MA & PhD programs

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Delighted dissertation details!

Just got off the phone with the professor who is my Comps Supervisor (which is explained in the second paragraph here) for this semester, and I am so excited! As I’ve previously mentioned (in part 4 of the review of The End of Men) I’d been worried that my tentative dissertation subject was already obsolete….

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“The End of Men: & the Rise of Women” by H. Rosin, part 4

Talking with male friends, the general consensus I hear seems to be that manhood is more about taking care of yourself so others do not have to do it for you, and then meeting all your other obligations as well – to family, to society, to work, and so on. What most strikes me about…

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“The End of Men: & the Rise of Women” by H. Rosin, part 3

What’s even more weirdly interesting is that we’ve seen this sort of social upheaval in gender roles happen before — though we didn’t recognize it at the time – in the inner city black communities. It started in the 1970s as manufacturing started closing the inner city factories, and then too, “the men who lived…

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“The End of Men: & the Rise of Women” by H. Rosin, part 2

Why did I find this book so disturbing? In some ways I completely agree with the author: “the picture emerging is a mirror image of the traditional gender map: men and [economic] markets on the side of the irrational and overemotional, and women on the side of the cool and levelheaded” (166; italics mine). If…

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“The End of Men: & the Rise of Women” by H. Rosin, part 1

Required classes are over for me now — apparently I am now officially EBTD (Everything But The Dissertation) or ABD (All But Dissertation), depending on who you ask. Lucky me — as if I didn’t have enough alphabet soup after my name already! Let’s see, just off the top of my head, I can currently…

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Soft pleasures that come on little cat feet

Thinking of yesterday’s wonderfully sensuous embodiment… As I was getting dressed the other morning, something lightly tickled against my hip. Since I’ve been letting my hair grow, I’ve gotten used to the delicate sensation of the occasional shed hair falling, so without thinking I absently brushed away the tickle. For the first time when doing…

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Deepening thoughts on Griffin, women, & Nature

I’ve had another professor write to me about the Ecofeminism independent study class I took last semester. Her comments were regarding my review of Griffin’s Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. Thinking back now, I absolutely loved how Griffin connected women with nature. I remember quiet tears rolling down my cheeks as I read…

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Self-encouragement!

Is it just me, or is it always easier to remember the disparaging things you’ve heard about yourself? For that matter, why is it always so hard to remember the good things you know are true about yourself? I know I’m intelligent, and I have friends I trust who have given me many sincere compliments…

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Gaia’s Gift: Earth, Ourselves and God after Copernicus by Anne Primavesi

This book was both a surprise and a delight; I very much enjoyed the reading. Gaia’s Gift is ordinarily presented as simply an analysis of Copernican heliocentric theory, as it applies to James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory, with a powerful refutation of both scientific and religious androcentrism. For example, the description from amazon.com suggests the book…

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“The Earth Path” by Starhawk

I had to work my way slowly through Starhawk’s The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature; I find myself wishing this had been one of the first books assigned. Her description of finding a mostly-natural place for daily meditations is inspiring, especially the parts about using all one’s senses to drink…