Welcome. This is the blog for GWSS 4403/GLBT 4403. Hopefully it will play a central role in our discussion of and engagement with the material. While only class members (the
professor and the students enrolled in the course) can post new entries, the
blog will be open to the larger public (for reading and commenting).
Having used blogs in my courses for over three years
now (11 blogs total), I am slowing discovering how valuable they can be for:
- Developing community
between students
- Enabling students to engage
with the material and each other in different ways
- Encouraging students to
really think about and process the ideas
- Helping all of us to
organize our thoughts and ideas
- Providing a central
location for posting information and handouts
- Allowing for a space
outside of the classroom for engaging with the readings and each other
But blogs aren't just
useful for creating connections between students (or teacher and students or
students and other communities). I spent the summer writing in my own blog,
Trouble, and I discovered that blog writing can make you (the writer) a better
writer and thinker. This is especially true if you write in your blog on a
regular basis. I wrote every couple of days this summer and I found that by the
end of August my critical thinking skills were in much better shape then when I
started in May. I also found that my understanding of my chosen
term--trouble--had grown deeper and richer over the summer as I creatively
explored different ways in which to engage with it.
Writing in a blog
alleviated a lot of my anxiety about "serious" writing; somehow posting an
entry didn't seem as intimidating as writing a formal manuscript. Writing in a
blog also encouraged me to make new connections between ideas in unexpected
ways. I found myself applying theoretical/political concepts like Michel
Foucault's notion of curiosity or Judith Butler's notion of gender trouble to children's
movies (Horton Hears a Who) and
television shows (Hannah Montana).
Not only did this experience allow me to reflect on these concepts but it also
helped me to really understand them as I worked to translate them into more
accessible language. For more on how/why I wrote in my blog, check out my about pages here and here.
It is my hope that the
experience of writing in our course blog will enable you to develop your
critical thinking skills and enhance your understanding of queer and queering
theory. It is also my hope that writing in our blog will inspire you to keep
writing and thinking and questioning and connecting.
