Introduction

After my cousin’s college graduation I asked her, out of curiosity, when her school was founded and by whom. She did not have the answers to these questions, let alone more specific answers about the geography of her campus, or the architecture of her school. While I can’t tell you who built all of the buildings on Bryn Mawr College’s campus, with each passing year I become more and more familiar with Bryn Mawr College as a community, as a place on a map, and as an interconnected ecosystem. The longer I attend Bryn Mawr the more adamant I become in the value of really knowing the place where I live and work. This gives me a feeling of centeredness, and a knowledge of my surroundings that is intellectually empowering. I think that to find the center of a place you have to start by exploring and learning about all of it. You must develop an ecological appreciation for it. You need to start from the center and move outwards. Moving in this way I have been able to expand my first web event (/exchange/turning-circles), in order to make it more expensive and representative of Bryn Mawr’s campus. I have tried to familiarize myself with information about parts of campus through the internet, my own experiences, and by taking to college staff members. Here is what I discovered.

During the height of Hurricane Sandy, I was in the computer lab of Haverford’s Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center (KINSC) when the power in the building and the rest of campus failed. Plunged into darkness, not only had the energy powering the building disappeared, but the energy I had previously possessed for doing homework disappeared along with it. The novelty of being in caught in a power outage and a curiosity to see who else in the building was affected by the outage inspired me to explore the building. As I wandered the halls of the KINSC, with the exception of two people lounging in Zubrow Commons and the people I had left behind in the computer lab, I was completely alone in the building and for the most part in the dark.  As my wanderings continued, the notion of being entirely alone with hardly any light to guide me or companionship to combat my solitary status was incredibly intimidating and my nervousness began exponentially increasing. My only comfort it seemed was that I was not outside in the midst of the storm, with Mother Nature’s raging winds not buffeting me with gusts, debris, and rain but rather the shielding walls of the KINSC, demonstrating that man-made constructs could withstand Nature. My comfort and faith in the strength of the KINSC’s ability to serve as a shield against nature was soon challenged when I came upon the central rotunda/staircase in the building. Within the rotunda, I experienced how the emergency lighting was not active here, leaving only the dim natural light of the stormy night sky showing only dim silhouettes.

Quite elegant and thoughtprovoking, I think...

http://www.emptykingdom.com/main/featured/adonna-khare-and-her-pencil/

I really like Doing Life and find it to be an incredibly moving book. In particular, as I was browsing through it, I was struck by the story of Harry Twiggs, one of the longer sections and very insightful. I was really inspired by Twiggs' story, and how real he was about what he did and how he's dealt with the guilt and consequences. I was also struck by the way his picture parrallels my impression of him as in touch with and at peace with the world. I was also interested by his admitance that part of the reason he was able to turn his life around was because of the system, or at least because of the programs the prison offers. He then went on to say that the root cause of all his struggles was poverty, showing that in fact it is the system that is at fault, but also showing a positive case of reform-type work in prisons.

On an unrelated note, I found it interesting that two different people in the book compared being in prison (for life) to being sucked under by water, having oxygen cut off: Marilyn Dobrolenski (p 89) and Commer Glass (p 103).

Is anyone planning to see Gloria Steinem tomorrow? I really want to see her but I don't want to go alone. I also have no idea where anything is at Haverford. I know Julia's going... if anybody wants to meet up and then head over, do let me know!

I remember first learning about Gloria Steinem in my U.S. History II class (my favorite class during my junior year) and I wanted to brush up on some basic stuff that I thought I should remember about her but didn't (and I admit this is embarrassing and probably a professor's worst nightmare) but I checked out her wiki page and I saw this section and thought it was totally related to today's discussion in Anne's class about inaccessibility in academic writing:

I note that the infamous Gloria Steinem (who wrote the preface for the text by Marilyn Waring that we'll be discussing on Wednesday) is speaking in Marshall Auditorium @ Haverford @ 7:30 this Friday evening, Nov. 2nd, about "The Progression of Feminism: Where are we going?" So go and ask her an ecofeminist question!

Also, if you'd prefer to access Waring's work (and Steinem's intro) in video form, watch Who's Counting?

if you'd interested, you can now acess a copy of our silent discussion from y'day in the protected reading file; it's listed @ the bottom as 313SilentDiscussionKincaidWhiteAnthonySouleLaDuke.pdf

also, I note that the infamous Gloria Steinem (who wrote the preface for the text by Marilyn Waring that we'll be discussing on Monday) is speaking in Marshall Auditorium, HC, @ 7:30 this Friday evening, Nov. 2nd, about "The Progression of Feminism: Where are we going?" So go and ask her an ecofeminist question!

finally, if you'd prefer to access Waring's work (and Steinem's intro) in video form, watch Who's Counting?

I noticed today at the end of class that those people who said that we were doing well with silence and respect in our discussion were also the ones who were spoke quite often. I, for one, would have appreciated more gaps, as per Jo's request.