I've been thinking now about Anne's question in class about why we're reading this novel, and I keep going back to the part in the novel where they say that there are only 24 possible plots to write, and they debate whether that is true or not.  I'm starting to think that in a broad sense that may actually be true.  Because I think there really is a limit to what kinds of stories can be told.  I think that the variation comes not from the plot, but from the story.   Similar to how there are multiple stories of evolution, there can be multiple stories for a certain plot line.

Gentech notes 03-16:

-          Re-evaluate how resources are being spent (socially)—ex: $$$$’s spent on 88 year old for surgery—great choice personally. Socially, maybe not so much

  In class today we discussed what Generosity may have evolved from, and sources that may have inspired Powers. It motivated me to explore the origin of the name of the invented college, “Mesquakie College of Art”. Mesquakie is the name of a Native American tribe that settled in the Great Lakes region, and who were forced to leave their homes when European settlers came to the area. These people were displaced in their own homeland, much like Thassa had been when she became a refugee. 

Class notes 3/14

(Sorry if I misspell people’s names!)

We began with course keeping, as usual.

Liz reminded us that: This course is constructed to try to find some interesting intersections. What are the big ideas that connect these four areas? What is the overall road map? What are the connecting ideas?

We divided into smaller groups to discuss the reading, "Moored Metamorphoses: A Retrospective Essay on Feminist Science Studies." By Banu Subramaniam

My group, the Poppies said:

I heard about an opera while listening to OnPoint on NPR that sounds really cool and I just wanted to share the link for it because it's pretty relevant to this class: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/03/07/robot-opera