sigelphoenix

When faced with the combined foes of nearly-expired milk, nearly-expired yogurt, and nearly-gone (i.e., very dry) nectarines, our intrepid heroine defeated them simultaneously with the brilliant maneuver of throwing them all in the blender for a delicious smoothie. (If you freeze the yogurt beforehand, it makes it deliciously thick.) When life hands you lemons, and all that. Though I suppose the implementation of that particular aphorism is intended to be more metaphorical than that.

Anyway.

I've survived the first week of classes, even though it was technically a half-week, and even shorter because I have nothing on Fridays (three-day weekends, w00t). They look good - I'm taking all small seminar/special topics-type courses, so I look forward to the discussion.


My first class, a Women Studies class called "Feminist Understandings of Victims," has less than ten people in it. :o I chose it because the idea of "victim" is so intriguing and problematic - how do you acknowledge that someone has been the victim of a wrong without making them into an object who lacks any agency? Privilege comes into play here; how do men try to help women, or white people help POCs, or Western feminists help non-Western feminists, without being condescending "saviors" of poor "victims"? We had a brief introductory conversation about this in class, and it felt promising.

I'm also taking an English seminar, which is the final requirement for my English degree. The topic is visual culture, and how what we see in our mediated age affects us - our identity, power, etc. The professor taught a course I took a couple of years ago, and I've remembered her as being very perceptive in the way she taught literature as a product of cultural/historical context - not as if outside events determined every aspect of the writing, but rather that they provide a setting that the writer responds to. So I'm hopeful that she will incorporate issues of race and gender into her analysis, and that I might be able to steal some ideas for my thesis.

My last class is a Philosophy course that zinjadu recommended to me, called "Global Justice." Unfortunately I didn't meet the professor she likes; he was out of town and I only met the professor who is co-teaching the course. Oh, it'll be good to get into philosophy again.



Although ... it was a bit disorienting, but very interesting, to get back into this kind of theory after so long studying the nitty-gritty practical applications. I can understand why so many anti-oppression activists have issues with academics; academic study is always done at a certain distance from the "real world," because we're poking at the theoretical and abstract. To people who are living the conditions that we're studying, who are suffering from the injustices that we're calmly debating about, the way we sit around and mess with jargon and formal arguments could feel pedantic, or even dismissive of their plight.

I know I've felt that way with men who just want to "step back and consider" issues of sexism, or white people who say that about racism. I can only imagine how I come off, a wealthy person from the United States, when I say anything about globalism or capitalism.

Of course, theory is necessary, just as practical activism is. It gives us guidance, and an ultimate goal to aim for. This issue was raised in my feminist theory class last year; it's important to strike a balance so that we don't spend all our energies without a guide, but at the same time aren't lost in books and abstract ideas.

But how do we do that? Well, I didn't say I had any easy answers. :P


And now to see if I can get off my lazy butt and take care of some of this homework ...