post-course reflection

This semester I have, on multiple occasions, been wowed by how personally I connected to the course material. On a literal level I learned how to blog, which has been very valuable to me. I formulated all of my thoughts for my media journals on a blog and I am now involved in a J-term class that is going to convene over blog space because geographic limitations prevent us from discussing in person. Writing all my media journals on a blog felt risky for me because of its public nature, but I'm glad that I chose to explore a new format. Our location exercise and our work with Theatre of the Oppressed was similarly stretching in this way. They all united and solidified the intersections of theory, practice and praxis for me in this class. I had done some Theatre of the Oppressed before but it was much more personal exploration and I'm really glad that we took the time to explore the emotional and reactive sides of theory that effects the lives of our classmates. I will also take away from this class a vocabulary with which to academically and theoretically describe top-down systems of power and especially the industrial complexes of prisons and non-profits. I'd been hearing a lot of terms like NPIC and PIC thrown around at Macalester since freshman year, and knowing the definitions and creative ways (like blogging, interacting with reality tv and media systems) in order to talk about issues like what it means to be a feminist and declare it and defend against mysogynist systems of power and male privilege in an articulate manner. I'm so glad that the extra room given in this class allowed me to spend the semester interacting with this class. Thanks to everyone for a great semester.