Some thoughts

I’m sitting here tweaking the web site so that it reflects the themes we hope to address in this course and watching inaugural events.  This is a truly historic moment and it humbles me to have the opportunity to watch this moment.  At the same time, I’m always thinking about where we still need to go.  For me, I still see that much more progress needs to be made, especially in areas related to gender, not just in the straightforward way that I face discrimination as a typical white middle-class woman, but also in places where gender meets race and class and sexuality.  There are so many areas to cover.  We’ve tried to include as much as possible, allowing lots of choice for your specific interests.  Still, we’ll only scratch the surface, but we hope that the material and discussions in this class will lay the foundation for your thinking about the intersections of gender and technology and that you will continue to think about it as you continue your studies and your lives.

Some notes about the site.  We’ll be blogging here (as I am now).  Your papers will be posted here. Information is posted here about the papers and assignments and other aspects of the class. But I have also included images that represent some of our topics.  The banner image at the top is a motherboard from a photographer called Wonderlane.  I like the way it included the partial word “trans” as we’ll be talking about transgender, transexual, transitions, and more, so I thought it was an apt representation both because of the way a “motherboard” is a central computer component and because it hinted at other topics we’ll be exploring.  In the sidebar is a rotating series of images, mostly collected by Anne.  I’m gradually adding more and more images.  We can add yours there too.  We are also pulling interesting articles from a del.icio.us RSS feed.  You can add to this list by saving a bookmark to delicious (instructions here) and adding the tag “genderandtech09.”  We’ll talk more about all this technical stuff as we go along, but you should feel free to jump in at any time.  I’m looking forward to starting tomorrow.