Category: Uncategorized (Page 15 of 22)

Morning Routine 

Mile stretch, the name requires no explanation

it stretches. 

The constant repetitious weave 

in and out of 

cyclists

joggers 

old-timer walkers.

My impatience grows 

or is it just 7 a.m.?

The smell drifts in, 

it’s close 

maybe if I roll the window down 

I can guess the size of the surf 

from the magnitude of the roar. 

– a coffee, the beach, 

the day has begun. 

The Light Changes in May

The light changes in May
like a sudden promise of a soon
blinding shimmer, an imminent
haze of August’s end.
Dripping with wasted
longings the dampness of the
Earth relinquishes that gilded
hue, overnight, it seems.
I don’t remember when
the cool morning hung off the
windowsill, its sharpness ached
with a familiar wish for
the light to change.

Poetry (Writing Minor)

Contemporary Feminist Theories (ADV, ADV Political Theory)

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex

Thoughts:

• Existentialist Feminism resonates with me … the absurdity of the requirements society places on women to PROVE our existence, our worth, and our rights whilst living in an entirely constructed reality in which we have no say in entering. Yes. Fitting.
• The 832 pages spare no detail, and that in and of itself harkens to the sheer enormity of the issues presented. You want to define the problem of ‘woman’ …here. It is not a simple problem, and there are no simple answers.
• There are some modalities of analysis we might have progressed upon today such as the mere definitions of gender BUT remembering this book was written in 1949 is INSANE. The questions and meditations are so radical even today and the insights that she made that seemed to be dismissed during second-wave feminism I feel resonate with some new insights today.
• I am thinking about the pull away from femininity during the period (and following) in which she writes; things like burning the ole bra, pushing aside love and child-rearing for the betterment of a career or respect among male peers. It feels like a jarring jump away from that suffocating confinement of the 50s. Then to third-wave feminism in the 90s, we really see a push for sexual equality and redefining gender roles, etc. However, Simone wrote in 1949, ‘American women are haunted by their own femininity, and that resonates with me today as we start to reflect back on what it means to be a woman, and how we do not have to choose love or career, submission or empowerment, babies or career. The embracement of being feminine and redefining the terms of success that have for EVER been entrenched in masculine stereotypes and attitudes feels more and more recognized.

Global Money & Power (ADV & SGA)

Victorian Monsters British Lit II

Writing, Revolution & Resistance in US Literature Before 1865

What stories do Americans tell about their origins? How have they used the power of the word to define their communities, justify or contest colonization, resist oppressive regimes, raise their voices, and imagine a new nation? What did it mean to claim the right to write? This course considers questions such as these in exploring a rich variety of texts, including Indigenous oral narrative, oratory, captivity and slave narratives, political tracts, short stories, and myriad forms of poetry; we will also come to understand why these stories still matter today. Readings will include work by Elias Boudinot, Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, Phillis Wheatley, and Walt Whitman. Covering the pre-colonial period through the mid-19th century, this course satisfies the US Literature I requirement for the English major and concentration; an elective for the English minor and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities major; and an Exploration requirement for the Core Curriculum.