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GIST
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Welcome to "GIST": A Course about Gender, Information, Science and Technology, offered in Spring 2011 @ Bryn Mawr College. This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to. 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.
We're glad you're here, and hope you'll come both to enjoy and value our shared imagining of the future evolution of ourselves as individuals and of our gendered, scientific, technological world. Feel free to comment on any post below, or to POST YOUR THOUGHTS HERE....
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Class notes - 3/28
Barad
Questions:
· Is she convincing? Is her contribution significant?
· How is her work feminist science studies?
TiffanyE: If quantum particle behavior is mirrored/upscaled in the real world, is anything objective? Results are shaped by the cut, so are they always varying?
· For example, if the decision to classify things/create a binary is equivalent to making a ‘cut’ both are subjective.
![Hillary G's picture Hillary G's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-790.jpg)
Metaphysics and Humanists
Although I have never been especially adept at physics, I found myself very intrigued by Liz’s lecture on metaphysics in class last week. The article and subsequent lecture got me thinking about the possibilities and limitations of quantum mechanics, and who else should be concerned with the topic.
![kelliott's picture kelliott's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-864.jpg)
That Sound of What is Silence
I found Tian's presentation on information and musical notation to be incredibly intriguing. I have to admit, beginning the class with John Cage's 4'33" was a little awkward. I thought this "performance" would involve "performing"--I didn't think he would simply stand in front of the class. However, I came to realize I was naively approaching and defining what it is to "perform" and what it means to "listen." After a few minutes of silence, Tian asked the class, "What did you hear?" What did I hear?? Was this a trick question? I heard the cars passing by, I heard the hum of the projector... To my surprise, it turns out Cage's Four Minutes Thirty-Three is one of his most famous musical compositions--the catch, it involves no music.
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
Plans for the next set of panels
We are asking each panel member, of each panel of 9,
to prepare a 3-minute mini-presentation ahead of time,
in which you will introduce yourself,
tell us what group you are representing,
why this group is of interest to GIST,
and how the intersections embedded in GIST have affected your group.
We are asking all 19 audience members to review the list of panelists ahead of time, to come ready w/ some more directed questions to explore more deeply the significance of the groups and their inter-actions, intra-actions and experiences with GIST.
![vgaffney's picture vgaffney's picture](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/bfc843972a4d87fb522edaa00ba14a61.jpg?d=https%3A%2F%2Fserendipstudio.org%2Fexchange%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FSerendipStudioAvatar.png&s=85&r=G)
Entanglement
In discussing her view of quantum entanglement, Barad reviews Einstein and Bohr’s understandings of objectivity. Einstein argued that there must be separability between the observer and the observed in order for there to be objectivity. Bohr, on the other hand, argues that the observer and the observed can be entangled because what matters for objectivity is that the object being measured leaves “unambiguous” and “reproducible” marks for the observer. Barad draws from Bohr’s understanding of objectivity and concludes that the human observer is not separate from the phenomenon he/she observes, but entangled with the object of observation. The human “seeks to understand the emergence of the ‘human’ along with all other physical systems”.
![leamirella's picture leamirella's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-855.jpg)
Musical Notation
I tried to fit this in somewhere in my post because I thought it was a cool example of musical notation but I couldn't think of where to put it.
![Apocalipsis's picture Apocalipsis's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-836.jpg)
Wanna do a Group Webpaper?
So, I said a plug for my project in class on Wednesday, but I'm posting it here so y'all can get more info. I am writing a short drama piece/ play for my second webpaper. The play will also function as a skit for the panels. If anyone is interested in developing the characters and/ or skit with me, it can count as a group webpaper. If you are interested in performing one of the characters, then that is cool as well (it just won't count as part of your webpaper). The play outline is listed below.
"A GIST DISASTER"
CHARACTERS
![Hilary_Brashear's picture Hilary_Brashear's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-863.jpg)
Response to Professor Tian's Class
When Professor Tian showed us the earlier forms of music notation with the neums next to to the more modern form with five staffs, I was once again reminded of Haraway. The modern version of notation was an abstraction of the earlier writing into different components. Rather than have all the markings around four staff lines the modern version had three sets of staff lines to indicate different information. It was much more compartmentalized for the sake of clarity. I wonder what Haraway would say about our more modern version of music notation that has created boundaries. Would she be more supportive of the earlier notations where all the information mixed together?
![tangerines's picture tangerines's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-831.gif)
The Sound of Silence (is Music)
I found our class today with Tian fascinating because it connected to several other ideas. The John Cage piece, Tian sampled for us, 4’ 3”, reminded me of our earlier class when we listened to a noise band and questioned the definition of information. Now, however, I question the definition of music. I love the idea that even silence has a sound (or that there is no such thing as silence…). If this is true, then silence can create music just as noise does. This train of thought reminded me of an article I read a few months ago on Sean Forbes (http://deafandloud.com/biography.html), a deaf rapper.
![leamirella's picture leamirella's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-855.jpg)
Class Notes: 23 March 2011.
Notes for 23 March
Coursekeeping
By 5pm Friday, post the culture that you will be representing for the panel next week on the stickynote. (Note that this deadline is earlier than the midnight deadline for the regular posts.)
We will also be responding to the questions that were raised at the end of class on Monday by Apocalipsis and Tangerines.
(Apocalipsis: Why do we need to know the science behind Barad? Tangerines: Why is this important? Isn't this relevent to just particle physicists?)
![spreston's picture spreston's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-867.jpg)
Is Noise Music?
A topic that came up in today's class with Tian that really interested me is the difference between noise and music. At the beginning of class, when he performed by standing in silence to show us that in Cage's (I think that was the composer's name?) view, all noise can create music. This idea was further explored when we sang the raindrop song, a kind of song that can never be repeated exactly as it was sung before. Both of these examples brought me back to a book from my Politics of Music class.
![anonymous123's picture anonymous123's picture](/exchange//files/images/SerendipStudioAvatar.png)
Objectivity in science and the physical world
After class on Monday, I started thinking more about whether objectivity is possible in the physical world. The video we watched on Dr. Quantum and how particles react differently when being observed made me wonder if the behavior of the particles mirror the real world. Perhaps the way in which the world as we know it is actually classified by those who control information, despite what the actual fact of the matter is. When we discussed gender earlier in the course, we talked about how classifications are restricting. Perhaps these classifications, like many other classifications we use, actually mirror the views of those who create the classifications, and are subjective rather than objective.
![anonymous123's picture anonymous123's picture](/exchange//files/images/SerendipStudioAvatar.png)
Class Notes 3/21/11
GIST Notes
Panel feedback, what worked, what didn’t:
more interactive
more dialogue
more time
For Monday:
Come to class ready to speak about collective practices we have not explored together
Speaking for a group as though you are studying this group i.e. an anthropologist or sociologists
How does this group engage with science
Possible groups include: post op transsexuals, doctors without boarders, car makers, scientists studying climate change, emergency responders, first group of hominids to use tools, midwives, etc.
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
On speaking "for"
By 5 p.m. on Friday, post as a comment here a description of the culture you will speak "for" during next week's panels: a group whose lives or work circumstances shaped, or were impacted by, an interesting intra-action of science w/ one of our other three categories: gender, information, or technology. (For a list of possibilities we brainstormed on Monday, see kgould's class notes--thanks, k!) In your post, describe the group for whom you will speak: when did they flourish, where did they flourish, and in what context? Who was their constituency, or audience? Why do they matter?
![Amophrast's picture Amophrast's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-856.jpg)
Panel 2.0: Speak for a Group
In an effort to do this before I forget...
For the next panel, the group I want to study is.... LIBRARIANS! Do you all think this works? I'm not sure in exactly which way I should be looking at this, because it is very flexible. The degree for someone wanting to go into the library field is called the MLIS: Master in Library and Information Science, but you can also get an MSLIS: Master of Science in Library and Information Science. Whoa. So that should be both science and information right there, right? But not only that, it's the science of information.
But from there, I could also look at librarians and gender. I'm thinking along the lines of....
![kgould's picture kgould's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-228.jpg)
Quantum Physics, Reality, and The Matrix
This video thoroughly freaked me out when I found it about a year ago. I thought I would share it now, since it seems applicable to Barad and what we're talking about in class.
Gotta love the mindfuck.
![Hillary G's picture Hillary G's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-790.jpg)
Feminist Science Studies: Questions of Necessity
I am admittedly kind of divided on the subject of feminist science studies. On the one hand, I love the idea of combining the sciences and the humanities (as I have been trying to figure out a career path that combines the two). There is definitely a place in the sciences for an examination of women’s role in developing the scientific field. We have been kept out of the highest positions in science for too long, and I admire those who are fighting to change that reality.
![Hilary_Brashear's picture Hilary_Brashear's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-863.jpg)
Questions about Feminist Science Studies
Upon reflecting on the field of feminist science studies I began to think about the aim or goal of developing this new field. Would this field investigate and try to determine how much of who we are depends on social factors and how much on biological factors? Will it try to understand the complexities of the body and biology with a greater recognition to the social factors that affect scientific interpretation? Subramaniam and Barad are both asking for a new way to structure how we generate knowledge, how we learn and think which could potentially lead to changes in how we educate. In addition to changing the education system I began to wonder if/how the research from this field could be used politically?