As a reminder for Assignment 3, for each step you and your partner must produce a typed paragraph, which you both need to sign and hand in on the dates listed on the sheet for Assignment 3a.
For example, for Step 2 you and your partner need to "share freewrites, notes, thoughts, blog entries; begin to play with possible conceptual maps; decide on approach to analysis (centering self within social structures encountered over a period of time, or locating self in movements through world systems of power); consider possible needs to do additional research (this is not a requirement; you can use the course textbooks for all the materials if you want to). Decide on creative forms to be used and start making them or collecting them or both."
So for the date by which you and your partner agreed to complete Step 2, you and your partner will need to turn in 1 paragraph describing how you discussed and negotiated Step 2. This paragraph must be signed by both of you and turned into me.
For the in-class assignment, review the handout I gave you in our discussion section last week and as a comment to this blog entry, answer the question "What is power?". See you soon!
March 31, 2008
March 29, 2008
Oprah Magazine Announces Contest for Leadership Training
O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE AND THE WHITE HOUSE PROJECT ANNOUNCE A LIFE-CHANGING CONTEST: 80 WOMEN WILL WIN A THREE-DAY LEADERSHIP TRAINING WEEKEND
NEW YORK - March 27, 2008 - O, The Oprah Magazine and The White House Project have teamed up to launch Women Rule! O, The Oprah Magazine and The White House Project Leadership Training Program. The White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed to advance women's leadership, has created a groundbreaking three-day training program designed especially for O readers who show leadership potential and have a vision for what to do with it. Women Rule! will propel women to break through barriers to fully develop their vision for change. The leadership training program, sponsored by American Express and hosted, in part, by the Affinia Manhattan, will take place June 20-22 in New York City.
O readers and women leaders from across the country who are ready to step forward and lead in business, in philanthropy, in politics, in the community and in the public square will find a call to action in the April 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. The three-day training will include lectures by outstanding women, coaching and workshops and lots of good ol' girl networking. Each student will walk away with a plan for her original idea in hand.
"Our goal is to help confident, intelligent women live their best lives," said Amy Gross, editor-in-chief, O, The Oprah Magazine. "We are pleased that for the first time ever, The White House Project has created a special course for O readers. Eighty lucky women will walk away with skills to make a positive change in the world."
"When women are equipped with the information, inspiration, and necessary tools to bring their dreams to fruition, the world becomes a better place," said Marie Wilson, President of The White House Project. "We are thrilled to work with O, The Oprah Magazine to encourage women to ascend to positions of leadership, for their communities, their families, and for themselves."
Starting March 11, 2008, women may enter here
NEW YORK - March 27, 2008 - O, The Oprah Magazine and The White House Project have teamed up to launch Women Rule! O, The Oprah Magazine and The White House Project Leadership Training Program. The White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed to advance women's leadership, has created a groundbreaking three-day training program designed especially for O readers who show leadership potential and have a vision for what to do with it. Women Rule! will propel women to break through barriers to fully develop their vision for change. The leadership training program, sponsored by American Express and hosted, in part, by the Affinia Manhattan, will take place June 20-22 in New York City.
O readers and women leaders from across the country who are ready to step forward and lead in business, in philanthropy, in politics, in the community and in the public square will find a call to action in the April 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. The three-day training will include lectures by outstanding women, coaching and workshops and lots of good ol' girl networking. Each student will walk away with a plan for her original idea in hand.
"Our goal is to help confident, intelligent women live their best lives," said Amy Gross, editor-in-chief, O, The Oprah Magazine. "We are pleased that for the first time ever, The White House Project has created a special course for O readers. Eighty lucky women will walk away with skills to make a positive change in the world."
"When women are equipped with the information, inspiration, and necessary tools to bring their dreams to fruition, the world becomes a better place," said Marie Wilson, President of The White House Project. "We are thrilled to work with O, The Oprah Magazine to encourage women to ascend to positions of leadership, for their communities, their families, and for themselves."
Starting March 11, 2008, women may enter here
March 26, 2008
Gradebook and bell hooks
As a reminder, if you haven't already done so, please update your personal gradebook for this class with all of the deadlines you have recently compiled with your partner for Assignment 3. It's a lot to keep track of, which is why the gradebook is so handy!
Also, something cool I found while browsing the Web: a digital art exhibit dedicated to bell hooks! If you're confused or want clarification about the bell hooks railroad tracks story (listed on the Assignment 3B description sheet), this webpage may help you.
Also, something cool I found while browsing the Web: a digital art exhibit dedicated to bell hooks! If you're confused or want clarification about the bell hooks railroad tracks story (listed on the Assignment 3B description sheet), this webpage may help you.
March 23, 2008
"The Personal Is Political"
To jump-start Assignment #3 (described on Katie's blog here if you weren't on class on Thursday), in class on Tuesday we'll jump back to Assignment #2 and forward to your current reading assignment: Octavia Butler's Kindred (one of my favorite books, by the way).
Assignment #2, a process during which you collectively created a definition of feminism, simulated the 1970s C-R (consciousness-raising) groups. Like now, the 1970s fostered different forms of feminism, but three major strands were most dominant: Liberal (e.g.: National Organization for Women), Socialist/Marxist (e.g.: Angela Davis), and Radical (e.g.: Radicalesbians). You needn't be concerned about these different types of feminism (but if you're interested, I encourage you to research them!).
The radical feminists were the ones who first developed consciousness-raising, and this method quickly spread to other feminist organizations and groups. By using consciousness-raising, feminists could explore how the personal is political (and vice-versa: how the political is personal). This has to do with power, with understanding your position within different systems of privilege and oppression.
But in real terms, what does this mean?
For your in-class assignment, using any means at your disposal (online research, traditional research, asking someone else, intuition), explain "The personal is political" in a way that makes sense to you. Also, identify one aspect of Octavia Butler's Kindred that illustrates "the personal is political." In class on Tuesday, we'll talk more about the upcoming assignment, about power, matrices of domination, marked/unmarked categories, and about anything else that may aid you in completing Assignment #3!
Assignment #2, a process during which you collectively created a definition of feminism, simulated the 1970s C-R (consciousness-raising) groups. Like now, the 1970s fostered different forms of feminism, but three major strands were most dominant: Liberal (e.g.: National Organization for Women), Socialist/Marxist (e.g.: Angela Davis), and Radical (e.g.: Radicalesbians). You needn't be concerned about these different types of feminism (but if you're interested, I encourage you to research them!).
The radical feminists were the ones who first developed consciousness-raising, and this method quickly spread to other feminist organizations and groups. By using consciousness-raising, feminists could explore how the personal is political (and vice-versa: how the political is personal). This has to do with power, with understanding your position within different systems of privilege and oppression.
But in real terms, what does this mean?
For your in-class assignment, using any means at your disposal (online research, traditional research, asking someone else, intuition), explain "The personal is political" in a way that makes sense to you. Also, identify one aspect of Octavia Butler's Kindred that illustrates "the personal is political." In class on Tuesday, we'll talk more about the upcoming assignment, about power, matrices of domination, marked/unmarked categories, and about anything else that may aid you in completing Assignment #3!
March 9, 2008
Gender: Analysis, Power, and Ideologies
Your first writing assignment had asked you to reconsider your assumptions about art, feminism, and women in art. Perhaps without knowing it, you had performed a gender analysis while writing your paper. In simple terms, a gender analysis is a method of examining something by focusing on gender as an analytic category. Assignment 1 had asked you to examine your assumptions about museums, art, and feminism through a gendered lens.
There are many ways of seeing the world, and each academic discipline uses a different prism through which to understand it. A politics class uses the prism of government and the law. An economics class uses the prism of the economic and marketplace. And, as you can guess, a women's studies class uses the prism of gender.
But what is gender? How is gender different from sex? And what does gender have to do with power?
One feminist historian, Joan Scott, argues that we must use gender as a category of analysis, even for issues which seemingly have little to do with gender or women (for example: the military or the law). To use gender as a category of analysis is to highlight gender and try to understand how gender relations have shaped specific historical/cultural/social moments.
Using the museum paper, for example, we might ask: Why aren't the female Renaissance paintings seen in the National Museum of Women and the Arts displayed in the National Gallery? And to answer this question, we would have to research the history of these two museums, find out the historical context for the Renaissance period arts, and posit a likely conclusion based on this research.
Doing a gender analysis means uncovering hidden power dynamics. Gender is a form of power. Gender does not just refer to "man" ("masculine") and "woman" ("feminine"); sometimes other things (such as places or words) can be gendered. "Waiter" is gendered masculine and "waitress" is gendered feminine; however, it is now more acceptable to say "server" instead, which is gender-neutral. At my all-women's undergraduate college, we did not say "freshman" -- "first-year" (or "firstie") is used instead, which is gender-neutral. Can you think of other examples?
An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. Ideologies help us understand how we see and make sense of the world. Some ideologies are more common than others, and even people with very diverse backgrounds and experiences hold the same beliefs. This is the power of ideology -- it sets and maintains the status quo. Dominant ideologies appear to be taken-for-granted knowledges: naturalized, obvious, neutral, unquestionable.
One way of recognizing an ideology is to question your assumptions about certain things or ideas, as you did in your museum paper. What are your assumptions about gender? One example that comes to my mind is that when a baby is born, usually the first question someone asks about it is what sex or gender it is. Blue for boys; pink for girls. A year ago, one of my friends had dressed her baby in a t-shirt that said "Future President." All of the strangers she ran into assumed that her baby is a boy, when in fact her baby is a girl. What does this tell us about gender ideologies regarding positions of authority?
I'm sure that some of this is confusing for you since we haven't directly covered it in class yet. However, we will be discussing it on Tuesday, and I wanted to introduce you to some key terms.
For your in-class assignment, please read this post over carefully (more than once, if needed). If you have questions about the content of this post or would like clarification, tell me in a comment. Also, respond to at least two of the italicized questions in this post.
There are many ways of seeing the world, and each academic discipline uses a different prism through which to understand it. A politics class uses the prism of government and the law. An economics class uses the prism of the economic and marketplace. And, as you can guess, a women's studies class uses the prism of gender.
But what is gender? How is gender different from sex? And what does gender have to do with power?
One feminist historian, Joan Scott, argues that we must use gender as a category of analysis, even for issues which seemingly have little to do with gender or women (for example: the military or the law). To use gender as a category of analysis is to highlight gender and try to understand how gender relations have shaped specific historical/cultural/social moments.
Using the museum paper, for example, we might ask: Why aren't the female Renaissance paintings seen in the National Museum of Women and the Arts displayed in the National Gallery? And to answer this question, we would have to research the history of these two museums, find out the historical context for the Renaissance period arts, and posit a likely conclusion based on this research.
Doing a gender analysis means uncovering hidden power dynamics. Gender is a form of power. Gender does not just refer to "man" ("masculine") and "woman" ("feminine"); sometimes other things (such as places or words) can be gendered. "Waiter" is gendered masculine and "waitress" is gendered feminine; however, it is now more acceptable to say "server" instead, which is gender-neutral. At my all-women's undergraduate college, we did not say "freshman" -- "first-year" (or "firstie") is used instead, which is gender-neutral. Can you think of other examples?
An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. Ideologies help us understand how we see and make sense of the world. Some ideologies are more common than others, and even people with very diverse backgrounds and experiences hold the same beliefs. This is the power of ideology -- it sets and maintains the status quo. Dominant ideologies appear to be taken-for-granted knowledges: naturalized, obvious, neutral, unquestionable.
One way of recognizing an ideology is to question your assumptions about certain things or ideas, as you did in your museum paper. What are your assumptions about gender? One example that comes to my mind is that when a baby is born, usually the first question someone asks about it is what sex or gender it is. Blue for boys; pink for girls. A year ago, one of my friends had dressed her baby in a t-shirt that said "Future President." All of the strangers she ran into assumed that her baby is a boy, when in fact her baby is a girl. What does this tell us about gender ideologies regarding positions of authority?
I'm sure that some of this is confusing for you since we haven't directly covered it in class yet. However, we will be discussing it on Tuesday, and I wanted to introduce you to some key terms.
For your in-class assignment, please read this post over carefully (more than once, if needed). If you have questions about the content of this post or would like clarification, tell me in a comment. Also, respond to at least two of the italicized questions in this post.
March 8, 2008
influential women
Since this is a women's study class I thought that I should post this:
It is a link that shows all the influential women in the world. I thought it was interesting maybe you guys will too.
It is a link that shows all the influential women in the world. I thought it was interesting maybe you guys will too.
March 5, 2008
March 4, 2008
Announcement about Assignment 2 and Blog
This was just posted to Katie's blog:
Posting to your section blog:
One or more people will post for the whole group the text of the flyer with priority to the definition of feminism.
One or more people will post for the whole group the description of the event, audiences, distribution and such. Rationale for the design would be nice too.
Your individual description of group process is not posted to the blog, but printed out and handed in to your TA.
You do not have to post your individual papers, but do remember to bring me a hard copy today. You collectively DO need to post the flyer and the event description, however. If you have any questions, ask me today or leave a comment.
Posting to your section blog:
One or more people will post for the whole group the text of the flyer with priority to the definition of feminism.
One or more people will post for the whole group the description of the event, audiences, distribution and such. Rationale for the design would be nice too.
Your individual description of group process is not posted to the blog, but printed out and handed in to your TA.
You do not have to post your individual papers, but do remember to bring me a hard copy today. You collectively DO need to post the flyer and the event description, however. If you have any questions, ask me today or leave a comment.
March 3, 2008
For tomorrow
As a friendly reminder, you have 2 assignments due tomorrow: Assignment #2 (both the group and individual parts) and your grade book. The grade book does not need to be posted on our blog, but the individual part of Assignment 2 does. Needless to say, if you have not yet turned in your Introduction/Subject in History sheet by tomorrow, you will not receive credit for completing it. Also, those who have not yet presented in class on your museum papers will need to do so tomorrow (so forewarned is forearmed!).
These past few weeks you were asked to read excerpts from But Is It Art? and New Creative Community, which we haven't yet talked about in our discussion section. There's a lot to cover, but I want our discussion to be focused around aspects of the reading that you want to talk about: what excited you, what intrigued you, what confused you, etc. So for your in-class assignment, please identify these passages (at least 2) in But Is It Art? and New Creative Community. On the blog, post a comment identifying these passages. For example: "In But Is It Art? page 30, starting with '....'"
Remember to bring both books to class!!!
Good luck finishing your assignments!
These past few weeks you were asked to read excerpts from But Is It Art? and New Creative Community, which we haven't yet talked about in our discussion section. There's a lot to cover, but I want our discussion to be focused around aspects of the reading that you want to talk about: what excited you, what intrigued you, what confused you, etc. So for your in-class assignment, please identify these passages (at least 2) in But Is It Art? and New Creative Community. On the blog, post a comment identifying these passages. For example: "In But Is It Art? page 30, starting with '....'"
Remember to bring both books to class!!!
Good luck finishing your assignments!
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