Third Quarter Feedback

1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
i think the biggest connection i’ve seen is the idea of a utopia vs. a dystopia. in the handmaid’s tale, it seems like in order to have a perfect society, humans have to deny themselves of any emotional connection and essentially mechanize themselves into machines. in watchmen, an attempted utopia is only created by wiping out a population of humans. it seems like the idea of a utopia is somehow connected to the idea of blending technology with humanity.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
i think reading the handmaid’s tale was especially interesting and it helped further my understanding of the relations between gender and technology. it was a hypothetical society where women became birthing machines and although it seems extreme and disturbing, it also has some truth in it: for example, women are sometimes seen as solely for reproductive purposes. reading and watching these extreme scenarios helped me understand some of the underlying relations between gender and technology in our own reality.
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 am still happy with having small group work because it helps us flesh out ideas and have discussion more effectively and efficiently.
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)
i don’t really have any suggestions. i’m still getting used to using the blog and if you’re unfamiliar with it, it can just be really confusing sometimes, but that’s not necessarily due to the functionality.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
it’s a little weird for me to post my papers online and receive on-line commentary as well, just because i feel self-conscious about my writing, but it also makes it more informal, which can be nice.