EXWR 112-01

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, & TRANSGENDER ISSUES IN WRITING

9 September 1999

Paper 2: Visual Codes at Oberlin College

For this assignment I'd like for you to look around you on the Oberlin College campus and explore your ability to analyze what you look at by answering one of the following questions:

1. Where and how are messages about sexuality displayed on our campus? Pick at least one example of some visual representation of sexuality and describe it, explaining what attitudes, values, meanings of sexuality it conveys to you. Think about how you form assumptions about the sexual orientations of others around you. On what actions do you base those assumptions? Do you think other people share them? How do people around you demonstrate to you through their actions that they do or do not share those assumptions?
2. How are genders performed, and by whom? Try to identify for yourself the characteristics on which you base assumptions about the gender of people around you. Does everyone fully agree on those assumptions? How do others demonstrate to you that they do or do not share those assumptions?
3. What has been the most surprising, interesting, disturbing, or intriguing performance or encoding of sexuality and/or gender you've seen at Oberlin so far? Describe it for us and examine your own reaction to it. To what extent do you think your reaction was the one intended by the person who produced it and why?
4. What is one way in which people on the Oberlin College campus visually encode or perform sexuality or gender that differs from codings or performances at your previous school. Everyone asserts that Oberlin is a radically different community--when you analyze the codings or performances of sexuality or gender do you find that to really be true?

For whatever question you choose, keep in mind that this is an opportunity to examine something closely, so you'll need to pick a topic you find genuinely fascinating. If you find it interesting, we are much more likely to find it interesting by reading your discussion of it. Because this is an assignment about seeing, you should pick topic that gives you the opportunity to write plenty of visual detail.

The first draft of this paper is due as a Word-RTF formatted attachment to an email message sent to Jan.Cooper@oberlin.edu by 6 pm on Tues., September 14. Please type it, double-spacing and leaving one inch of margin on all sides of your writing so that we have room to write comments.

At the end of the paper, please add a note telling me what you think of this draft--what in it you like, what you might have had problems with, what you'd like help improving.