Mid-Semester Course Evaluation --> And Planning for the Remainder

I love the use of digital media in class. I feel as though using digital media in classrooms half-heartedly by professors has negative effects on classroom (tedious extra work, that isn’t used constructively) verses how it is used in our class, where our postings directly influence the trajectory of classroom conversation. It also allows, almost effortlessly, for the student to take the class outside the physical room, to draw on personal experiences and make connections to shape their perceptions of classroom material and discussion. Despite the specific nature of how class time is spent, the supposed “directive-ness” that is associated with phallocentric language and patriarchal oppression,  I believe the classroom environment which includes usage of digital media allows the classroom to becomes a more inclusive, open, “feminist” environment. Along the same vein, I also love the use of multi-media, which helps me and other students to feel the interconnectivity and relevance of our studies to everything.

I do like smaller groups- because I feel as though it creates an opportunity to hear things that may otherwise have not been said during normal class discussion. However, I don’t know how much I like how little time we have during the discussion or how little time we have after the small discussion to reconvene in a larger discussion group. Sometimes I wish I had more time to process discussion, but I also understand we only have a limited amount of time to do everything.

One text and author I would definitely like to look at is Alice Walker’s essay “In search of our mother’s gardens.” I feel like this will give us a chance to have a more in depth look at black feminist movement, as a separate category from the conventional white middle class woman feminist. Also continues the study of tradition in womanhood, of collective stories that we adopt from our parents; Many of Alice Walkers stories, she realizes later in her life, where her mothers stories continued. We are as much the keepers of our parents journey as we are the physical continuations of are our parents. I think this theme is particularly relevant to the things we have already studied.

Something else I think would be interesting to look at would be a comic book called the 99. The author recently came to Haverford and gave a lecture. The comics are secular but based on the 99 principles of Islam. The author created the series because he was worried about the negative images the American media presents of Islam that his children were internalizing and perceiving. The author believes the only way to form understanding between two cultures (to bridge the gap between the normal and “the other”) is through arts and culture, things such as graphic novels. These are the things that everyone participates in, in some form; whether it is through art, music, film, writing or dance. Any form of expression serves as a social connecter. Politics and academia are too exclusive, so much so that significant cultural voices are often forgotten and never considered. I think it would be interesting to consider whether this idea would this be a “feminist effort?” – to reimagine a more inclusive Islam, not the Islam religion that is presented by the American media.

I also hope that we can reach an even broader range of global texts later in the semester but I am not sure what this would include or what it would look like.

I enjoy the atmosphere that has been cultivated in our classroom. It feels comfortable and I feel comfortable contributing to it, for the most part. I like how we begin Tuesdays with a look back to the previous week through our posts and then move on according to the outline on Serendip. I really like that the lesson is outlined and also visible, especially in class. Sometimes we move quickly through ideas, theories for example, and it helps to see those ideas in print. However, I do find the practice of not raising hands more anxiety-producing than I do liberating. I understand that this is supposed to make the discussion feel more like a genuine discussion, just a back-and-forth exchange of ideas--and I see its value--but for me, because I need a few seconds to organize my thoughts before I speak, this can be counterproductive. By the time that I'm ready to speak, someone else has already begun speaking, who is then followed by another person, and then I find myself waiting for the end of that person's sentence so that I can jump in rather than actually giving her words the attention they deserve. That I am not comfortable with not raising hands may just be because I am too accustomed to the opposite or because I like structure in everything, even something like this, but I wonder how allowing hand raising would change the atmosphere of our classroom. Would it really be so negative?

Turning from form to content, I would like to explore forms of feminism that are not Western. I enjoyed reading Perseopolis and thinking about nonwhite feminism through that text and I think it would be useful to do more of that kind of thinking. While I would be interested in exploring the feminisms of any group, I would be particularly interested in exploring East Asian feminism. Admittedly, I have a personal interest in this, which I was reminded of when reading "The Book of Salt". There is something very powerful about seeing yourself in a text. Although Binh is Vietnamese, male, and living a completely different life than I do, I could relate to him in ways that I have not been able to do with many of the Eurocentric texts I have read. Furthermore, and on a much less personal level, it is important to explore what feminism looks like in other places because it helps us think about our own relatively privileged subject positions--are we Woolf/in danger of becoming her, examining and proposing solutions as insiders to those who are outsiders? Moreover, I can't stop thinking about the last line of the video that Elana posted, "Why is this video sh*t white feminists say? Because we do not purport to know or even begin to understand the idiosyncratic experiences of feminists of color." This is a statement worth unpacking.

I’m still struggling with the format of this class, with how unstructured the discussions can get and the online postings -despite the struggling I want to adjust because this is a new form for me! Even though you (Anne) provide quotes and some structure in the online notes for class, the discussions still stray and sometimes it is hard for me to keep up. I think this is more of a personal issue of needing to get used to the possibility of the discussions going anywhere. As for the online postings, I like that we have freedom to post anything that interests us, but sometimes I wish there was a more centered discussion to perhaps get more in depth in one topic-but as I said I think this is just a style I’m not used to so I’ll be interested to see how I’ll continue to react. I don’t want to bring the class down a level, but maybe focusing on fewer topics or aspects of the work were doing in class could be beneficial to help get into more depth that I can understand instead of jumping around; I think the course is purposely designed to give us a lot of freedom in both class and online, but sometimes this confuses me. I would like to work more in small groups because although the class has a very informal tone with no hand raising, I still feel intimidated talking in front of the whole group- so I really enjoyed it when we broke off into smaller units.

I like that we’re getting so many different perspectives on feminism, and that we haven’t focused on putting a definition to the word. I want more information on how to tell if a text is feminist, I know we’ve working towards uncovering all the meanings of what makes a work feminist, but I am still so unsure of what that means. I’d like to continue the trend of having all different types of works, and I’d like us to read a feminist autobiography, perhaps dealing with Islam. I’m interested in feminism’s connection with Islam, so I’d like to explore works, both films, novels, and autobiographies. I’d also like to look more at feminism’s connection to sex work. As for works we’ve done I really liked goblin marker, Persepolis, breast giver, and the book of salt. I struggled with/did not like three women’s texts, three guineas, lifting belly. I’m confused as to why we did born into brothels; it was very enjoyable, but I’m still not sure how it’s feminist. 

I think it would be interesting to see some of the things written by women who are considered prominent voices today but in a very "different" way - the voices of women like Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin. . . but then I am not sure if it would be too much to untangle and too politically based.

I just really like going along with what we have already been doing, and hearing different perspectives from a variety of different angles and being able to discuss how these are all part of the broad term "feminism". I enjoyed watching Born Into Brothels, and enjoy having various mediums of work (film, essay, novel) to analyze and discuss. I love working with fiction and would like to see more of this in our coursework...A random thing crossed my mind, when I was younger I read Ophelia Speaks, a response to the book, Reviving Ophelia, (a book that poses the question: Why are American adolescent girls falling prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and dangerously low self-esteem?) and found the short essays written by other adolescent girls very interesting. Even though these were both bestselling novels, I wonder how inclusive they are able to be and if they are trying to answer this almost unanswerable question in the right way.

I am so far very much enjoying Critical Feminist Studies.  This course is very different from what I am used to experiencing topic-wise and pedagogy-wise.  Prior to this course, I did not take any courses pertaining to feminism.  I really appreciate how much I've learned so far and I am eager to add more to my own definition of feminism.  I also really like how the class is conducted, particularly, the web-events and online postings.  I feel as though I write more comfortably and am bolder with my ideas since the internet is less formal than a traditional essay format.  I like that the class focuses on a qualitative approach and not as much on a grade oriented approach.  I do feel that this makes me lazy sometimes.  I am guilty of posting later than Sunday 5 pm on several occasions.  But, I do appreciate that it pushes me to do postings and think critically on my own accord instead of by the teacher's request.  I think adding more smaller group discussions could be an improvement to the class.  It can allow for students to speak their minds more freely.  I am more of a vocal thinker so this might be more a selfish request.  I think and process as I speak

 I really want to learn more about how men fit into feminism.  Do men have a place in feminism?  Is there feminism that address men?  How can men help?  I also want to learn more about feminism from different cultures.  While The Book of Salt and Born Into Brothels do have some different cultural aspects, I want to see how feminism is viewed in other countries.  What is feminism in Asia? Africa?  Other than that, I am eager to learn really anything.

Without almost any knowledge and concept about feminism, I felt quite uncomfortable when I first sat in the classroom. But as we spend more and more time together and get to know each other better, I feel myself really enjoy what we are doing so far. I really like the way we study about feminism: rather than trying to define the word or figure out what it is, we are more interested in interpreting and capturing it from multiple threads that come out of readings and discussions. I think this learning in such a multidimensional way makes me more open minded and think about issues relate to feminism more critically. I’m especially glad to see that instead of only making our own weekly postings, people are willing to read others’ postings and to interact with each other, which extends our conversations and thinking to outside of classroom.  

However, sometimes I do feel overwhelmed about so much information and so many different perspectives that I received. All threads related to our topic are entangled with one another, making it hard for me to figure out the structure of our class (or, do we need a structure?..). There were times that we deviated from the initial question that we wanted to explore because someone said something controversial, which I think makes our discussions ineffective in a way. If there is something that we might change up, I guess is the fact that we don’t really have clear ‘layers’ within our class throughout the whole semester. If we can wrap up things we’ve already learned and discussed, tightened our circle a bit and try to figure out a theme for each class (or every two classes/wk), it may help us get a clear sense of what we’d better focus on, both in our in class discussions and online forum.

As for what we are going to explore in the following weeks, I would like to recommend The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.  Both of the two books, with focus on Chinese American immigrant families, show us how women perform when facing with the collision and mesh of Chinese culture and American culture.

The Joy Luck Club tells stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. The mothers, as first-generation immigrants, still firmly hold traditional Chinese values. The daughters born in the United States, although similar with their mothers in appearance, are influenced by American culture and therefore develop totally different values with their mothers. Through conflicts happened between the mothers, we can see their struggles with identities and their deep love for each other. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother describes the efforts made by the author, both as a decedent of Chinese immigrants and a mother of two girls, to give her children what she describes as a traditional, strict “Chinese” upbringing. Noticing that many of us have expressed concerns about being a successful working mom in the future, I think this book will offer us a new way to understand motherhood and definition of successful family education.

Personally, I feel like the weeks we've gone through together have been fun. I always expect decoding the reading peice by peice, but I'm always surprised by where our discussions take us. In some ways, I think it's really interesting to see the stuff that we can pull out from texts and even general themes that appear in our texts. One theme in the book assigned could lead our discussion to totally different areas which is not what I'm used to for English-type courses (i.e. I'm used to a lot of close-reading)

Most of our discussions sort of hit a brick wall when you ask us "so how is this a feminist text?". I still don't feel like I have a handle on what feminism is. I know it's completely subjective to different people, and my idea of feminism is a) pretty elementary and b) distorted/molded by my own experiences. Getting a hold of feminist theory is important to me, because it really sets a foundation to build on. It's hard to talk about a text when you're not sure what your suppose to be looking for. And maybe that's the point.

I know in the notes for discussion, you'll often put quotes from theorist about feminism. I'd actually like to read some of that for the course and deconstruct it in class. I think if this course is kind of considered the 101 of feminism, we should start (or in this case, continue) with feminist theorist.

I really like the way we're heading so far though. Hearing different voices (ethnically, economically, etc) is something I feel is essential to understanding feminism.

I feel kind of ok about how this semester has gone thus far, although I think I tend to be overly harsh for a few reasons, most of which center about woman-centered language and an unfamiliarity with ideas and texts that I take for granted as true or right or none of that language is what I'm trying to say and I recognize my own privilege and that I am being elitist and not openminded when I voice a desire to have everyone know and understand the things I have read in the way I have done so. So I think that it is more my own problem and an issue of perspective that I need to just deal with. Ideologically, I want to have a lot of voices coming from various perspectives and disciplines and histories of texts or ideas or thoughts, but in practice, I am less than patient and get frustrated with those who are at a different place than I am in their understanding of feminism.

I wish we tightened our circle a bit, phsycially, in the classroom space. I think it increases a sense of obligation and accountability to classmates in terms of doing the work, being a part of the class, which I don't necessarily think is a problem in our class, but I do feel a bit distant from my classmates (again, this is also most likely part of my own distancing from my classmates, so I just think being a bit closer, physically, might help that. Or maybe that's not even possible in that space. Also, I want to have a conversation but I feel like maybe not everyone is comfortable being so conversational in the classroom setting and I don't know how that can be changed.

In terms of content, I would like more emphasis on the queer, as well as on that which is social justice-oriented. I'm not entirely sure what that might look like, but I think more theory-into-practice work or, well to say that is to say that fiction is not practical, and I don't necessarily think that's true.

I brought up Reassemblage in class last week, which is a documentary film by Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh Minh Ha. It seems feminist to me, in the way its gaze is not directed as much as other pieces in the same genre. I would like to look more at film and video art, or at performance art. DivaTV was a feminist art collective that might be interesting to look at, in terms of thinking about new ways of using media for feminism, as feminists. There has been some good work done by artists who challenge normalized modes of production or presentation.

Also potentially not only looking at women as necessarily feminist artists, or feminists of any kind. And that men are equally subject to be/not be feminists. And that there are people who are neither male nor female or both who are feminists, who are not feminists, who want to be or don't want to be feminists for more reasons we can account for and I'm not sure the importance of me stating these things just that they are important and maybe we can deal with what to do about it in class if people are interested.

I think that the way the class functions works well. I find the workload manageable, and the content generally interesting and relevant. Well, anything can be relevant if looked at in the right way. I feel like the Book of Salt discussion could have been extended, just because there were big questions we were asked. Maybe we would have come up with more ideas in small groups? It's a very dense book, so it may require more thought. Lifting Belly and Canzone were good introductions to Book of Salt, but I felt that Born into Brothels was irrelevant. It was not a feminist film, at least not enough for us, and I was disappointed with the movie for offering such a restricted point of view and not very much information.

Back to the beginning, Goblin Market was wonderful. I was not fond of Three Guineas because it was difficult to read and very...British. It gave us a lot to think about, though.  Persepolis was interesting, both in its content and its medium. Breast Giver and Three Womens' Texts I did not find very enthralling, mostly because it didn't "click" with me.

For the rest of the semester, I'd like to see more. I'd especially like to define feminism in context and see how things (society, institutions) can be changed to be more inclusive. One thing we didn't see much of (besides in Born into Brothels) are sex workers, I'd be interested in a discussion on how feminism and sex work interact. Another option is women in film, since movies and television are incredibly influential, especially to young people. (I recently found out that the biggest opening for a movie directed by a woman was Twilight...that seems wrong to me, since the movie's about an abusive relationship.) I'd also be interested in how children pick up the non-feminist ideals that keep the discrimination going. Children are very important to me, because childhood is where everything starts. One book I wanted to mention is one that I happened to find in Canaday called Feminist Fairy Tales by Barbara G. Walker who, according to wikipedia, is an author, feminist, and knitting expert. I've read it twice, it's an interesting intepretation. I prefer most of the stories to the original patriarchal ones I was told as a child.

Like you said in class, I'm here to learn. I don't know what it is that I don't know, so these are the best suggestions I have.