This month we’re talking about love. I want to use these selections to think about the different ways love can manifest. How do we give love and receive it? Can we always see the difference between love, lust, and romance? I think love can take many forms, whether it is between strangers, family, or finding love for yourself. I hope these recommendations give you new … Continue reading The February Edition of Sophia Selects
Written By Blaise Riley Edited By Lauren Bullock Romance permeates the oxygen we breathe, tarnishes the book pages we read, and paints the lyrics of our favourite songs. In modern society, romantic love is everywhere, bringing its own rigid set of societal pressures and values to everyone’s table. As such, aromantic individuals, which the Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy (i.e., AUREA) (2021) defines … Continue reading Demogorgons, Minecraft Roleplay Servers, and Aromantic Cultures
Written By Andrea Oraka Edited By Kaileigh-Anne Grnak and Lauren Bullock Note: This piece is an excerpt from a longer piece with several chapters written by the author, however given the uniqueness of the piece and its relevancy to this month’s theme we decided to feature only the introductory chapter given the journal’s writing constraints. The future and the possibilities promised by science fiction media … Continue reading The Curious Case of the Sex Robot – A descriptive and speculative feminist analysis of the “future” of sex technology
Written by Sasha Lootvoet Edited By Colin Parker Griffiths More than 7 billion people in the world today will order around Alexa—Amazon’s virtual assistant that is proudly labeled as “non-gendered AI” by its creators. Alexa will be ordered to cancel their noon appointment, send an email to their boss, create their shopping list, or even read a story to their children. Some will even direct … Continue reading Alexa is a Woman: Sexist Biases in AI and a Call for Diversity in Tech Innovation
Written By Jessica Taylor Edited By Colin Parker Griffiths Introduction The increasing popularity of ChatGPT in academic spaces has led to the phenomenon of the ‘ChatGPT Essay.’ Essay writing using artificial intelligence (AI) now poses a threat to teachers who become Turing detectors upon grading assignments, and to the process of essay writing in general (Marche, 2022). As I was curious about how the ChatGPT … Continue reading Exploring Misogyny in the ‘ChatGPT Essay’
Written By Giuliana Luz Grabina Edited By Kaileigh-Anne Grnak Content warning: This article contains discussions of digital sexual abuse. This past week, Twitter users’ feeds were flooded with disturbing, non-consensual sexual deepfakes of Taylor Swift. In response, X (formely known as Twitter) asserted that it was “actively removing” the images and taking “appropriate actions” against the account involved in spreading them, leading to the prompt … Continue reading Beyond the Screens: Deepfakes and Sexual Violence
In the episode “Deep Throat” of the X-files, David Duchovny offers an impactful thought; “When does the human cost become too high for the building of a better machine?”. This month, I have curated a list of influential media following the theme technology and women. I’ve created this list while considering Duchovny’s question and how other themes interact with the technological world. The growing world … Continue reading The January Edition of Sophia Selects
The theme for Sophia’s recommendation for the month is womanhood! As Sophia explains these works were chosen because, “The women presented in this newsletter have expertly reflected the experience of womanhood.” BOOKS “Women, Race, and Class” by Angela Davis This book is a masterclass in intersectionality and an introduction to Davis as a political activist. She outlines the whiteness and elitism that envelopes feminist discourse … Continue reading The December Edition of Sophia Selects
Ungovernable Ghosts Written by Blaise Riley Edited by Haley Clarke-Cousineau In her work titled “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage,” Susan Stryker (1994) compares transgender individuals to Viktor Frankenstein’s creature, since “[t]he transexual body is an unnatural body […]; [i]t is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was … Continue reading Ungovernable Ghosts: In Response to Susan Stryker’s “My Words to VictorFrankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage”
Written By Giuliana Luz Grabina Edited by Collin Parker Griffiths Disillusioned with traditional media’s victim-blaming coverage and with the absence of a national archive to document feminicides, Ni Una Menos—an Argentine grassroots feminist movement dedicated to fighting against machista violence—mobilized to fill this epistemic gap through meticulous data collection and social media advocacy. Key to Ni Una Menos’ epistemic activism, I argue, is the articulation … Continue reading Denouncing State Complicity: Ni Una Menos’ Epistemic Activism
Intersections 