Some Random Things I Should Maybe Remember?
Stuff from “Herland” discussion
-motherhood
-eugenics: breeding things to be a certain way
-no sexuality…seems uncontrollable…obernut metaphor—exterminate moth that sexually reproduces
-no shame, nothing to be ashamed of—Garden of Eden—traditional religion narrative as well as traditional marriage narrative
-Herland finally judged to be “great” based on standards of Christianity
-ends with Gilman telling us the reason women and men need to be separate is because of sexual violence
-perfect land/births/motherhoodàsafe from this sex stuff
-even Jeff…doesn’t take advantage of it, but places women in role of weak/victim
Queer Theory
-Queer: everything not traditionally heterosexual…not just sexual orientation—reorientation towards world
-everything “normal” in our lives is based on assumption of heterosexuality
Stuff from Angels in America discussion:
-we use language to talk about things/tell things
-some language actually does something…like saying “I do”
-not just describing world—part of world
-language is changing world as we use it—through performance we create something
-creates possibility of change
-this play does something—play becomes gendered by actors’ performance
-Q: What does this play do/perform/enact/create?
-homosexual perspectives (kind of entirely different point of view)
-conflict, doubt, guilt, abandonment
-humanity (loss in relationships)
-magical, delusions, divinity
-messiness
-illness
-mortality
-race
-religion—Mormonism, Judaism—oldest and newest—question of prophet
-“Big ideas, stories, people dying, and people like you”
-“Angels in America”= America
-words we use construct world, change things, always performing them—Roy calling illness cancer vs. AIDs
-dystopic or utopic or lived reality???