and improving – and despite a lack of that much cash-money – I know that the real moving power is in the minds of people. aI am really interested to hear back about my Media Analysis paper for the above reason – what does the very limited mainstream representation imply for the rest of our community?

Another type of learning that I’d be interested in pursuing within such a dynamic course would involve the use/creation of Case Studies; I would really like to learn more about feminist organizations, their roots, their interconnections, etc… I also think that looking at the orgs mentioned throughout our Women’s Lives text could point us in a few good early directions!