story telling

The relationship one has with oneself is not only of personal interest but an important determinant of mental health.  It is this relationship that can make or break persons, or that can render them successful, well-balanced individuals or unstable and unhappy shadows of the persons that they could have become at their full potential.  One would think that this very important, personal bond human beings share internally could only be affected by one’s own self.  But a great deal of human behavior is socially constructed and a large percentage of those social constructs are created to control and survive social situations.

In class on November 6, 2008, Professor Anne Dalke gave a sketch of an argument based on work by Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci that goes something like: people want to be 'hailed and recruited' so they submit to others' domination. She gave as an example, the classroom. Students at Bryn Mawr College pay upwards of $35,000 a year to attend Bryn Mawr and in doing so allow professors and the administration control over them (ie submit to domination). In return, students feel recognized as subjects, in particular, as scholars (ie feel 'hailed and recruited' by those in power). As a feminist math major who has

Introduction

Reviewers are all over the map on this one so, for what its worth, my take ...

On occasion, everyone finds that emotions have bested them. The person we have a crush on doesn’t call us back for two days, and suddenly the world feels just a bit less bright. We do poorly on a test, and though we recognize that in the scheme of things it’s not a big deal, we can’t help but imagine that our future has been ruined. And then, another piece of ourselves works to quell the fire: the moment passes, the crush calls (or doesn’t), we watch a TV show or two, we get a good grade on the next test (or we don’t), we call a supportive friend and talk briefly, and life goes on. But for some people,