For this week's posting, I wanted to jump off of a topic that we seemed ready to talk about in class, but ran out of time. On the board when we left was a discussion of the New York Times article, with the names "Butler," "Foucault," and "Barad" listed. While we talked about Butler, I'm also interested in probing into the New York Times article through the diffractive apparatus of Wilchins' summary of Foucault.

In Wilchins' summary of Foucault, I was particularly interested in the idea of dressage: through a fairly grim process of repetition akin to that done by prisoners, we learn to behave and enact gender in a particular, societally accepted way. It seems to me that the therapists are advocating the same position on sexuality: through a dressage of sexuality, people attracted to the same sex (I am purposely refraining from using the words "gay" or "queer" for any idea of community that might annex) may be influenced to behave in a way that is in line with their religious beliefs. In this way, they become prisoners of desire; they must be taught by dogged repetition to be full members of their community by conforming to a "straight" sexual identity, if not a straight sexual orientation.

This is the short video clip I tried to show on Sept 6, but had problems with the sound.  It features Dr. Quantum illustrating another weird feature of quantum particles--how they can be linked over vast reaches of space and how changes in one can affect the other.

Hello, Anne, Kaye, classmates, & web browsers,

Greetings. My name is Joshua. At this particular moment, I’m sitting on my very comfortable bed, very proud of myself for successfully logging onto my account.

I am very much looking forward to this semester with all of you. After reading through “Listening To Understand,” I want to share, briefly, a few swimming thoughts.

I was at first anxious to write my educational autobiography for an audience because, while I do think about the details of my formal and informal schooling often, I don’t usually share these thoughts with others. As always with my written work, I was worried that I would come off in a way that I had not intended, for which reason I opened my writing with a less formal anecdote, though in reading the essay again, I’ve found that I soon after fell into my old formalities that often accompany my writing. When speaking of my writing, my English teacher would often say that it comes across as if I am trying to impress someone, or that it is more or less pretentious, two things that I would not like my readers to feel; I simply do not know how to write in any other way.

Hi Everyone!

My name is Lucy and I am a sophomore at Bryn Mawr.  I am an anthropology major with an undeclared gender and sexuality studies concentration.  I am interested in public health, particularly women’s health.  I wanted to take interdisciplinary perspectives on gender and sexuality because all of the other Gen/Sex classes that I have taken have been anthropology classes and I wanted to learn about gender and sexuality in a different context.  This semester I am also taking anthropology of the body and introduction to biology and I am hoping to see a connection between the three classes.

Hey all,

I'm a senior (yikes!) political science major at Haverford College, and so excited for this class. I love the idea of interdisciplinary courses, and wish the bi-co more fully embraced them. I'm particularly interested in the interception of race and gender, because I think we (as a society) too often get stuck in the bogs of white middle class feminism while unintentionally marginalizing other movements. Other than that, I'm extremely interested in public health as it relates to sex, gender, and identity.