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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

1 of 4 - EcoSex @ U Conn - Anderlini's Gaia - Student Responses: Michael's Take

Dear Earthlings:

The EcoSex course at U Conn is in process. It's a great experience. We are reading amazing books. Thinking out of the box and across disciplines. Students are sending their responses in, with discussion questions. In class, we connect the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings." Multiple perspectives and good synergy. Here, we offer a glimpse. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio's Gaia and the New Politics of Love was one of three cultural theory books. We got four responses: from Michael, Alissa, John, and Alexandra.

Here's Michaels's take:

Response to Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio's Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet

In the book’s initial discussion of the Gaia hypothesis, a comparison is made to Galileo’s discovery of the heliocentric solar system and the discovery’s role in helping to reshape the dogma of the scientific community. I found this comparison, particularly with the references to the works of Thomas Kuhn and Ludwik Fleck very interesting because I think this is certainly a problem that science has never really been able to avoid. I think there’s evidence of this within every generation, as seen with Einstein’s rejection of quantum mechanics because of his belief that the universe couldn’t be so random.

In addition to the scientific community’s ability to become rooted in dogma, I think an additional problem has a risen vis-à-vis how the proliferation of modern media has encouraged such bad behavior among scientists. While such paradigm shifts are often generational, there is now also an element that every discovery is amplified and given significance beyond its actual findings. This makes it that much harder to shift the paradigm because public perception and its bias has been added to the field in addition to the biases of the scientists themselves.

I also found the discussion of abortion rights and the religion’s role interesting. As a supporter of abortion I had always thought of it in the manner described in the book as supporting the principle but simultaneously wanting to avoid it happening still. I had never really thought about why this might be problematic in a different way from a fundamentally pro-life perspective and am glad this was raised by the book.

Does the use of Gaia Theory as a philosophy behind changing human society necessitate the acknowledgement that human-centric thinking as being top of the ‘food chain’ must be abandoned?

Michael Maranets
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love

Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Course Announcement and Description

Dear Earthlings:

Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love. Education is the heart of democracy, education to love. Come back for more wonders: Students Responses to appear every Tuesday. Book Reports to be scheduled soon, every other Thursday. Check out our summer offerings: Ecosexuality in Portland, OR, July 17-21. Info and Registration here!

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

5 of 5 - EcoSex @ U Conn - Margulis and Sagan's Mystery Dance - Student Response: Michael's Take

Dear Earthlings:

The EcoSex course at U Conn is in process. It's a great experience. We are reading amazing books. Thinking out of the box and across disciplines. Students are sending their responses in, with discussion questions. In class, we connect the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings." Multiple perspectives and good synergy. Here, we offer a glimpse. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance was one of two theory-of-science books. We got four responses: from John, Alissa, Rhiann, Adam, and Michael.

Here's Michael's take:

Response to Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality

An issue that arises for me when reading Mystery Dance and the other books assigned by Lynn Marguiles is that I feel I at times focus too much on the trees and miss the broader forest of her points. Having said that, I really enjoyed this book as it presented a nice synthesis of philosophy, zoological evolution and microbiology all of which I like. I did however have some issues with some of the evidence she presents and manner in which she argues for her points. On page 27 when she talks about the idea of a sexual bacterial ‘super-organism’, I find this idea very intriguing because research that has occurred in the 20 years since this book was published has only added evidence supporting the notion of cooperation and altruism between various certain bacterial species that goes beyond her basic examples of their ability to recycle each-other’s metabolites for their own use. I think this if anything is how I view the idea of Gaia, and while the DNA exchanges that occur are the prototype upon which sexual reproduction evolved I think Marguiles should also have mentioned the antagonistic relationship that these organisms share as well. While cooperation does occur, many of these bacteria are also at war with each-other, particularly if they share the same metabolites so there is a degree of antagonism that occurs as well. I think this should have mentioned because it paints a fuller picture of this ‘super-organism’ and because it provides an interesting analogy to the antagonistic war of the sexes in the reproduction of various animals that she documents subsequently. I found she often engaged in the same kind of chauvinistic use of biological evidence that she addressed as what was wrong with how Social Darwinists and others utilized biology in the past. This occurs problematically, in my mind at least, throughout the book, but is most egregious in her discussion of the rise of the patriarchy and phallocracy on page 54 as a consequence of the evolution of Homo sapiens. Earlier she references the descent of Homo erectus as the beginning of our abandonment of chimpanzee-like promiscuity towards monogamy and the protection of females due to the physical power of men which she again references here via her examples of early hunting by males and gathering by females. Based on my experiences taking some anthropology classes on early man and reading the book Born to Run, I would disagree with her use of evolutionary biology to place the origins of the patriarchy at this point in humanity’s existence. Homo erectus differentiated himself from the last common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and other apes because of his ability to run. This is the primary method humanity used throughout the bulk of its history over the last 50,000 years to procure food. There is a greater discrepancy between the sizes of male and female apes like gorillas than between male and female early humans because the physical size of males was actually counterproductive for running and males began shrinking via the selective pressure of these long distance hunts. Born to Run also presents a myriad of evidence of the fact that as you increase the distance of an endurance run the difference between male and female competitors disappears. Ultra-marathoning of the kind ancient tribes utilized to hunt created an equal playing field between the sexes’ roles in survival unlike any seen prior to that point in primates. Similarly, the archaeological evidence of shamanistic rituals I encountered within anthropology also painted a picture of shared shaman roles between the sexes, if not a slant towards female shamans. I’d instead argue that the rise of the patriarchy began much later in human history, only at the dawn of organized agriculture and with it organized religion, within the last 10,000 years, where the larger physical strength of males would present an advantage that they did not necessarily have earlier in hunting by running animals to death.

Question: At a point in the first Chapter, Marguiles uses her arguments about ritualistic violence inherent in males and sperm competition to offer an explanation for gang rapes. Do you agree with her perspective or not? Why?

Michael Maranets
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love

Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Course Announcement and Description

Dear Earthlings:

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

4 of 5 - EcoSex @ U Conn - Margulis and Sagan's Mystery Dance - Student Reports: Adam's Take

Dear Earthlings:

The EcoSex course at U Conn is in process. It's a great experience. We are reading amazing books. Thinking out of the box and across disciplines. Students are sending their responses in, with discussion questions. In class, we connect the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings." Multiple perspectives and good synergy. Here, we offer a glimpse. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance was one of two theory-of-science books. We got four responses: from John, Alissa, Rhiann, Adam, and Michael.

Here's Adam's take:

Response to Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality

I thoroughly enjoyed “Mystery Dance” by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan. These women proved to me, once again, that they are competent, brilliant story-tellers, as well as scientists. I was captivated from the start; the interdisciplinary nature of the book, touching on biology, feminist perspectives, paleontology, microbiology, psychology, etc. appealed to my intellect and made it impossible to label the book as too one-sided or bland.

As an evolutionary biology major, I am fascinated by any news or information on evolution and all the process entails. “Mystery Dance” took an approach to the concept of evolution that I had not deeply considered before; the ‘stripper’ motive endowed the concept of evolution with an air of sexuality and, just as importantly, layers. As a child, I viewed evolution like links in a chain – mutations that resulted in the beginning or end of a species. As I have grown, I have learned that evolution if far less cut and dry than that, and this book articulates that superbly.

Another thing I loved about this book was how Margulis and Sagan focus on the human sex organs, and their relation, in comparison, to our fellow primates and, more broadly, to the other species in the various kingdoms and phylum. I had a decent understanding of these concepts before my reading of this book; I had done my own novice research because of interest on the subject. However, “Mystery Dance” took what I already knew and vastly expanded upon it. Why female Homo sapiens have permanently distended breasts after puberty, why male Homo sapiens generally have much larger genitalia than those of our fellow primates, how we associate sex with the primal, and therefore uncontrollable, dirty parts of our bodies – all are questions that I did not even know I had, now answered.

My question: Looking at current trends, can one predict how human sexual physiology will change in the future, assuming we continue existing as a species?

Adam Kocurek
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love

Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Course Announcement and Description

Dear Earthlings:

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

3 of 5 - EcoSex @ U Conn - Margulis and Sagan's Mystery Dance - Student Responses: Rhiann's Take

Dear Earthlings:

The EcoSex course at U Conn is in process. It's a great experience. We are reading amazing books. Thinking out of the box and across disciplines. Students are sending their responses in, with discussion questions. In class, we connect the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings." Multiple perspectives and good synergy. Here, we offer a glimpse. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance was one of two theory-of-science books. We got four responses: from John, Alissa, Rhiann, Adam, and Michael.

Here's Rhiann's take:

Response to Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality

I was surprised by much of Mystery Dance. One section that stood out to me was titled, “Opposite or “Neighbor” Sexes?” The authors highlight historian, Thomas Laqueur’s, analyzation of the one-sex model from the Renaissance period. It surprised me that men and women were considered neighbors then as opposed to opposites. To me, these definitions should be the other way around. It seems to me that considering men and women neighbors is more forward thinking then considering them opposites. As I write this, I wonder if any of my peers feel the same? Does anyone believe that the thinkers of the Renaissance knew more about intercourse then we do? I would say that in some cases this is definitely true. I also feel that viewing our bodies as neighbors instead of opposites would make for more liberating sex.

However, the woman was still the inferior partner in both definitions. Why is that? How is it that cultural constructs of femininity and sexuality span centuries? Perhaps, this phenomenon comes from biology. Anatomically, the vagina is the receiver during intercourse. Maybe this is where these ideas of inferiority come from. It is very interesting to me that this concept is the same in both definitions of neighbors and opposites.

Additionally, I wanted to comment on the language. It’s noted that in several languages during the Renaissance the uterus and scrotum were labeled with the same word. These words expressed a shared type of human body. Currently, there are more specific labels for the genitals of both males and females. However, can that only be chalked up to science and medicine? Why do we have to distinguish? Could we distinguish medically and not sexually? I cannot decide if the double label from the Renaissance is under developed or ahead of its time. Overall, I was very surprised by the concepts brought up in this section and the parallels that can be drawn between the Renaissance and modern culture.

Rhiann Peterson
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love

Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Course Announcement and Description

Dear Earthlings: