Saturday, February 28, 2015

DOUBLE SESSION TODAY!

===NOTE CHANGES: we will meet for entire class time 12 March; Joseph talk is 1 April 
scroll to bottom to see in detail

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ACTIONS AND INTERACTIONS! COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Thursday 5 March – Feelings, Affects, Emotions, Orgies, Longings, among differing communities of practice: what work for which contexts? when oppositional and why? 

• READ: You should have done all the Anker, Gessen, and Rodríguez readings for both last week and this week as negotiated with our Director of Readings.
• LINKS AND WEBSITE: You should have read the work on the new TAB: communities of practice and started to play around with how to use these ideas in our discussion and analyses. What will these conceptual tools help us do? 

• RECOMMENDED: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. TERM: Cvetkovich, "Affect" (13-16). Also Acknowledgements (vii-viii), Introduction (1-7) and Note on Classroom Use (9-11).
• ADD THIS WEEK: TERM: Rodríguez, "Latino, Latina, Latin@" (146-149).
• ALSO RECOMMENDED: on the Wikipedia: "LGBT Rights in Russia," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia 

• ALSO: use the web to figure out the term "pinkwashing." What work does it do for which communities of practice? COMPARE IT WITH the term "homonationalism." How do these terms work together? How have you seen them used and by whom for what purposes? Where do you find each on the web? What can you infer from all this?

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DOUBLE PRESENTATIONS! 

• Each TEAM will have exactly one hour to accomplish both presentation and to facilitate discussion.
• We will take a brisk 10 min break between.

• That means we will have only about twenty minutes before the end of class to catch up on loose ends and maybe to continue connections among all the readings and our thoughts. Be sure you know what you need at this time! 

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EXTRAS! 

I had added the stuff below to an earlier post, and liked the Ainsworth article myself, not as without flaws or not to be criticized, but as some introduction to interesting issues. (I never assume that something I read or suggest is flawless!) And so it is! On Facebook today more response to this essay, including a link to comments by Anne Fausto-Sterling: “Giving credit and showing chains of knowledge are part of doing science journalism in an ethical and professional manner. It does a disservice to science to pretend that all the ideas come from scientists in the current moment. The ideas in this article come from intersex activists (many of whom some of the scientists you do cite knew and worked with) as well as historians of science and biologists such as myself. Feminist theory also contributed to the growth of these ideas. Biology is not an island divorced from the rest of academia or society. It is not great journalism to pretend otherwise.” (See: http://oiiuk.org/975/musing-on-binary-essentialism/  )

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[OPTIONAL READING NOW, BUT WE MAY WISH TO REFER TO LATER: Claire Ainsworth (2015). Sex redefined: The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that. Nature 518 (19 February 2015): 288-291. doi:10.1038/518288a.  http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews  ]

Saw this on Facebook and like this science writer summary of findings since the nineties. Interesting elements perhaps in the narration, visualization, communication of intra-body action too. Could be understood to be the kind of knowledges that new materialisms might wish to work out and with and inspect and analyze.... What sorts of politics are appropriate for such analysis? What tactics are "friendly" to including new sciences while also being carefully aware of their ideological agencies?

The new sciences of epigenetics are involved here, "turning genes on and off" as the popular press tends to put it, a new set of mechanisms for what was, until relatively recently, understood as a scientific fallacy, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, sometimes denominated Lamarckism.  A Soviet version of that  was debunked as Lysenkoism. You may wish to nose around on the web and begin to become familiar with these terms and issues.

===NOTE CHANGES: we meet for entire class time 12 March; Joseph talk is 1 April 

<<<SECTION II: what’s new? Neo-liberalism? New materialisms?

Anker. 2014. Orgies of Feeling. Duke. 978-0822356974. ASIN: B00NCU8PWA.
Gessen & Huff-Hannon, eds. 2014. Gay Propaganda. OR Books. 978-1939293350. ASIN: B00J7XJBWO.
Kirksey, ed. 2014. The Multispecies Salon. Duke. 978-0822356257. ASIN: B00PIKKE1C.
Povinelli. 2011. Economies of Abandonment. 978-0822350842. ASIN: B0068JZCAK.
Rodríguez. 2014. Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings. NYU. 978-0814764923. ASIN: B00L8BUIES.
FOR MIRANDA: Community: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU. 978-0814708019. ASIN: B00PSKHO1.

Thursday 26 February – Anker, Gessen
Thursday 5 March – Gessen, Rodríguez
Thursday 12 March – Povinelli, Kirksey <we must miss LGBT talk after all, so plan instead:
> Friday, March 13, 2015 Colloquium with Tavia Nyong’o; 12:30pm-2pm at Taliaferro Hall 2110  

Thursday 19 March – SPRING BREAK

Thursday 26 March – Povinelli, Kirksey, Anker, Gessen, Rodríguez <ANKER AT CLASS>
[Wednesday 1 April: Miranda Joseph at LGBT Series: check out Burgett & Mendler: Community] 

Thursday 2 April – paper sessions



Thursday, February 26, 2015

Class at home today! WMST offices closed: double presentations next week.

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Hi Folks! Sorry for multiple confused emails! I was right the first time!

Class is cancelled today. Or, rather, today you will use as a classwork at home day. (That is important for how snow days are counted by the state, and how permission is given by the unit supervisor.)

What does this mean for the next two weeks of work and next week's presentations?

It does NOT mean that we push things back. It DOES mean that we double things up. It is not a free week: it is a work at home class this week. You will notice that these differences do matter. (And we can discuss these too!)

So -- spend today making sure you are totally caught up on the reading for BOTH this week AND ALSO NEXT week! 

As usual on this weekend I will put up more about next week's class preparation, but you already know what the reading is going to be.

This would also be a good time to explore links on the website you have not yet had time to read and check out.

We will have presentation originally scheduled for today before the break next week, and the one scheduled for next week, after the break. 

So that means that folks presenting both weeks are still doing so! Please notice that! Again, this is not a week off, but rather a reading week at home!

Stay warm, have cozy reading time if at all possible, enjoy a shift in pace while still doing the work, reorganizing what is done when. 

Best wishes!

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Saturday, February 21, 2015

what do we mean by new? what sort of strategies, tactics, memberships does it activate?

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<<<SECTION II: what’s new? Neo-liberalism? New materialisms? 

Anker. 2014. Orgies of Feeling. Duke. 978-0822356974. ASIN: B00NCU8PWA.
Gessen & Huff-Hannon, eds. 2014. Gay Propaganda. OR Books. 978-1939293350. ASIN: B00J7XJBWO.
Kirksey, ed. 2014. The Multispecies Salon. Duke. 978-0822356257. ASIN: B00PIKKE1C.
Povinelli. 2011. Economies of Abandonment. 978-0822350842. ASIN: B0068JZCAK.
Rodríguez. 2014. Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings. NYU. 978-0814764923. ASIN: B00L8BUIES.
FOR MIRANDA: Community: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU. 978-0814708019. ASIN: B00PSKHO1.

Thursday 26 February – Anker, Gessen 
Thursday 5 March – Gessen, Rodríguez
Thursday 12 March – Povinelli, Kirksey [Thursday 12 March 5PM! Tavia Nyong'o at LGBT Series]

Thursday 19 March – SPRING BREAK 

Thursday 26 March – Povinelli, Kirksey, Anker, Gessen, Rodríguez <ANKER AT CLASS>
[Wednesday 1 APRIL <CORRECTION!: Miranda Joseph at LGBT Series: check out Burgett & Mendler: Community] 

Thursday 2 April – paper sessions 

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Gathering with, as, to create the strategies, tactics, memberships of differential consciousness.... How to identify, experience, note the affective resonances, pay attention to and honor and sometimes critique the oppositional consciousness/es entangled? 


How might we "distinguish, evaluate, and select tactics"? what do we notice emerging in the various politics, readings of power, deconstructions, differential perceptions, democratics we inhabit, witness, practice, are moving around by, and moved by in the ...new? now? actual everyday? How might we identify "situated knowledges," "globalizing psychic, cultural, and national sites," "place-based ecological activism," "political and cultural planetary geographies"? are these words you would use? your communities of action, affect, belonging would use? what are you moved to? how are you "learning to be affected"?

Make some lists, pictures, sets of quotation, tangles of citations, or other drafts for thinking and bring them to class! Connect them to our readings, our discussions, your histories and care-abouts! 


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Thursday 26 February – Orgies of Feeling in the politics of .... 

• READ: Read both Anker and Gessen as negotiated with our Director of Readings.

Be sure to be consider the difficulties and ...excitements? of trying
=to describe a range of meanings for "orgies of feeling" and
=how they might be distributed and/or silo-ed among "communities of practice" as well as
=how relatively general and even vague common language understandings might enable as well as
=confuse particular meanings or
=desires to define these words and their agencies, as well as
=realities they participate in.

How might "orgies of feeling" be the subject of Gessen Gay Propaganda collection too?

• ALSO EXAMINE, READ, CHECK LINKS AND PONDER: new TAB: communities of practice

• RECOMMENDED: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. TERM: Cvetkovich, "Affect" (13-16). Also Acknowledgements (vii-viii), Introduction (1-7) and Note on Classroom Use (9-11).
ALSO RECOMMENDED: on the Wikipedia: "LGBT Rights in Russia," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia

• ALSO: find out what the term "pinkwashing" means. How can you tell when it is happening?
Gessen is going to be on campus in April. What do you learn about her on the web, what will her book and her person contribute to our course? Why is the book called "Gay Propaganda"? What about "propaganda" and LGBT people in Russia today? Are things getting better or worse for LGBT people in Russia? What makes this clear? Does this surprise you? why or why not? Why might pinkwashing be an important term for LGBT activisms? How could it be entangled with issues of LGBT rights in Russia?

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[OPTIONAL READING NOW, BUT WE MAY WISH TO REFER TO LATER: Claire Ainsworth (2015). Sex redefined: The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that. Nature 518 (19 February 2015): 288-291. doi:10.1038/518288a.  http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews  ]

Just saw this on Facebook and like this science writer summary of findings since the nineties. Interesting elements perhaps in the narration, visualization, communication of intra-body action too. Could be understood to be the kind of knowledges that new materialisms might wish to work out and with and inspect and analyze.... What sorts of politics are appropriate for such analysis? What tactics are "friendly" to including new sciences while also being carefully aware of their ideological agencies? 

The new sciences of epigenetics are involved here, "turning genes on and off" as the popular press tends to put it, a new set of mechanisms for what was, until relatively recently, understood as a scientific fallacy, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, sometimes denominated Lamarckism.  A Soviet version of that  was debunked as Lysenkoism. You may wish to nose around on the web and begin to become familiar with these terms and issues.

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Sunday, February 15, 2015

text, textile, context, tangle....

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<<<SECTION I: movements entangled & entangling, intentional & historical 

Dixon. 2014. Another Politics. California. 978-0520279025. ASIN: B00KOLR378.
Paoletti. 2013. Pink and Blue. Indiana. 978-0253009852. ASIN: B007A0PHL0.
Reed. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minnesota. 9780816637713
Sandoval. 2000. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minnesota. 9780816627370 

Thursday 29 January – Intro: Dixon, (Reed), Sandoval, (double bind, trans-waters) 
Thursday 5 February – Reed, Paoletti 
Thursday 12 February – Dixon, Sandoval 
Thursday 19 February – Sandoval, Paoletti <PAOLETTI AT CLASS> 

Thursday 19 February – just how to entangle.... Paoletti, scholarly trajectories, present in time/s

• READ: Read as much of Paoletti as you can: pay attention to your reading practices and what strategies you used to prepare to talk to the author! Bring questions and ideas to share. You could compare your own practices with those described here in a wonderful leaflet How to Read: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzmKs1Fz7m9uNGM3NzVhNjctYmQ3MC00MTdmLTg4NGQtOTIxNGIwNTc5MGJm/edit?ddrp=1&pli=1&hl=en
• ALSO READ: Sandoval. Some already tried the book in two hours program. Others did the index last time. Everyone should read Part III, especially getting through Chap 4. Why that chapter in particular?

•RECOMMENDED: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. TERMS: Tu, "Fashion" (104-106); Rohy, "Time" (242-245).
•ALSO RECOMMENDED: on the Wikipedia: "Textiles," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile

Come prepped to talk with our visitor! Jo Paoletti will probably talk to us for about 20 mins, then we can all question and think together for the next 40 mins, then break. We will see what emerges to continue on with for the rest of the class. 

Being prepped will make a big difference and help us all work together in fascinating ways! Look up Paoletti on the web and the books reviewed and whatever you can find! She has been widely interviewed! 

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Saturday, February 7, 2015

entangle yourself, play with multiple consciousness-es....

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<<<SECTION I: movements entangled & entangling, intentional & historical 

Dixon. 2014. Another Politics. California. 978-0520279025. ASIN: B00KOLR378.
Paoletti. 2013. Pink and Blue. Indiana. 978-0253009852. ASIN: B007A0PHL0.
Reed. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minnesota. 9780816637713
Sandoval. 2000. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minnesota. 9780816627370 

Thursday 29 January – Intro: Dixon, (Reed), Sandoval, (double bind, trans-waters) 
Thursday 5 February – Reed, Paoletti 
Thursday 12 February – Dixon, Sandoval 
Thursday 19 February – Sandoval, Paoletti <PAOLETTI AT CLASS> 

Thursday 12 February – consciousness? what's that? 

• READ: • everyone read Lurie, "How to Read a Book in Two hours or Less," online here: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/how-read-book-two-hours-or-less   (If you were going to cite this article, how would you do so? Bring your citation in: forms for in text, footnote, bibliography. http://www.citationmachine.net/mla/cite-a-website ) • Then, try this practice with Dixon and see what you can do with it, what you notice about the practice, how it makes you FEEL! and anything else you notice about it while you do it ("paying attention to what happens as it happens"). Take notes on how it feels as well as anything else you want notes about.
• ALSO READ: Sandoval through the index. We will do this one with pp. 236-239. Focus on these entries, and read back through the text using these to direct your attention:
p236:
=Citizen-subject
=Coalition, Coalitional consciousness, Coatlicue, Cognitive Mapping
=Colonization
=Consciousness
=Cyberspace
=Cyborg skills
p237:
=Différance
=Differential consciousness, Differential knowledges, Differential politics, Differential powers and activism, Differential social movement, Differential transits, Differential: la conciencia de la mestiza
 239;
=Oppositional consciousness
=Outsider

•RECOMMENDED: Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. TERMS: Berlant, "Citizenship" (41-45); Nyong'o, "Subject" (231-235).
•ALSO RECOMMENDED: on the Wikipedia: "Consciousness," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

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Please review the website and syllabus on assignments: TAB: what to do! make it fun! ; and TAB: readings, on presentation .

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Chris Dixon: “Another Politics: Talking Across Today’s Transformative Movements” from Fairhaven College, WWU on Vimeo.

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Katie experiments with one of the simplest distance reading techniques: a very simple visualization called a Word Cloud. She converts the text of the Sandoval index entry "Citizen-subject" to this Word Cloud:

Made at ManyEyes: http://www-969.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/#/
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_tools
On Word Cloud generators: http://www.edudemic.com/word-cloud-generators/
Alternative word clouds: Jason Davies: http://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/#

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Word Sift: http://www.wordsift.com/visualize


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WordItOut: http://worditout.com


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TagCrowd: http://tagcrowd.com



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ABCya!: http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm


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Tagxedo: http://www.tagxedo.com


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VocabGrabber: https://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/


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Another extremely simple (overly so in many ways) historical visualization is the Google ngram. Big data and distance reading work in simple action: Here is one to see frequencies of terms double consciousness, double bind, intersectionality from 1800-2000 in English books:  https://books.google.com/ngrams/

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<Sandoval 2000>

=reflects back upon ~20th c. & global colonialism
+ US Third World Women
+ politics of theorists ag. assumptions of their nonpolitical privilege, e.g. Barthes, Derrida 
w. synthesis of post-structuralist THEORY: eg. http://culturalpolitics.net/cultural_theory/postmodern  


<Reed 2005>

=reflects back upon 60’s movements esp. US
+ art as element of longevity while tactics alter
+ historical details ag. amnesia
w. synthesis of new social movements THEORY: eg. 



<Dixon 2014>

=interviews across current movements esp. North American
+ picks up history where Reed leaves off
+ time and tactics caught up together
w. synthesis of prefigurative politics & anarchist THEORY; e.g.

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