Anne Dalke's blog

This on-line forum will remain open...our ESem still here for us collectively.
We hope you all will post here in the years to come.

On the last day of class, Mark and Anne said,

"We think that what we have accomplished together (all of us) is important. It's important because play is the lifeblood of being an authentic intellectual and it's also profoundly healthy. We've assembled a toolbox together--a full, rich array of strategies to use when you are stuck or feeling unconnected to reading, writing, or talking in class.

We think it's important that you each have connections to the city--multiple connections. And that there are 25 other people in your class who understand their connection to the city and on whom you can rely to nurture your connection to the city. Bryn Mawr is an amazing place and one of the amazing things about it is that you can really nourish yourself, socially, emotionally, culturally and spiritually through your connections to the city and to each other.

We hope you feel connected to one another, to at least some of the ideas that we've worked on together, to the notions of play we have explored, and to the city in which we've all played--critically, deeply, and in friendship.

We covered a lot of territory together this semester--for which I am grateful. And then today I saw this article, which reminded me of all the territory we DIDN'T cover.
So: what do you think of this account of the relationship between nature and culture??
Boys and Girls May Get Different Breast Milk. (Scientific American, via Salon, December 17, 2013).

How to Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Art Life Museum

...and how are you dealing w/ the difference?  We agreed to take turns being responsible for where we will meet (and if we move midway, etc.) --AND that each of us will post a short reflection here, on the day that we chose, about our decision: what it was like, watching the class and the world in which it is operating, inside or out…what seems foreground/background/essential/not? How distracted were you/what did you do about it?

Do you have any ideas about how to incorporate the "distractions" of being outside (or inside) into our curriculum? What are you coming to understand of the relation between "reading the word" and "reading the world" that the word represents, about foregrounding much of what is usually backgrounded in literary studies, asking what we might lose by seeing the world only as mediated by the word....?

...and how are you dealing w/ the difference? What are the "rules of engagement" for our meetings in these alternative spaces? Please post a comment on the day when you selected our site, describing both what you noticed and how you coped w/ the distractions of being outside (or not)... Do you have any ideas about how to incorporate them into our curriculum?

Here's the plan for next Thursday's teach-in. We have eight performances scheduled, for an 80-minute class period, so each one can take up to 10 minutes. And not a moment longer! And this includes set-up! (In other words, be warned: if the set-up gets complicated, you'll need to reduce the length of your performance on the spot, in order to make sure that there's time-and-space for all....).

12:55-1:05 hwink, michelle, JD
1:05-1:15 Colleen and MC
1:15-1:25 S.Yeager and dear.abby
1:25-1:35 meowwalex, mbeale, buffalo
1:35-1:45 pejordan, melal, FrigginSushi
1:45-1:55 epeck, sekang, dchin
1:55-2:05 sara, aybala, bluebox
2:05-2:15 rayj, amophrast, w0m'n

And here's what actually happened--thanks, all!

Here's the plan for next Thursday's teach-in. We have five performances scheduled, for an 80-minute class period, so each one can take up to 15 minutes (if needed/wanted). Don't feel that you have to fill the time; we can always spend it talking about what we've done and/or seen one another do...

 9:55-10:10 Alicia
10:10-10:25 KT
10:25-10:40 Aya and froggies315
10:40-10:55 vspaeth, egrumer, dglasser
10:55-11:10 leamirella, kobieta, sterrab

And here are the images of what actually happened!