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I began the course excited to see how far I would be able to push the boundaries of my knowledge about gender and sexuality studies but I was a little bit concerned that the class was to meet only once a week and at night. Seeing as I had never participated in a course that was like this, I was a bit nervous that I would not be able to keep track of everything that was going on in the class and that the conversations would not flow as well as I was accustomed to.

At the end of the course, I still feel the same way about many of my assumptions about the course. Given its entangled nature, I felt that I definitely valorised the two and a half hours we spent as a group once a week. I found it difficult to keep my thoughts flowing because of the large gaps between classes and as a result, I found that this was the biggest factor in keeping me from learning as much as I could. Although I am a fan of Serendip and appreciate how conversations can go on outside of the classroom in the ‘virtual’ world, I found that it just was not the same as meeting each other face to face. Though this was the case, I did find myself talking to others in the group about the subject material and this was a nice way to keep myself participating. This drawback was definitely a personal thing however, I have heard of others that liked the once a week meetings and online discussions.

Something that I have learned from my second class with Anne though, is my frustration with online ‘webevents’ rather than traditional papers. While I am excited about exploring new ways to write academic papers, I did come across many difficulties. I still haven’t really discovered what the most effective way of presenting certain types of information is nor have I been able to gain new technical skills. I’m all for alternate ‘webpapers’ but I would have liked a little bit more support. In the spirit of writing litanies: “I am over spending the majority of my time trying to make a certain program work so that I can create a webevent. I commit to asking for more support as well as figuring out how to use certain programs well ahead of time and thinking of better ways to present my text”.

That said, I did think that the range of texts that we read for the course were excellent and that the lenses that we used to diffract them proved to force me to look at the field in a wider sense. Additionally, the course structure was clear and I am glad that the material was separated out in that way – it definitely allowed me to consider things that I had never considered before and it helped pushed my thinking. However, it would have also been nice to go into the readings with at least a vague idea of what we were supposed to look at – I realized later on that the course had many readings that were a little bit ‘out there’ but I oftentimes found myself a little confused about where I was supposed to start.

 I was not the biggest fan of the biology section as I was unsure why it was really necessary to read so much for that section. I do admit, however, that I am not a biology (or a science really) person and it proved to be tedious. I see the importance of its inclusion in the course but I wasn’t sure if it was really necessary to read so many empirical studies without a clear enough focus. All said, it might just be because I’m diffracting it from the lens of someone who almost failed high school because the subject. I’m still a little sore.

In terms of the other sections of the course, I really liked diffracting gender through the lens of disability studies because it was not a natural move that I would have made in my own work. It was very enlightening and helped explain certain concepts better. I particularly enjoyed reading Eli Clare as the book gave a lot of insight into how the two seemingly different topics could link.  The section on activism was of interest to me because I was not expecting to consider actual ‘right relationships’ and assumed that we were going to look more at the different movements and organizations related to gender and sexuality. I’m glad we didn’t because I took way more out of the analysis of the right relationship itself rather than how people have been trying to build them

A big issue that I did have in terms with course material was that I do not think that we did not look at Judith Butler enough. Given that she was on campus, it seemed rather odd that the core course in the gender and sexuality program did not focus more time on her work. It would have also been great if we talked more about her lectures as well in class rather than just limit them to online discussions.

All of that said, what I did really like about the class was the welcoming atmosphere it seemed to have. Never did I once feel that I was not allowed to express my opinions or ideas and it was interesting to learn about all of the different things that my peers were specifically interested in.  Though I felt that some people did have stronger voices in the class (a natural occurrence), I really enjoyed the breakout discussions because I thought that they were a great time to let everyone have a say in what we were discussing.

In terms of where I am now, I feel that I have gained a lot from the course. Armed with new methods of diffracting the same issue, I think that I have definitely come a long way. I have also become more comfortable with using the words ‘entanglement’ and ‘diffraction’ – a feat considering that I was still unsure about what they meant at the beginning of the class even if I had previously looked at Barad.  Though I did have a couple of issues with the fact that the class was a once a week night class, I do think that I took a good amount from it and I am excited to apply my newly acquired knowledge elsewhere. (My independent major proposal perhaps?)