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On Thursday, we began class with a little bit of coursekeeping. One of the main things we discussed was the idea of having alums "adopt" each of us and read our final papers, and then converse with us about our thoughts/ideas via email, Skype, etc. Some of us expressed that we liked the idea of feedback, while others thought we should be able to choose whether we want to participate or not, or thought it was a little bit of an overload to add one more untraditional component to the course. Ultimately, we resolved to wait and decide at a later date when we've had more time to think about it.

As we transitioned into our discussion of Simone de Beauvoir's Introduction to The Second Sex, Anne presented us with two images (one of a knife/letter opener/half a pair of scissors, and one of a woman) and asked us what we saw, and then encouraged us to figure out why we saw what we saw. In doing so, we were able to visualize and begin discussing Sartre's quote (this is only the first part of it): "If one considers an article of manufacture--as, for example, a book or a paper-knife--one sees that it has been made by an artisan who had a conception of it...one cannot suppose that a man would produce a paper-knife without knowing what it was for. Let us say then of the paper-knife that its essence...precedes its existence..." In contrast, we were also presented with his idea that humans are existences that precede their essences... which led us into our discussion on the idea of transcendence.

We spent a lot of time just trying to define the word transcendence and exactly what it means in the context of de Beauvoir's Introduction. Basically, we defined it as the constant, unending task of exceeding what we are... as something that requires us to always be moving and questioning... as something that sounds exhausting.

While still keeping the idea of transcendence in mind, we began looking at the idea of othering. We talked about the ideas of Delphy and Ortner, and whether or not we agreed with the female = nature, male = culture distinction. Throughout our conversation, we looked to our own postings, to Anzaldua's quote about refusing the binary, and to the Hegelian master -> slave idea (like the master, male is defined as what it's not). Essentially, we found ourselves asking the question of whether it's ever possible to not create others, since we seem to always define ourselves in terms of what we are not.

Towards the end of class, we found ourselves back at the idea of how to define transcendence... without as much clarity as we may have hoped to find through discussion. We talked about the role of agency in transcendence, and how transcendence is a relative thing -- we cannot, for example, judge a woman who does not transcend the same way or to the same extent that we may be able if she does not have the choice or ability to do so.

We ended class with a few more of de Beauvoir's quotes, in which she says that the differences between the sexes are not as important as the fact that we are all humans, as well as that the contradictions that challenge us will never be resolved. At the very end of class, Tamarinda presented us with the idea that transcendence seems to mean "denying the dictionary and writing a new language."