3rd Quarter Feedback

1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?

In every one of the media we looked at, a society is featured that is utopic in appearance, but otherwise is a dystopia for those trapped within it. I felt that this was interesting, because it almost implies that the workings or combinations of gender/humanity and technology lead ultimately to dystopia. I’m not entirely sure that should be the message of this section…

I’ve also noticed that with some works, the question of keeping “true to the source” is often less important than making a movie that will sell in Hollywood. As a result, the roles of women and men tend towards the more stereotypical.

2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?

As noted above, I feel that just looking at the examples we watched or read in class, we can infer that many people believe that the influence of technology is destructive, especially when it is closely linked to humans.

3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?

I have enjoyed the small groups, because I feel that often in a large group discussion (or even with the panels) that people get lost in the conversation, and therefore not everyone can speak. I do feel that meeting in small groups and then forming back into the whole class to discuss the conclusions is important, though.

4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)

The organizing of pictures around words is especially difficult when trying to include a caption along with a picture. Other than these issues with resizing and moving (which are more an annoyance than a problem), I’ve enjoyed using WordPress.

5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?

It’s very satisfying to post papers and have them be right there for easy access. I’ve really enjoyed the online feedback, and the fact that my friends who are interested in these topics can read mine and others’ papers.