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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.
