Please consider any one or combination of the following questions, utilizing your readings for this week (as well as any others that we’ve discussed that may also be applicable):

1. What challenges do these (and other previously read) scholars pose to the postmodern notion that cyberspace enables flight from all of the physical limits and boundaries of the body?
2. After considering your readings, do you believe that it is possible to leave one’s body behind when entering cyberspace? Why or why not? What effective arguments do the authors make to support your conclusion?
3. In both readings, the words “identity,” “embodiment,” “subjectivity,” and “gender” are frequently utilized. Discuss your understanding of each of these terms and support your understanding of each term by engaging one or more of our assigned texts.
4. Looking over the last several readings, describe your understanding of how the theoretical concept of subjectivity has evolved over the past 100 or so years. Are we potentially entering a new era of both the experience and understanding of subjectivity? Why or why not?
5. In what ways is both online and real life identity described as a cyclical movement? How does each impact and/or inform the other in this described cycle?
6. According to the authors, how do our genders inform our online identities? How might gender reflect our cyberspace identity role choices?
7. At one point, one of the authors describes the body as an “absent signifier.” Explain this concept in your own words and provide a (real or fictional) example.
8. In what ways might online experiences of “other” identities translate into real life experiences, according to the authors?
9. According to the authors, does the postmodern subject have an essential core (gendered) identity? Why or why not? In what way might the subject (with or without an essential core gendered identity) inform or reflect our internet personae?
10. In what ways might our real life bodies and/or subjectivities be complicated by our online bodies and/or subjectivities (or lack thereof)?

NOTE: Be sure to reference one or more of the authors, our discussions, and/or other readings to help support your thoughts and conclusions. While personal experience is certainly useful and can serve as an example, do not rely solely on personal experience to support your point/s.

If you come across any good sites, books, or other resources for your essay, post them here, so you can share with the rest of the class. Also, if you are struggling with any particular issue or way of approaching a certain text, post your thoughts, concerns, and questions here — so we can all help!

No required blog posting for next week, but make sure that you come with your essay in hand. Please email me with any questions.

Due to the snow storm and canceled class last night, I have moved the first essay paper due date back by one week. Therefore, Essay #1 will now be due on February 27th, instead of next week. I also moved up a reading from the week of the 27th to next week (to make the reading lighter during the week your essay is due). So please make sure that you note the additional reading for next week (Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”). I also took away the previous Turkle article.
For next week, please read the following:

• Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twenthieth Century,” (CR 291)
• Diana Gromala, “Pain and Subjectivity in Virtual Reality,” (CR 598).

Instead of blogging about the readings for next week, please start giving some serious thought to your Essay #1 topic, and post an essay proposal here with the following information:

• What is the question that you want to explore and/or attempt to answer with this essay?
• What sources from our class assigned reading do you expect to utilize in attempting to further explore and answer your question?
• Suggest at least two outside/independent resources that you expect to utilize (scholarly writing that we have NOT read for class) and give a very general summary of what those resources talk about/speak to and HOW you anticipate they might help you answer your question.

Once you have sent in this information to the blog, I will read and make suggestions for each of you, if needed, and then approve your essay proposal.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to email me.

The College is shutting down — no evening classes for tonight, Feb. 13th. Be safe, and I’ll see you all next week.

Check out this short video by Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.

As discussed in class, very often, a good solid question is as valuable as any answer we may provide. Such questions should serve as the foundation for any exploration into any topic; thus, to begin preparing for our first essay assignment, I want you all to come up with one thoughtful, probing question for each of the following readings:

Assigned readings:• Anne Balsamo, “The Virtual Body in Cyberspace” (CR 489)
• Allucquère Rosanne Stone, “Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures,” (CR 504)
• “The Electronic Disturbance: Critical Art Ensemble,” originally published by Autonomedia (part 4 of 7); includes “Case 43” from the Notebooks of Jacques Lacan

Post your questions here and indicate which reading you are asking a question of. Also, if you have any questions or become confused at any point, email me.

I found a pretty cool website: http://www.theory.org.uk/ 

Check it out! Lots on web and media theory, too.