I’ve come to the conclusion — which I shall not be officially sharing with my school — that the comprehensive essays are inefficient for demonstrating comprehension. They are effectively a 50 page essay (not including the title page or Bibliography) in which you discuss the books you choose for a particular subject, such as my…
Happy New Year!! :-D Now that this irritatingly wince-inducing semester of comps is over, I’ve been very much getting into relaxing. As a consequence I’ve also had a few interesting experiences and idle thoughts which I thought I’d write down here. For example, I had two weirdly amusing things happen to me the other day….
I’ve been thinking about it, and I have so very much to be thankful for this year! I’m truly fortunate to be a successful doctoral student who is currently ABD (All But Dissertation). This year is the one where I finish both comprehensive essays (I have two weeks left on the second one), which I…
So yes, this book is one of the most horribly self-righteous homilies on how the poor, emotionally tragically sad, snoogie-woogums-needing men are suffering SO MUCH!! by all that abuse they’re foisting on the women! It’s not that they actually want to dominate or anything, right? — though Gilmore has apparently forgotten some shockingly honest Indian…
Weirdly, Gilmore also seems to be completely blind to any understanding of the concept of “patriarchy,” to the point that he repeatedly enthuses about how there’s no unifying external element in misogyny. But good modern research has shown us that every patriarchal culture we’re aware of mandates the creation of, first: strongly separated gender roles,…
First, an apology for starting two separate posting threads here, and then getting distracted with midterm schoolwork. Now the paper is handed in, I’ll be getting those done soon, I promise. Second, fair warning: this blog entry is going to be a rant — a very ranty rant! — that will get it out of…
A common assumption I’ve frequently read is that the “worst discovery” made by humankind was agriculture, in that it taught men (not humans) the concept of property. The rather androcentric theorizing seems to be that once men conceptualize food as property which can be hoarded away despite the needs of others, it’s invariably a short…
This has been a very strange semester so far, and I’m less than a week in. Amongst other things, my Women & World Religions comps essay prof did another review of my bibliography, and suggested some changes. I found this odd for two reasons: 1) I thought we’d agreed on the official booklist at the…
Ecofeminism is a powerful means to accomplish the goal of a more peaceful, prosperous, and socially just world. Unsurprisingly, entrenched blocks to its implementation exist within the modern social order due to its excesses of hierarchical capitalism and masculinism. Thus one of the most methodologically exciting works of this subsection is an analysis of how…
Just finished a lovely “stay-cation” style weekend in Santa Cruz! Lots of fun bits to comment on, but here are some cute, quick ones: Santa Cruz is so very relaxing and beautiful! We’re such geeks, though. Here we are in the town of sun, surf, and the famous Boardwalk… and we get seduced by the…