Bockting, thrice

I’ve started working with Walter Bockting. He’s going to help me with this last exam, and he’s going to help me with my research afterwards. As a part of that, I need to get a few reviews here on the site. I want to make sure I have all the quotes I need right at [...]

Judith Butler, Phenomenologically

As promised, I have more research to share. Today I will be discussing Judith Butler’s article “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” For those who don’t know, Butler is one of the most important voices in feminist theory, and one of the most cited authors in the humanities (almost [...]

On Chinese Rooms, Searle, and human arrogance

I’ve been branching out my reading lately. I figure I need to re-establish my base of knowledge on identity and kinds of minds, so I figured I would start with John Searle, particularly his book Minds, Brains and Science. Within this book, he supposedly solves the mind/body problem, then goes on to talk about why [...]

A few thoughts on exams and preparation

So in four days, I start my exams. I have two questions from each of three professors. The first two days will have two questions a piece, and the second two days will each have one. I won’t lie; I am both stressed and scared. But not as scared as I might have been. It’s [...]

Divided Minds and Distributed Work

I realized that usually when I write these entries, I have a pattern for length. If it’s a book, it gets its own entry. Articles have to share. But I try to make sure the articles have something in common. I have not done this today. The articles for today are from very different fields [...]

Online discussions, online courses, and heteronormative binaries

Both of the articles I’m looking at today were published in Computers and Composition. The first is “‘Always a Shadow of Hope’: Heteronormative binaries in an online discussion of sexuality and sexual orientation” by Heidi McKee. The othere is “Power, language, and identity: Voices from an online course” by L.E. Sujo de Montes, Sally M. [...]

Identity Play, Cybersex, and a pep talk

Today, I’m going to write about “When Identity Play Became Hooking Up: Cybersex, Online Dating and the Political Logic of Infection” by Jeremy Kaye. I don’t have a second article to go with it, so instead I’m going to talk about these exams that I’ll be starting in 13 days. But, seeing as that is [...]

Race, Gender, and Online Spaces

Today we’ll be looking at Andre Brock’s article “‘Who do you think you are?’: Race, Representation, and Cultural Rhetorics in Online Spaces” and “Rethinking Cyberfeminism(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment” by Jessie Daniels. Two weeks from tomorrow, my exams begin, so you could say this is the home stretch. But that’s not important right now. What [...]

A new look, Binaries, and embodied cyberbodies

I changed the theme of the site, though if you’re new here, that means nothing to you. What does matter, though, is what we’re here today to discuss. Namely, Susanna Paasonen’s “Binary Code, Binary Gender… and Things Beyond” and Lieve Gies’s “How material are cyberbodies? Broadband Internet and embodied subjectivity.” Let’s start with Paasonen.

Gender, Sexual Identity, and Emoticons

The two articles that draw attention today are “Gender and Sexual Identity Authentication in Language Use: the case of chat rooms” by Marisol Del-Teso-Craviotto and  “Emotional Expression Online: Gender Differences in Emoticon use” by Alecia Wolf. The first of these deals with the problem that seems to keep rearing its head in my research lately: [...]