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A Random Walk with Serendip

Randomness is cool and interesting... and randomness can be important too, from biological diversity to artistic innovation. Here, have fun with 10 random pages from Serendip. Does "mixing" them together create some new ideas? Feel free to return another day to find another random walk, or play Chance in Life and the World for a new perspective on randomness and order.

In my earlier Thoreauvian walk, my examination of Bryn Mawr's campus was restricted to the literal environmental aspects of the school. I looked at trees, I walked, and I let "nature's compass" guide me. Now that I have read more closely into the idea of ecological literacy and have been able to analyze my personal experiences in the context of ecological schools of thought, my early campus exploration seems limited and too literal in...

                When does friendship begin? When can you say that you’ve made an acquaintance?  It might be after a dinner conversation, or even a long walk back to the dorm from classes, but what really marks the start of any kind of relationship is names.  Knowing another person’s name is what differentiates them from a person seen across the hallway or a face you recognize in a crowd, as if knowledge of...

Like venn diagram, my interest was immediately captured by Andrew Sullivan’s “The He Hormone.” I appreciated the information on hormonal differences between males and females, but was frustrated at times by the ways Sullivan used these biological differences to explain differences in the social roles men and women take on. I understand that testosterone levels have an impact on many elements of our personality and behavior, such as an individual’s self-confidence and energy levels. However,...

Bailey Baumann

Webpaper #3

Professor Grobstein

 

Cognitive Impairmentsand Frontotemporal Dementia in Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

 

            Amyotrophiclateral sclerosis is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that ischaracterized by the...

Thought you guys might find this interesting.

What is a 'cyborg'? According to the dictionary on my MacBook, a 'cyborg' is a:

'Fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body."

This definition itself is not clear. The phrases "human limitations" and "mechanical elements" strike me as being unclear as they can be interpreted in a multitude of different ways. What are "human limitations" and what makes an element...

To explain the proliferation of personal blogs as a new genre, it has been suggested that "the generic exigence that motivates bloggers is related less to the need for information than to the self and the relations between selves" (Miller, Shepherd). In other words, people write personal blogs because they are interested in getting to know themselves by writing and by communicating with others through writing. The blog, then, is an antidote for two different kinds of alienation....

I. Last week we looked @ two paired images of trans "bodies" in "place,"
and then talked about what an unusual form Eli Clare's memoir has:
he puts the setting first, brings it into the foreground....and then shows us
what happens to the self, when gender and disability and class identity is 
contextualized in this way, "when embodiment is represented as emplacement."

...