Category Archives: LGBTQ

Sharing the #CLAGSqNY Twitter Hashtag Archive & Its Relationships

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For those of you interested not only in the conversations we shared in the class–that are available via video on this site or in the comments below each week’s post for the course for those who talked in the chat window–the Twitter hashtag archive for #CLAGSqNY is now available at the bottom of this post.

I have also rendered a social network analysis of Twitter mentions of various individual’s handles (namely those in the class) who used the #CLAGSqNY hashtag. Each dot below is a person or group tweeting. Each line indicates they mentioned or were mentioned by someone else connected to them. A total of 502 tweets let us see that three major networks of communication (based on the colors of the connections) formed on Twitter: @CLAGSNY (Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies), @meganbigelow (artist Megan Bigelow), and @jgieseking (me). We also can see that while there are a number of folks on the edges only mentioned once (one line to or from their dot) which indicates a lack of conversation, there are more folks with two or more connections to others, showing a level of connection between those involved in CLAGSqNY.

For those out there still checking in on this site, I have taken a position at Bowdoin College. Please feel free to reach out!

Twitter Mentions Using #CLAGSqNY Hashtag. Jen Jack Gieseking CC BY-NC 2013.

Twitter Mentions Using #CLAGSqNY Hashtag. Jen Jack Gieseking CC BY-NC 2013.

 

 

Reblog from jgieseking.org: Why We Begin this Course on May Day

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This morning I wrote a post titled “Queer(ing) New York”: Education for Change, on May Day and Beyond’ on my home site of jgieseking.org. I am reblogging here for the course community of students:

The CLAGS Seminar in the City that I am teaching, “Queer(ing) New York,” will begin this evening, May 1st. Since creating this course, a lot of activists have wondered why we would choose to begin on International Worker’s Day. I see May Day as not only the right to work but the right to learn and to know. Free, open, and accessible education–like Queer(ing) New York–must instead be made common and therefore part of our public commons.

Courses like this are the ways we can reimagine education, and also reimagine and enact equality. Lgbtq people live through and walk through absences everyday, ranging from issues of recognition to acceptance, from using bathrooms to using the subway, from the bar that used to be there but closed to the home that used to be there but doesn’t count you as family anymore. As a group that lives the marginalization of their sexuality on a daily basis–always also intertwined with their gender, race, and class–looking closely at the lives and spaces of lgbtq people allow us a way to reclaim those absences and push for the recognition of all of humanity.

I am thankful to the CUNY Graduate Center for the ability to live stream and record the course for folks to watch later so that students in over eight countries can take part–if not more! While the debates on the usefulness and/or corporatization of the university by massive, open, online courses (MOOCs) rage on and play out before our eyes, Queer(ing) New York is an opportunity to share four focused classes with folks interested in a common issue. With only four course meetings, we are focusing on honing the conversation through blog posts and our Twitter hashtag (#CLAGSqNY). Coming to both deeper and broader understandings about issues of difference through conversations with people different than you opens not only our minds but our possibilities for action, change, and/or a more exciting experience of everyday life.

My labor is education. My purpose is the recognition of social and spatial inequality in the work toward social and spatial justice. How will you labor today?

For those of you who are members of the City University of New York, tweet your posts or ideas about the role of education and access on this fine May Day to @OpenCUNY or join OpenCUNY.org today!