Final Blog Post

I came to this class not knowing at all what to expect, and this class definitely did not disappoint. Like Danielle, I learned a lot about presenting my ideas through new media, which I really appreciated. I also learned a lot about the distinctions between speaking and silence and listening and hearing, etc. I think it might be tempting to say that we mostly focused on the power-powerless relationship between speaking and silence (regarding culture, class, and gender) but, as I am doing my final project and thinking about the dichotomy between speaking and silence, I think it's important to remember the other aspects we considered as well. For instance: who is more responsible in a conversation for the outcome (whatever that may be), the speaker or the listener? How should rhetoric be viewed, as purely persuasive or something more? These questions and many more are things that I had never thought about before this class.

I also really appreciated this class because it gave me the opportunity to delve more deeply into subjects I care about. For instance, my multimodal presentation on the erotic was fascinating, and helped me choose the topic for my Being Silenced essay, which is the subject on which I want to write my senior thesis. Also, the final project gave me the opportunity to write about my own experiences with religion, which I think is something that in college is not an opportunity students are often given, since professors are caught up with teaching about theology or the differences/similarities of religions or whatnot. Basically, in my experience spirituality is largely neglected as a serious topic in undergraduate religion courses, which I think is a tragedy considering the undergraduate years are so formative in regards to religion. Anyway, back on track: this course has given me so opportunities to explore topics in depth which I had never considered for or which deeply interested me. Thank you, Ms. Lambke, for a great semester!