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Anne Dalke's picture

Week 1: Welcome to "GAS Works"!

Welcome to the course forum area for GAS Works, an interdisciplinary seminar on gender and sexuality being offered @  Bryn Mawr College in Fall 2009. This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to, but I hope you'll come to value it as much as students in other courses have.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is not a place for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts." It's a place for thoughts-in-progress, for what you're thinking (whether you know it or not) on your way to what you think next. Imagine that you're not worrying about "writing" but instead that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking, so you can help them think and they can help you think. The idea is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours.

So who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in our course. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. That's the second thing to keep in mind here. You're writing for yourself, for others in the class, AND for others you might or might not know. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of LOTS of people. The web is giving increasing reality to the idea that there can actually evolve a world community, and you're part of helping to bring that about.

I'm glad to have you along, and hope you'll come both to enjoy and value our shared exploration of gender, sexuality and education.To get started, introduce yourself here by telling us what drew you to this course: what are you looking for? Any initial ideas about how you might be working on trying to get it? Any other thoughts that arose during our first class session....?

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