Thursday, May 9, 2013

...among sf feminisms....


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Why study SF Feminisms? 

=What values do you bring to feminisms?
=How does this course help you realize those values?



=> put an arrow next to your best statement of the argument of the course.
put a star next to the part of the paper you like the best.


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...the silly, the wise, the imaginative, and acts of creativity come together....



1) What was fun?

2) What was new?

3) What offered a sense of accomplishment?

4) What was useful?

5) When did it come together for you?

6) Why does it matter?



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What does a learning analysis do?

=It offers a flexible framework for reflecting on the class.
=It pushes you to put things together that otherwise you might not have seen connections among.
=It creates a sense of class closure, while opening up ways of thinking into your future.
=It is an opportunity to be proud of how you have put the learning of the course together for yourself.
=It helps you make sense of it all, in terms of your own values and concerns.
=What else have you found in the experience?


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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

How reading becomes something else and more....

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We've talked about media ecologies in this class. You might like to know that such approaches coming out of new media and sf and design fiction and cultural production and more, are changing how we think and analyze texts of many kinds.

Here is a new sort of book, and it is about shifting around what we mean by reading and how we want to do it nowadays. It is on an open source publishing platform called Scalar. See what you think! [Click here to get to the website.]



===
Thursday, 25 April – re-imagining the colonial 
• finish up Hopkinson: III, V, Final Thoughts


FREEWRITE: 
=Your version of the argument of the class RIGHT NOW! 



NOTES ON:
=How So Long Been Dreaming fits into your sense of the argument of the class....
=Which story in So Long Been Dreaming does that in detail.... Say how!

WHAT SHOULD WHILEAWAY FLYER LOOK LIKE?
===

===GETTING CLOSE TO THE END NOW! 
Tuesday, 30 April – studio time during regular class time, with Irene
Thursday, 2 May – more studio time 

SATURDAY, 4 MAY -- WHILEAWAY! AT THE WMST MULTIMEDIA STUDIO! 
want to set things up before hand, or talk to Melissa about it? email katking for contact email. 

Tuesday, 7 May – secret feminist cabal 
• finish up Merrick: 7,4,5

Thursday, 9 May – LAST DAY – LEARNING ANALYSIS DUE! 


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Tiptree's distributed being in media ecologies....


What happens when Tiptree is revealed? What does this mean for Alice, and what does it mean for SF Feminisms? 

===



===
What is distributed being here? 

DISTRIBUTED HUMAN BEINGS (Star 1995: 18-19):

"Analytically, it is extremely useful to think of human beings as locations in space-time. We are relatively localized for many bodily functions and for some kinds of tasks we are highly distributed--remembering for example. So much of our memory is in other people, libraries, and our homes. But we are used to rather carelessly localizing what we mean by a person as bounded by one's skin.... The skin may be a boundary, but it can also be seen as a borderland, a living entity, and as part of the system of person-environment.... Parts of our selves extend beyond the skin in every imaginable way, convenient as it is to bound ourselves that way in conversational shorthand. Our memories are in families and libraries as well as inside our skins; our perceptions are extended and fragmented by technologies of every sort."



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We "distribute our being" among various media, participating in overlapping ecologies.

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What are some of these forms of participation? some are friendship centered, some are centered around common interests, some burrow into the satisfactions of accumulating expertise.


In this MacArthur funded set of studies on learning with digital media, these are called "genres of participation":

= "hanging out" supports "shared practices that grow out of friendships in given local social worlds." (Ito 16)

= "messing around" as an interest driven set of activities, creates and supports "specialized activities, interests, or niche and marginalized identities" ... "geeks, freaks, musicians, artists, and dorks" ....  "who might not be represented in their local communities" .... (Ito 16)

= "geeking out" may require "more far flung networks of affiliation and expertise." (Ito 16)

"more friendship-driven modes of 'hanging out' with friends while gaming can transition to more interest-driven genres of what we call recreational gaming. Similarly... the more friendship-driven practices of creating profiles on social network sites or taking photos with friends can lead to 'messing around' in the more interest-driven modes of digital media production." (Ito 17)

"a genre of participation of 'messing around' with new media ...can in some cases mediate between genres of 'geeking out' and 'hanging out.'" (Ito 17)

"When we consider learning as an act of social participation, our analytic focus shifts from the individual to the broader social and cultural ecology that a person inhabits." (Ito 18)


===

Monday, April 15, 2013

knowledges to share! how it works out!

We are on the final surge for the class! Two big events to come, and you need to prepare for both simultaneously!





=One is Whileaway, on Sat 4 May from 1-3 pm! 
NOTE: The week before, T 30 April and Th 2 May during the other class time, 11-12:15 at Jimenez 2123, will be a drop in workshop studio time with UTA Irene! You can work with her to finish up how you will do your installation of your project for Whileaway. But you should have it done by then, and use that time to figure out how to present it at the con! 
NOTE: Our class time on those days will be an open time you can use to schedule your own workshop too in our class room, or just meet with class buddies and collaborators as you wish. 

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MAKING A POSTER? LOOK HERE!! 

=The other, which you need to start thinking about now too, is the Learning Analysis! 
That is due on the last day of class, and the Thursday after Whileaway. So there isn't enough time to begin it after Whileaway ends. You have to begin it now in order to get all three of your drafts in! Workshop time the week before Whileaway with Irene can also be used to talk about and work on the Learning Analysis too! Remember Irene also works at the Writing Center and can help from there too. 

===WHAT WE JUST DID! REVIEW FOR KATIE WHEN SHE IS BACK ON TUESDAY! 
Thursday, 11 April – KATIE AT UVA – When it Changed 
• read a Bateson metalogue (link online) & When it Changed (link online) & if not already, Merrick 3
Katie will be out of town at a Bateson event and you all will run the class yourselves!
• start planning for Whileaway!

===WHAT COMES NEXT! FINISHING UP THE BOOKS, PREPARING FOR WHILEAWAY!
Tuesday, 16 April – Worlding: design fictions
• Explore “worlding” on the web.
• read stuff on King Pinterest boards: Complexity Tales and SF Feminisms (links on website).
• getting going on Whileaway!

Thursday, 18 April – trans knowledges
• Merrick 8: Beyond Gender?
• Kier (2010) Interdependent Ecological Transsex. Women and Performance 20: 299-319. (link to PDF.) and/or Hayward (forthcoming), Transxenoestrogenesis. manuscript for Transgender Studies Quarterly 1:1. [Katie has emailed this to you on coursemail, but if you haven't gotten it, email her to send it to you individually.]
• work on Whileaway!

Tuesday, 23 April – a real secret life 
• finish Phillips 32-40
• setting up for Whileaway!

Thursday, 25 April – ripe and rare: post colonial 
• Finish Hopkinson: sections III & V, and Final Thoughts
• ready for Whileaway!
• How to do the Learning Analysis

Tuesday, 30 April – studio time during the other class time, with Irene; & our time
Thursday, 2 May – more studio time both ways 

SATURDAY, 4 MAY -- WHILEAWAY! AT THE WMST MULTIMEDIA STUDIO! 
want to set things up before hand, or talk to Melissa about it? email katking for contact email. 

Tuesday, 7 May – secret feminist cabal 
• finish up Merrick: 7,4,5

Thursday, 9 May – LAST DAY – LEARNING ANALYSIS DUE!