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Reflecting On The Contact Zone

onewhowalks's picture

I’m fascinated by my subject. I have been for a long time and I won’t stop soon.  I have a few people that I wanted to/made plans to interview for this project but didn’t get a chance to before presenting, so I plan on going through with those interviews anyways.  Through one of my interviews I was asked to consider writing a column for *the college news*, Bryn Mawr’s feminist newspaper. I want my first one to be about underwear (bras/binders/etc included) at Bryn mawr. There are two style Instagrams at BMC, HepClo and it’s parody account, SchlepClo, but neither of them address the actual implications and very interesting social and historical implications of clothing. The name for my tentative column is Beatrice’s Boudoir Banter. Stay tuned. I’m also considering doing some sort of round table as either a podcast or video. I had did one interview where there ended up being two people present and it was just SO incredible that I want to recreate that. I want to get some of the people I interviewed/want to interview/should interview all together and have us all talk about these things. Like maybe just a conversation about dressing for parties. Or queer marking. Or appropriation. Or underwear/bras at Bryn Mawr.


I think something really incredible about these presentations, and that we got to share them in person, was that it gave me the ability to see directly all the different ways we at BMC meet and engage. The permeable membrane that is our classroom is also the college, as each person each brings something different to the environment.
I’m glad Meaghan and Sasha did theirs on Dining Services pay because, while I had heard about it before in passing (I work at Haffner), I think I’m really feeling the urge to press into that subject more. Something should happen in response to the disparity, and I think something will, but it will take student engagement and vigilance to do so. I look forward to seeing how that discussion manifests itself in our time at Bryn Mawr.