Davies Forum Workshop Reflection

I really, really LOVED this workshop! I'll admit I was a little apprehensive at the beginning - it's both exciting and extremely intimidating to meet and maintain a discussion with such intelligent feminist scholars when you only have very basic knowledge about feminism yourself - but after starting off with the drawing exercise, I felt a lot more at ease to discuss my ideas and ultimately saw this workshop as a different learning experience!

I was placed in the group with Elina, who facilitated the drawing exercise. I'm really into introspective activities, so being able to reflect quietly gave me the chance to center myself and my thoughts before launching onto a discussion. I also appreciated sharing our own drawings and ideas in smaller groups before sharing altogether. What I loved the most about this activity was that it was so simple, but apt in demonstrating the complex nature of violence itself - violence cannot be pigeonholed into one single definition. Like everyone's drawings, not one idea of violence was exactly the same, ranging from specific memories to abstract ideas. I definitely feel like drawing our ideas instead of just discussing them shed a different light on the subject that I hadn't thought about before.

All four speakers had so many interesting things to note - Sarai's discussion on Palestine and trying to figure out ways to spread awareness of women's issues was thought-provoking, as was Caron's ideas on "intimate terrorism" - her allusions to Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight, noting that women falling in love with their captors is often romanticized was eye-opening and definitely something I didn't notice before! I also loved Swati's questions of writing emotions into these political issues, owning up to our own experiences and bringing ourselves into writing - which was then further explained by Elena, acknowledging that often times, scholarly work encourages us to be objective observers, when in reality, we all are defined by our experiences and can never truly be neutral observers and reporters.

I also had the pleasure of having dinner with them too! We went to Zazie's (which was so delicious, oh my goodness, I can't even explain!) and I was able to talk to Caron more and listen to her experiences living and teaching in Scotland - something I was very interested in since I'm looking to study abroad in Europe, namely England, so I was able to get some bits of knowledge for future reference! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk with Swati and Elina as much as I would've liked to, but it was definitely an honor to sit and dine at the same table with them that night! All in all, this was an amazing experience - probably one of my favorite college experiences to date! Thanks, Davies!