I can't believe I wasted those six years getting a Ph.D. in something so dull, so logical, so patriarchal as quantitative psychology, when I could have gone to San Francisco and done a masters degree like this:
M.A. Student Bios/ProjectsBryan Burgess received a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts. An activist artist, Bryan’s thesis is an exploration of theater methods used to challenge gender binaries and gender oppression. Bryan’s goal is to develop a theater model that can be used as an organizing tool for cross-identity alliance building. Bryan is currently working with People in Search of Safe Restrooms (PISSR) and the Transgender Law Center on their campaign for safe bathroom access and is the events coordinator for New College’s Activism & Social Change program.
Shauna Jo Gunderson received her B.A. from New College of California majoring in Literature and Women's Studies. Shauna’s areas of interest and inquiry include Latin America; indigenous resistance to imperialism; the invention of a history outside of oppression; Helene Cixous; "political" poetry; and explorations of femininity spacious enough to include masculinity. She is a member of a collective that works on the promotion of Fair Trade flowers, water problems, women's issues, and the indigenous fight against oil development in the Amazon. Shauna currently works for a non-profit that specializes in sex & HIV education.
Heidi Misken received a B.A. from UC Berkeley; she majored in American Studies with a focus on "Race, Gender, & Sexuality in Film." For her New College of California graduate thesis project, Heidi is organizing Fluid, a community for people who don’t fit neatly into the sex, gender, and sexual orientation binaries: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/SFFluid. At the moment, Heidi is heavily involved in developing the SF chapter of Fluid, in working to open Fluid up to folks who don’t fit into conventional categories of race and ethnicity, and in creating academic theory that addresses the fluidity of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity.
When Bryan finds those safe restrooms he's looking for, he'll have to let me know if a masters degree from the New College of California is fit to be anything other than a substitute for toilet paper. After all, NCoC says right on their history page that they're proud to still be alternative after 30 years, even though many other alternative-wannabe schools have "retreated or collapsed" since then. Isn't that a bit like saying, "By God, we're proud to still be selling sardine-flavored ice cream, even though every other company that did so has gone bankrupt!" ?
Matt Rosenberg is suitably impressed by the whole thing.
Posted by kswygert at April 20, 2005 01:16 PM