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     Since reading Ackerman’s “Deep Play” article, I’ve keep an eye out for it in my day to day experiences and have tried to use it as a lens on assigned trips to Philadelphia.  Searching for such an intense and heavily emotion based sense has proved difficult, however, and it’s become even clearer that “deep play” is entirely natural and in the moment.  A hunt for deep play is not fruitful as it involves overanalyzing and planning.  As I open my sketchbook, paint a canvas, or begin a sculpture, I find myself incredibly focused and elated.  I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock to me that I’ve been experiencing deep play when doing what I love most.  Art has always been a large part of my life and is therapeutic along with enjoyable.

            Ackerman defines “deep play” a number of different ways and uses words such as “freedom”, “thrill” “whole”, and “sacred”.  She states “there are times during deep play when one feels invincible, immortal, an ideal version of oneself”.  When practicing art, I feel as though all problems and worries melt away and the only thing that matters is the piece at hand.  It is remarkably fulfilling and I can feel myself “in the zone” where I am so thoroughly focused.  Deep play is an experience where one gains an extraordinary amount from an event.  It may be an extreme understanding or happiness or simply where “one finds clarity” and an “acceptance of self”.

Ellen Cohn

12/20/2013

Reworked Essay

My City of Play

At the beginning of my Bryn Mawr-bound summer, I had a checklist of everything I had to do to prepare myself to begin college. One of the most daunting things on the list was to select my top three choices for an Emily Balch Seminar.  Although each one seemed intriguing, I ended up selecting the “Play in the City” Seminar, largely because of the professor teaching it: Theater has been a big part of my life, and although I do not necessarily want to major in theater, staying within a community which I understand, and which generally understands me, seemed like a great idea. With Mark Lord, the head of the theater department, teaching my Emily Balch Seminar, I figured that I could get to know him without taking a theater class or participating in a main stage production.

I got so much more out of this Seminar than I was expecting. When I initially wrote this essay, I wrote about food, and how my freedom in the city (provided by this course) allowed me to express myself through my travels and the takeaway from those travels. Many times, the choices I made involved food, so I connected the enjoyment and freedom I felt in the city with that of the food I experienced.

In my third Web Event, I explored the two opposing methods of fighting patriarchal inequality: fighting to unbind gender from inequality and using the present inequality to justify more immediate, relief-providing policies. I looked at how Heidi Hartmann switched her perspective in her essays arguing for change in the workplace, an end to labor segregation and the wage gap. On the unbinding end, Hartmann explained the connections between capitalism and patriarchy, and then she argued that ending labor segregation would take down an important pillar holding up patriarchy. To reach the end of labor segregation, however, we must fix the societal expectations and assumptions that justify and perpetuate the segregation.

…See children as the property of parents to do with as they will, Adult violence against children is a norm in our society. Problematically, for the most part feminist thinkers have never wanted to call attention to the reality that women are often the primary culprits in everyday violence against children simply because they are the primary parental caregivers.  Hooks

Deep in The Heart of Texas -Syllabus

As you walk into this class, you all hold knowledge as to what a city is, a town of significant size. But what and who really make the city? This class will focus mainly on perception and interpretation as we venture through Houston and explore several aspects of what makes Houston, deep in the heart of Texas. As a class, we will analyze what terms like diversity, culture, immigration, and relationships mean to us individually through our experiences of Houston. And with each trip we will discuss how each place manages to keep Houston growing and strong.

Our class is a total of twelve and will take a total of seven trips into the city. Each will be different and will focus on a new aspect of Houston. There will be a van that will take us to each of our destinations. Your trips all paid for thanks to The Brown Foundation. Caminen con esperanza!

Discovery Green

Parks are structured to fit people’s needs. Parks close to schools and family orientated neighborhoods, if not all, most, have a playground for children to enjoy.  Whereas in a part of the city where there’s more commuting and far more exposed, the welcoming factor tends to wane and the importance of appearance is far more critical. 

I love Philadelphia. That’s it. That’s all I have to say.

I know that I should explain that further, that “love” is a stand-in word for not expressing myself more fully. But really, “I love Philadelphia” is the only thing I can think every time I go into the city. It gives me such a sense of home, of connection, that nowhere else I’ve ever been has been able to give me.

In my first essay on this topic, my relationship to cities, I said that I judge cities based on how those around me feel. But after taking this course, I think it goes a little deeper than that.

I like cities when I feel like I can truly let go in them. Of course, this feeling does come from being around those who are comfortable in the city, but it most of all comes from deep play. If I witness others experiencing deep play and letting go of their inhibitions in the city, I’ll also feel like I can do that.

Mental Illness and Feminism

            In my first Web Event, titled “Web Event #1: Fear and Self-Representation”, I discussed my personal struggles with fear in the classroom, as well as analyzed where fear comes from and how it interferes with self-representation. I came to the conclusion that my fear resulted in a “self-preserving” performance that did not represent who I truly am, but the person I was okay with others seeing. It was the “me” that could not be criticized or called out for being incorrect. This “self-preserving” performance was difficult for anyone to criticize mostly because it was silent. And it is really difficult to be wrong when you are silent.

            Fear has been a defining factor in my life for almost as long as I can remember. For many years, I have suffered from depression and anxiety. I feel that my anxiety has kept me from being the ideal “strong, intelligent, independent woman” that, it is often supposed, any feminist (and “Mawrter”) should be. I’m surely not alone in this concern. The view of the mentally ill within the feminist movement (as well as in academic spaces such as Bryn Mawr) is not something that is often considered, but can be understood through disability studies theory.

            The definition of power feminism is the act of a woman amassing power in a male dominated capitalist society, and breaking through the gates that have historically held women back from powerful positions. These women inspire others that it is possible for them to reach power in this patriarchal system. But is power feminism real? Can the power of one individual woman liberate us all? Does the feminist agenda of this individual speak to the intersectional identities of others?

Author and feminist activist bell hooks believes that power feminism is not real, she states: “Power feminism is just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us.” To further explore why she does not believe in power feminism I turn to hook’s critique of Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg. In Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In, hooks analyzes Sandberg’s book Lean In, and the advice she gives as a self-claimed feminist. Hooks makes three main critiques of Sandberg: she does not include or consider the perspectives and identities of women of color, she does not recognize the challenges of women in poverty, and she does not seek to challenge the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

Sandberg

I played with Frost. It was October. If only I had learnt from Ray Bradbury that October was a grotesque Country where you should only step foot if you are looking to be assaulted by the skeletons your mind shoved in a closet on purpose in the first place. It was October, silly.

I opened the closet, and out walked Robert. He brushed off the Frost from his shoulders; it must have been cold and dusty behind the Doors. Or he was tired of being cold. He walked out. And I stepped into his Home Burial.

I fell deep. The door was wide open and I fell damn deep. I told myself all I had to do was pull apart the words and reconstruct them into a window. So I sat on the narrow, creaky staircase and listened attentively to Frost and his wife. But slowly – I found – slowly, I was listening to myself. And I had the same voice as his wife.

I was accusing. I was hurt. I was pushing away. I was losing. I was missing. Home Burial. 

There wasn’t a way to pick out my own words, care about his, and try to assemble a window which might cast light on our conflict. What we needed to was to smash open the windows we already had, and get some fresh air.

I was overwhelmed as I fell deeper and deeper into Frost’s Home. Or was Frost just pulling out some things that already existed deep in the back of my closet?

Lay them on the table. Let me hear you say what you already know about them, but use a different voice so you can hear yourself do the talking.