Introduction and Orientation
How are you feeling about this semester? What are your hopes and expectations for the module? What do you think you will learn? What do you want to learn? What knowledge and skills do you hope you will strengthen and develop? What topics are you particularly interested in?
Thinking about the semester that is ahead of me fills me with excitement but also a little bit of anxiety because it is going to be challenging and I hope to achieve the best results I can. I am eager to learn new things and this module specifically seems like it will cover topics that interest me. I have studied a Feminist Philosophy module last semester, which made me hope that we would have similar discussions regarding gender identities and how difficult their definition can be as it is a very individual matter. I am hoping to see those kinds of questions but more in a practical sense because, in the past, I only had the chance to discuss the theories themselves but never their effect on actual people around the world. Connecting religion to the problematics of gender identities is something I am greatly looking forward to as well, especially if we consider various cultures around the world that do not have the same perception of gender that we do in the Western world. From going through the seminar topics, I am mostly looking forward to the myth of Lilith and the Hijra community in India. Overall, I am hoping to develop a more critical way of thinking and retain knowledge about the topics we will discuss throughout the course.