week #4: excerpts

Marxism & the Interpretation of Culture at 25: 

Theories for the New Millennium(Symposium)

Bill:  So I am inside drinking the free coffee that was offered.  And i noticed the types of people who were there.  They seemed to be in 2 groups.  A) people who cared less about what they looked like and B) people who tried to care less about what they looked like. There was a good amount of tweed, ratty hair, polar fleece, clothing tags that were hanging out for some reason, and think plastic glasses... kinda like this ass:

blending into situations is my strongest attribute 

Downtown Champaign, The Art Theater:  "Bill W."

Wes:  

A man walks down to the front of the theater.

"Hello, welcome to the Art. My name is Aaron and I am the Director here."

he is met with...

"Hello Aaron."

It was quite funny.

Franklin's Ground Squirrel in Sangamon County, IL: 

Survey, Evaluation, & Habitat Management

Selina:  I never really realized that we had so many varieties of squirrel in the midwest. I'm not quite sure which species we have here in Champaign/Urbana, but the one covered in the presentation was Franklin's Ground Squirrel, or poliocitellus franklini.               Hugh:  Having started here at UIUC as an Urban Planning major, this talk reminded me heavily of the sort of environmental planning policies and research sampling methods that were part of our curriculum.  Like most research worlds, environmental research has a specific way of sampling, of tagging and enacting field work to acquire stable data to suggest possible ways of planning and land reform to help the sustainability of these animal populations.

 

Scandinavian Studies - Troy Storfjell, Pacific Lutheran University: "until the Sun Returns: Sami Cultural Resilience"

  Christian:  Rather than the external attachments, cultural belonging and significance is held in the acknowledgement of the internal, or the interior (a la Gaston Bachelard). It is in the conception of once belonging to a spatial area, a home, that manifests the potentiality for poems and poetic images (art). And are these not the internal objects we seek to attach ourselves?

 Alejandra:  The title of the lecture refers to a quote from a Sami proverb that says "The night is not so long that the day never comes".  Storfjell's lecture spoke about how the Sami are going through a dark period, but there is hope for the future.  He spoke of past and present forms of oppression towards the Sami, an indigenous group of people from the Arctic area.  Storfjell started off the lecture informing us that he was Sami himself, claiming that since he has a connection to the culture, he bears a responsibility to it.  This reminds me of what Linda said in critique on Tuesday in Senior Studio.  She mentioned that past minority students almost had an obligation to reference their heritage in their work because UIUC mainly consists of white kids from the suburbs.

4000 years for Choice-Heather Ault

Harrison:  I have been semi-attending the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations "Lunch on Us" series for the past couple of years and what I have generally found is that they are current MFA or PhD candidates giving us a proposal of a theory they have. I generally do not learn much and then end up feeling like I am stealing food from the University. I steer clear of these lunches.
But "4000 Years for Choice" was a lunch and lecture made in heaven. I was so impressed.

Improving Dark Energy Measurements through a Detailed Understanding of Supernova Physics

by: Ryan Foley (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Mike B.:  Still feeling some lingering disillusionment from an identity crisis suffered the previous day, I turned onto Gregory Street driving five under the speed limit for no reason. "Shit," I verbally thought to myself upon realizing that I was early, considering with what haste I had scrambled myself together and rushed out the door to get here. So, I sat in my running car in a parking spot while Barbara Ann played over the True Oldies Channel with my head down scribbling in my pocket notebook. In one of the brief moments that I looked up I noticed how calm and secluded Gregory Street felt despite its location. Smiling and being reminded of the expansiveness of my hometown, (where from a bristled sanctuary of some unlabeled cul-de-sac one could, while remaining socially inert, observe the splendor of the populous moving about their daily lives, or the isolated neighborhood in Southeast Urbana that I used to bike to) I continued to write in my notebook. With nine minutes till the top of the hour I thought, "Will they let me take my coffee in?"

Hot Topics Dialogues
"Race, Gender, and Body Image in the Media"

Brianne:  the topic itself is something everyone has an opinion on but i feel like in order for this lecture to be more successful then they needed to go beyond what has already been talked about or encourage a healthier lifestyle to ensure a healthier you and outlook on life.Anne:   This event hit a somewhat personal level, I know people who have struggled with their own body image and I can’t really name anyone who hasn’t had an issue with their own body so recognizing that this was a very common thing was insightful.  Kelsey:  I arrived at this talk with high hopes for a god discussion on body image, but was sorely disappointed and quite frankly intimidated by the discussion.  The one redeeming quality of this lecture was when they briefly talked about body image in ways that i hadn't thought about before; i.e. how race affects body image.  Alex:  I went into the discussion thinking i would only be listening, not being able to have much input. To my surprise, there were many occasions that i was able to speak up and voice an opinion or share an experience  Monica:  I was drawn to this lecture because last year, I took a gender and women studies class, and it made me very aware of women in the media. As for my take on the situation, it seemed like a lot of Baloney Sausage  (BS!) to me! They never really discussed how to deal with this issues. Roshni:   It was a wonderful experience because everyone there seemed so welcoming and supportive when people were speaking about sensitive topics. Overall the discussion was highly informative, relevant and interesting.  

Molly:  Also, who gives a shit if someone wants to get plastic surgery, color their hair, wear makeup, change their gender, what have you. That's their decision and those decisions aren't always made because of the media. This seemed to be something these ladies were judgmental on. Maybe if people worried about themselves and not others so much, some of these issues wouldn't be such a big deal.   Side note, this ^^^ relates very much to the Boykin lecture I attended last week.... One oppressed group isn't any more oppressed than the next. We are all in the same boat, to an extent. So why not help each other rather than "one-up" our problems...  Carolina:  For the most part much of what was said was a bit of stating the obvious, but I do feel like sometimes reiterating something that one might assume is known by all can be useful in reassuring people in their own thoughts. I think that although we may hear about the body constantly, it should still be talked about because we are all struggling with this one way or another.  
 

Is it a man? 

Is it a woman?

... Do you care? 

See you next week!

MWUAH <3

Gino:  Body image is more than just people with an eating disorder. There are much more complex issues with body image, especially for transgendered folk. How can you tell someone to love their body when they feel they are born in the wrong one? This topic interests me because I try to change what society thinks is beautiful with my fashion and beauty photography. I don't exactly fit society's mold of a man and everything he needs to be. However, I am a man, and I like being a man. I don not want a sex change. Nonetheless, I do wear makeup and I do fashion. In the gay community, there are different categories of gays. Transexuals are individuals who have had the sex change. Transvestites are men who dress in women's clothing for sexual pleasure/fetish reasons. Drag queens are men who dress in women's clothes for performance purposes. I don't fit any of these categories. I'm a man who just likes to wear makeup and fashion. With my photography, I push the androgyny because I want to create a category for us men who like to dress this way just because that's how we want to dress/feel ourselves in. I know there are a lot of gays like me out there, and I know they are just as confused and don't know what to call themselves either. And if you don't have anyone to compare yourself to or call yourself to make your feel more "normal", that can lead to an identity crisis. If nobody creates this category, then I will!