Plans, Changes, and So On
Folks,
In reviewing the past half-semester, I have come to some conclusions about ways to improve our class. Therefore:
- Students will not be asked to grade the participation of panel discussions. This is distracting for students, and in reviewing the grading of the past, students are prone to harshly evaluate one another. Therefore I will be grading your panel discussion appearances independently, and will ask for you to submit evaluation of your own performance to me on an individual basis. (Presently, only Juwon and Jiyoon are required to write me self-evaluations, since students will not submit a self-evaluation for their first panel discussion.)
- Panel Discussion topics need to be more focused. Therefore, I will be proposing a dominant concept for each panel discussion, which will help students to prepare for it, to develop their own ideas, and do some independent research in preparation for the discussion.
- Weekly lectures are not the most effective use of our time, and I feel they are not benefiting you as they could be — some of the concepts are too difficult for me to explain without your being prepared for them, and I feel like you’re less able to contribute and discuss than I would like. Therefore, we will move back to the area of readings and group discussions for the longer (2-hour) meetings we have on Tuesdays. (Half of ) May 3rd will be a do-over class, wherein we will discuss the concept of Masculinity and Manhood in relation to an article I will post in the next day or two.
Since the topic of our panel discussion on Masculinity was not set, we will have that discussion for the first half of our class on May 3rd, on the following topic:
Macho, Macho Man
The ideal of what it means to be a man is not a stable concept, but rather changes over time, and encompasses a range of possibilities and aspects of a man’s life. From clothing and hair style, to gendered expectations of the male behavior, and socially constructed concepts of men’s responsibilities, duties, and freedoms, how we think about manhood, manliness, and what it means to be a man has changed in a number of ways in the Anglophone world. In this panel, we will discuss those changes, both recent and not-so-recent, with a view to why these changes happen and how men deal with changes in the idea of what it means to be a man.
Participants:
JiYoon Hu
Juwon Hwangbo
Chul min Park
Ki Tae Han
Kyunghee Park
Myoung seon Kang
I’ll post panel discussion guidelines for the other panels (and dates for our schedule) over the next week or two.
As for class on Thursday, 28 April, we will discuss these changes, and I will talk about your final essay, which you will be writing instead of a midterm exam. Therefore, there is no need to prepare anything for that class.