At the beginning of this class, I did not know what I was expecting. I figured I would show up and see what happens, because I was bound to learn something. And I certainly did. I had no idea how to define feminism but I assumed it was a good thing, and now I have a concrete definition. Well, as concrete as it can be in these circumstances.  Feminism is about equal treatment of men and women, but in order to do that we have to equalize treatment of races, classes, appearances, abilities, etc.  Feminism is really about equality for everybody, and that is something worth fighting for.

I feel like a very different person from the one I was at the beginning of the semester, but I know that is only because I’ve lived longer and experienced more.  My first serendip posts more or less had a distinct point to them—I knew what I thought, whether it was right or not.  They gradually got less and less certain, which reflects my experiences as a person over the last few months.  I questioned everything in the last few months, partially because of this course. Before this semester, I simply accepted that I knew what I knew and that there were always going to be things that I didn’t know.  That never stopped me from trying to find answers, but it was more acceptable to me if I never found them.  After this class, I question everything and I need to have a definite result of my questioning, and be able to defend it.  It is a very defeating kind of feeling.

So EGrumer and I worked with dglasser to help flesh out her idea of Literary Labs a little more!

Some of the things I was responsible for were:

• Finding a decent book list
• Finding a good character profile
• Making a playlist of music (more on this later)

I linked to the websites where I found both the list and character profile in case anyone wants to see them again.  The book list was something dglasser knew she wanted when she originally designed the labs.  The idea, and she can correct me if I'm wrong, was that you would be able to draw inspiration from these various works.  The character profile is something that I (and EGrumer) had used before when acting.  Normally they're used to help people in the chorus or minor roles flesh out a character for themselves so they can put more into their performance on stage.  I liked this one because it was really detailed and I thought it would be useful to help writers develop characters if that's what they wanted to work on in the lab. 

           How can we define genre?  It is a kind of something, a type.  It is a manner we use to categorize information that we come into contact with on a daily basis.  Genres evolve.  This semester we have explored the evolution of various genres; we have seen how the lines between them become blurry.  We have taken the definition of genre and molded it to fit in ways we may not have thought about before.  With this in mind, how has the genre of this class evolved over the course of the semester?  It has evolved.  Everything evolves.  I have evolved, the class has evolved, and this paper will evolve as it is written.  The evolution of the class is important because it helps me to see where my problems were and it helps me to tie everything together and try to make sense of a class that I struggled through. 

This class was much different than what I initially thought it would be. As a freshman coming into what was advertised as an introductory course for those interested in the Gender and Sexuality field, I expected to get a good amount of groundwork (vocabulary, exposure to scholarly works, theory, writing practice, etc) necessary to enter into higher level courses with a desired edge. What I experienced was actually quite different. I was left out of the loop for not having this groundwork which I had expected to gain, not teach, to the class, and often tremendously irrelevant to the inappropriately Bryn Mawr-centric syllabus.

There is nothing I hate more than being proven wrong, and that’s exactly what Lit Kinds did this semester. Several times. Although I hate to admit that the class proved me wrong on several occasions on what I thought were my opinions and what makes me, me, these instances only made me a better thinker, a better writer, and overall a better learner, who is more open to changes.

                I also hate to reuse this metaphor, but in my final self-evaluation for my bio class with Wil Franklin, I mentioned that I was like the ending species in a ring species. Ring species are animals—mostly birds—that migrate in a circular pattern in a course of a time frame, like a year. During this migration pattern, they evolve into several different species until the time comes that they return to their starting point and find that although they resemble the creatures that started the journey, they are completely different species. I am that final species in my Bio class as I am in Lit Kinds.