On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Nicola Griffith wrote:
> Michelle, I'm glad they liked SLOW RIVER. I'd love to hear more about some
> of the student presentations--either here or in private email.
>
They did a number of presentations on Slow River. One woman did a lot of
research on the web and discussed issues of identity. She made us all
write down five nouns that we would use to identify ourselves. Then she
made us cross out nouns one and three. "Those aspects of your identity
are gone." It provoked a lot of discussion -- the students essentially
recreated postmodern theory of subjectivity :-) They discussed identity
as a construct; how we "make" our identity, whether there is an
"essential" self and what that might look like. I was blown away.
Another women discussed the sexual economy in SR. She put us in groups
and had us describe our families and our lives without using gendered
pronouns or references. It was a great exercise too -- as we reverted to
"roles" to identify the sex of other people's siblings, parents, etc.
> With regard to the cheery, "everything is getting better" attitude of your
> students: I have mixed feelings. After all, if one is speaking of gender
> inequity in this particular culture, everything *is* getting better. It
> still has a long, long way to go, of course. But maybe you could ask them to
Yes. I agree -- but what I feel they need to realize is that it didn't
get better *by itself* . There is no "evolutionary" progress here --
that's what they assume, mostly... that things just "get better" as we
move through history. I want them to realize that their cheery
assumptions are built on the backs of women like Gilman who dared to
imagine and women like Russ who dared to be angry. I am struggling with
how to do that in an eye opening way -- not just a "You don't appreciate
your history" lecture.
>
> I don't know what to suggest for the puritans except to ask: what are they
> afraid of? Maybe they just don't like raw emotion. Find some passages on
> ecstatic food eating or something, or childbirth, and see how they compare it
> to writing on sex.
>
I don't know either -- I was very surprised at this attitude. I wondered
if it was a cloaked reaction to the lesbian sex (they probably read my
politics clearly enough to know that they might offend me with that
reaction). My impulse is just to discuss sexuality as it occurs in the
books, as issues of culture, politics and indentity, without letting them
hide behind puritan lowered eyes.
> The subject of religion: are you saying the class wouldn't even discuss
> homosexuality, or that they wouldn't discuss the Morman's reaction to it?
The small group dynamic was to drop the whole subject for risk of
offending the one person who stated his "personal" belief. But I think
it's a bigger issue in terms of how to respect the personal but not let
that be a stopping point in discussions.
Yours, Michelle
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