What a whirlwind semester this has been! I’m so thrilled I had the opportunity to take this course (Feminism, Health and New Media) with Professors Jessie Daniels and Morgane Richardson. It has honestly been one of the highlights of my collegiate career and I have learned so much–not only from Professor Daniels and Richardson, but from YOU, my wonderful classmates. For those of you reading this from outside the course, I highly suggest checking out some of their blogs, which are listed here. I found the integration of new media in this course to be a fabulous learning tool. From reading my classmates blogs to tweeting with them (check out #hons201) it reminded me of the value of incorporating technology into the classsroom (and made me wish more courses did it).
Ultimately though, the value of this course was in the way it affected me personally. Being able to look at the world through a feminist lens can be frustrating at times, but I’m honestly glad to have this new perspective–it really is permeating everything I think and do! (To be honest, though, I’m still struggling to cut “you guys” from my vocabulary. Thanks Patryk, for continuing to call me out.)
Me after finishing this paper (last assignment of the semester)!
For my final paper (click to read: OHagan_CriticalEssay), I looked at the visual representation of abortion online, as inspired by this early blog post and mentioned here. There is a great deal of feminist scholarship on the subject of the visual representation of abortion–especially fetal images–that really was kicked off by Rosalind Pollack Petchesky’s article “Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction.” I highly recommend it to those of you interested in this issue. I also decided to try to do some original research–looking at popular images associated with abortion online. Though in the end I was only able to do this on a very small scale, I do think it’s a rich area for further research, and that the visual representation of abortion (online and off) is something that we as feminists should work to change. So much of the rhetoric–moral, political, medical–surrounding abortion is based in the way it is represented visually. Speaking personally, I know this shaped my own views on abortion for many years and it is only through taking this course that I have been really been able to critically reexamine my own personal and political opinons (again, I’ll refer y’all to my earlier post on the subject).
Though I think I’ll be on hiatus for the holiday season, I’ll be back! I love blogging, and after having stopped and started multiple times over the past few years, I’m thrilled that I was forced to keep one up for four months. I’ll continue blogging starting in the new year, right here, though the focus will be expanded from just feminism, new media and health to anything I feel like writing (and probably raging) about. I’ll probably also give the website bit of a makeover to reflect this transition.
Once again, thank you all for a fabulous semester!
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