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We started discussion by reflecting mroe on Paris is Burning, Judith Butler and gender as a performance, in which it was said that "What you're doing is just an imitation of a idealogy." Besdides gender performance the idea of "realness" that was brought up in Paris is Burning came up again.

Then the question of "color blindness" came up, startingn with Patricia Williams story about her son's alleged visual problems, where "anxiety is redifined as deficiency". The question or eradication racial/ethnic categories lead to the idea of eradicating gender/sexuality categories and the class was asked to ponder what is more "ideal": Color and Gender Blind or the Multiplication of Identities. Then we came up with several ideas and problems with making "categories" more palatable. Making these categories "stereotype blind", loss of categories means a loss of cultural diffferences and differences can't be ignored, et cetera et cetera.

Moving on...

Discussion moved on to Canon Formation.

This convo started with virtual "conversation" between Ingrid and Jessy. Should a canon be "a foundation" or a compass? If it's a foundation, how far back do we go? Could it a cross disciplanary?

Then it went to the question of why is a canon so important. It's a weapon and a comfort. Then we questioned the stabilty of a canon. Is is set in stonne or is it "a living and breathing canon"? And we came up with two goals of a canon: 1) Thinking for yourself (2) Being succesfull in debate, "cultural capital".

Then we related womanism to canon formation. Is the womanist creation of their own category and canon counter procuctive? Is a step toward rebuilding "the canon" ? Can a canon become too personal, does it go against the definition of a canon?

FIRE DRILL

The idea of creating personal and categorical canons linked back the discussion of eradication of categories in general. Does inclusion mean eradication differeneces or embracing them?

* My favorite quote from discussion