Weekly outline

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Download Syllabus and first two weekly assignments here
Download Info Sheet here

DOWNLOAD LOGBOOK TEMPLATE HERE IN WORD FROM GOOGLE DOC CAN FILL IN
DOWLOAD SAMPLES IN PDF: SAMPLE ONE LOGBOOK 1 & SAMPLE TWO LOGBOOK 3

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Weekly outline of class assignments & activities 

It turns out that we remember and learn in the spaces between attentions. So shifts of focus can be good, yet you need to pay attention and notice them for them to work for you. You need to learn what your best learning practices are: we will not all learn best in the same ways. Bring your own laptop, netbook or iPad if you can. Be prepared to respond quickly and appropriately, and to demonstrate that your use of electronic media is for class and even allows you to attend more intensively and creatively.

Handouts are downloadable at the class website either from Google Docs or Scribd. See links.

Reading is very tricky in this class! You must read ahead constantly in order to begin work on the assignments at the right time. We have portions assigned on particular days to discuss, but often this is properly a REREADING, as you sometimes you should have read that a first time already. Notice that some days you have a choice of several readings to focus upon, say, 3 chapters out of 5 in a section of one book. This is to give us all the chance to hear about readings we may not have time to do ourselves by that point. That means you need to be able to tell others about the readings, making note taking and preparation even more important. However, by the end of class you should have read the entirety of each of our books. So you can see that keeping up with the reading, discussed on the day on which it is named, is essential, as is attendance on both days! And that doing all this carefully will make your graded assignments so very much easier!

Notice that you are assigned web research as well as readings. Put as much time into this as you do for reading and take it quite as seriously. Web reading and analysis is as important today as book reading is and should be done as carefully and with as much thought, not as a easy substitute for harder work: it IS the harder work! Similarly, everyone should spend time in McKeldin library, finding on the bookshelves stuff not available on computer databases. Schedule time on campus to do research in the library in person and to meet, face to face, with your partner or with other class buddies. In this class we think carefully about how to do all this as well as doing it! Learn to cite your sources, web and print, carefully and conscientiously. This means keeping good records of them all. 


<<<EXPERIENCE SET ONE: WHY DOES SPECULATION MATTER IN FEMINIST THEORY?>>>

Tuesday 30 Aug – Welcome to Our Course!
·       EXPLORE CLASS WEBSITE CAREFULLY! NOTE HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR FIRST CLASS! http://femtheo16.blogspot.com 
·       WEB ASSIGNMENT: Redmond, L. 2014. "Subversive Spinning." On Made by Lea Blog. Leafcutter Designs. http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/blog/subversive-spinning
·       READ: Embedded excerpt from Sturgeon, N. 1995. "Theorizing Movements." In Cultural Politics and Social Movements, pp. 35-51. Darnovsky, M.; B. Epstein, R. Flacks (Eds.) Temple. Embedded on course website <Home> tab. Free Scribd Mobile app: http://www.scribd.com/about 
We will start off with our first MAKING & PROTOTYPING practice: Taking Attendance with Index Portraits, a exercise drawn and played with by cartoonist Lynda Barry. Using our cards we will the take up making class buddies, interviewing each other, and otherwise beginning to create ourselves as a community of intellectual friends. With a classmate generate a list of questions to ask each other about topics that you hope to make part of this class, and take notes on your responses to share with everyone. We will also read, interconnect, and discuss the Redmond blog post and the embedded excerpt from Sturgeon's essay on Direct Theory, a key concept we will be using throughout this class.

Tuesday 6 Sept – Transformative Change: participations
If this is your first time in this class, as soon as you arrive, introduce yourself to two people already there and ask them to help you get up to speed on what happened in the first class. Be sure to read the syllabus online and to note what to do when one misses any classes.
·       NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
·       WEB ASSIGNMENT: How are activists encouraged to use the Take Back the Economy book on the book's companion website here: http://takebackeconomy.net/?page_id=627  
·       READ: Embedded excerpts online of the four required books, either from Google or Amazon:
After our Attendance Profiles, we will begin creating book circles. Everyone will be in one. You will create a name for your circle, we will number them, and otherwise organize them. Then you will work on your first Circle Report, with the reading assignments for today, using our Book Circle Report template. Book circles will report to the entire class on their activities and projects. What do you want to do about your fifth book? How will you choose it?

Tuesday 13 Sept – The many meanings of Opposition: being fluid
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: read this Keating link and then search yourself for additional information: bring that into class to share: http://www.twu.edu/ws/keating.asp
• EXAMINE KEATING BOOK AS OBJECT CAREFULLY: what can you tell about it from its production, drawings, arrangement, TOC and what else?
• READ: Keating: Giving Thanks & Introduction (xiii -29)
What comparisons can you make between Transformation Now & Take Back the Economy? What effects do these two objects want to have on the world? How do you know? Think about the class in terms of Experience Sets. This one asks the question Why Does Speculation Matter in Feminist Theory? How would Keating respond to that question? How would the authors of Take Back the Economy, given what you have read and also their website?

Tuesday 20 Sept – Embedded among economies: how is this theory?
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: find out anything you can about the book and its authors.
• EXAMINE ECONOMY BOOK AS OBJECT CAREFULLY: how is the book itself a collective project? where can you find out about that?
• READ: Take Back Chps 2 & 5: 17-48 & 125-158; (you should have already read beginning and Introduction xiii -29 before.)
• REREAD bits from Sturgeon on Direct Theory at <HOME POST: WELCOME TO CLASS>
• DUE: logbook 1 and any individual circle reports you need to add <TEMPLATE LINK>
How do you understand this material as theory? What is theory? How is it similar or different to methodology, policy, activism? What is direct theory? What has our first experience set been all about? How do you know? What have you learned since that first post with Sturgeon's essay?




<<<EXPERIENCE SET TWO: Change is happening:
What and Who are changed and make change? How do we take on Power?>>>

Tu 27 Sept: Alternate versions of power and change
• Keating, Chap 1 or 6 &
• Take Back, Chp 4 &
• something from your 5th book
How do Keating and the Take Back collective understand what changes are going on in our shared present? What is the same about their understandings, what is different? How does analyzing this help you understand your own assumptions about what changes are happening and how do you know? What sorts of "identities" are involved?

Tu 4 Oct: What counts as intersectional?
• Keating, choose 2 Chps
• Take Back, choose 1
Intersectional is a term used differently by a range of feminists. How have you used it up to now? How do you see your uses as overlapping with those of Keating and Take Back collective? What differences appear too? How do people feel about this term? How do you feel? We will discuss relationships between emotions, feelings, affects as explored in feminist theory.

Tu 11 Oct: NO CLASS YOM KIPPUR but you do have reading, What is individualism?:
• Keating, choose 1 Chp  
• Take Back, choose 2
Look up individualism on the Wikipedia and see just what it might have to do with the readings for this week. Come in with specific ideas and some quotations from the books to share. What experiences do you have with individualism? What are contradictions among different versions? How does it connect with affect and agency?

Tu 18 Oct Workshop1: Change is Happening!
Try to have read as much of Keating & Take Back as possible
DUE: attendance with research poster & pics or paper & handout

"Change is happening" is inspired by "The Diseased Posthuman" workshop, part of a seminar series organized by the Posthumanities International Network. Formed in partnership between The Posthumanities Hub at the Linköping University; Centre for the Humanities at University of Utrecht; Digital Culture Unit of Goldsmiths, University of London; and Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, PIN brings together scholars invested in post-conventional humanities and provides a flexible platform for further research and collaboration. The workshop took place at Linköping University, Sweden, 6-7 June 2016. The Program is located here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fvj51bq6kyc2j7b/AABAVoDYQQMhaVli11OhNCLTa/PIN%20symposium%20programme.%20June%206%20-7.pdf?dl=0

For Change is Happening you will create either a paper (with enough handouts for each member of the class) or a poster (and document it with digital pics): which one determined by lot early in the semester. You may work on these individually or with a partner.

With the help of two books (Gibson-Graham's Take Back the Economy & Keating) and your research among our recommended texts and appropriate web sites, you will map out what current changes you find yourself affected by:

that is,
• how changes can be understood from the point of view of
1) yourself individually,
2) yourself and groups you identify with or work with, and
3) yourself with others you do not know, who perhaps are even forces, animals, objects, events.

We will explore what feminists mean by "affect," "agency" and "identity."

ALWAYS make a point of connecting projects to class readings, activities, and discussions. ALWAYS use a standard model for citation and bibliography, even on posters.

During the first part of class on workshop day, we will meet during class time to share our projects, displaying posters and handouts on the walls of our room, walk and talk one-on-one with each other, share questions, observations, excitements! In the second part of class time we will continue to work with the energy generated by our interactions, collectively coming up with reflective analysis and more ideas for what comes next!

Full credit for this assignment requires: • having begun work several weeks ahead of time, • writing and postering in several drafts, • displaying paper & handout or poster during worshop and • actively participating in interactions and reflections, • turning in electronic copies of poster pics or paper and handout to Katie’s gmail account, • and documenting each piece of the assignment as completed in your logbook, which must be turned in electronically with everything else by the evening after the workshop for credit. If for any reason whatsoever you miss any piece of this, you will need to document that in your logbook, with explanations, and perhaps notes of any discussions you have with Katie about it all. If you miss any workshop, you will need to arrange with three fellow students your own little mini-workshop, where you all meet together outside class to share your work and discuss it, and you write a two-page report on your meeting and discussion.