Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

On Tuesday, November 9th, Alexis Pauline Gumbs was invited to our school by many co sponsors of the university. Alexis is a feminist writer and poet. She focuses on technology in many of her writings which is why this presentation/interview was relevant to our Cyberbodies class. I went to this event on Tuesday and found it very interesting. Alexis started out with something that she wrote for her cousin and for us. It was a short speech on technology and humans and how the two are seeming to blend as one the more advanced we get as a society. Her main point was that we are humans and we can make decisions because we are not technology, and our opinion matters and we can make decisions on our own with out the influence of technology. She ended her speech with a poem that she wrote which I loved. I even asked her for a copy of it. It focused on the same idea her speech did, about humans in connection with technology and it was all about Alexis making decision; yes, no, this and not that. I found this poem so amazing and the way she read it was extremely moving.

After her speech, Courtney Marshall interviewed her and asked her guiding questions that turned into more of a group discussion with the audience. The discussion focused on our reliance on technology as a community. Blogs were mentioned a lot and this is where I felt least involved because I don't blog besides the blog I have for this class. It was hard for me to understand what people were talking about, but I learned a lot about the ways people blog, the emotions that go into it, and the reactions that people get through blogging.

I really enjoyed Alexis Pauline Gumbs and I found her to be one of the most intelligent people I've ever heard speak. She is so involved and passionate about what she does and I think it's incredible the effort and time she puts into her work.