Sunday, October 26, 2014

Seeds & Earth & Change & Groundings

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<<<EXPERIENCE SET THREE: 
INTERSECTIONAL ART ACTIVISMS & IDENTITIES>>>


Tuesday, 28 October – self-aware, questing, problem-solving flesh
• Check out the art-activist online project on microagressions: http://www.microaggressions.com
• Butler, the whole book by now
• Note Butler’s description on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
• Read about Earthseed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthseed
Note the link there to an interview with Butler.
• mirror-touch synesthesia on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror-touch_synesthesia  



From the book: 
“We are Earthseed. We are flesh---self-aware,
questing, problem-solving flesh. We are that
aspect of Earthlife best able to shape God
knowingly. We are Earthlife maturing, Earthlife
preparing to fall away from the parent world.
We are Earthlife preparing to take root in
new ground, Earthlife fulfilling its purpose,
its promise, its Destiny.”




http://solseed.org  

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I mentioned in class listening to a radio program as I began to listen again to an audiobook version of Parable of the Sower. This is the program I was listening to, and the parallels are powerful ones. Butler evokes many kinds of experiences in her SF novel. Consider how these intertwine her book, the Microagressions Project online, Solseed folks and their hopes, and the experiences of immigration for many today. http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/24/334494493/who-are-the-kids-of-the-migrant-crisis   


Who Are The Kids Of The Migrant Crisis?


Since October, a staggering 57,000 unaccompanied migrant children have been apprehended at the southwestern U.S. border. Sometimes, they've been welcomed into the country by activists; other times they've been turned away by protesters.

President Obama has called the flood of migrant children seeking refuge from violence and poverty in Central America a "humanitarian crisis at the border." Earlier this month, he requested $3.7 billion from Congress to respond to the crisis and urged Central American leaders to discourage more children from attempting the dangerous journey through Mexico, where they are targets for local criminal gangs and drug cartels.

The number of migrant children hailing from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala has more than doubled since last year. But who are these young people, and why are they coming in such large numbers?

Elizabeth Kennedy, a Fulbright scholar who's been working in El Salvador, has some answers. As part of her research in the capital, San Salvador, on unaccompanied minor migrants, she interviewed more than 500 children and adolescents as they returned to El Salvador after being deported from Mexico. She tells NPR's Robert Siegel that many of them are desperate.

"These are the most dangerous places in the world," Kennedy says. "The only place that has a higher murder rate than Honduras is Syria."

Of the 322 interviews she's analyzed, Kennedy says 109 interviewees "received direct threats that they could either join a gang or be killed."

In most cases, Kennedy says, kids and teenagers leave Central America to avoid climbing levels of gang violence, extortion and drug trafficking.

Sometimes, it's to find their families. Ninety percent of the young people she's interviewed have relatives in the U.S.; 50 percent have one or both parents there.

The Mexican government has recently announced a new initiative to step up control of its southern border. Kennedy says El Salvador is feeling the effects. The migrant return center where she works has gone from receiving one or two buses of children twice a week to receiving more than six a week.

But, Kennedy says, those kids will try again. She interviewed a 12-year-old boy who returned to El Salvador barefoot; he had been robbed of everything he owned.

"I asked him if he was going to try again," says Kennedy, "and he just burst into tears and said, 'What would you do if you were me? I haven't seen my mom or my dad in 10 years ... and no one here loves me.' "

If the children have family in the U.S., they can often afford to pay a smuggler to get them across the border. If a family is too poor to afford a coyote, however, the child will often try to ride on a network of trains that run the length of Mexico, known as "La Bestia" — The Beast.


Deborah Bonello, a freelance video journalist in Mexico, says that riding The Beast is dangerous. Because it's a cargo train, not a passenger train, migrants have to jump on while the train is moving and climb onto the roof. Many have lost limbs; others have lost their lives.

And there are other dangers.

"Criminal groups are charging a tax now to migrants who want to ride the train, and if you can't pay, you basically get thrown off," Bonello says. "And it's half a day, a day on the train, so if the train doesn't stop, they have no access to food."

Migrants riding La Bestia often have to rely on charity. Bonello says that groups like the women who call themselves "Las Patronas" throw food to migrants as the trains go by.

If they make it to the U.S.-Mexico border, children are readily giving themselves up to U.S. agents, crossing the Rio Grande on inner tubes and tires. They will be encountering even more patrols in the coming weeks; Texas Gov. Rick Perry has announced that he's sending 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border.

These children hope their long journey will end here, when they surrender to U.S. officials — but as they head to crowded detention centers to await immigration court hearings, it may be just beginning.

Writing and research was contributed by Caroline Batten and Nicole Narea.

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Katie's talksite for Purdue events: Transcontextual tangles, how they matterhttp://tanglematters.blogspot.com   
**Handout14 Purdue by Katie King
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Feminism (singular) and Feminisms (plural) are boundary objects: words, ideas, concepts, ways of connecting in solidarity, politics in the making....

> boundary object: keeps boundaries from getting in the way of solidarity as struggles for a/many yet-unknown-possibility/ies is/are in the making among different folks, differently. 
> struggle: for what cannot even yet be imagined but is worked for anyway. 




"Drawing on contemporary work in feminist science and technology research, we are working with an expanded notion of a 'learning object' to incorporate insights about 'boundary objects.' This theoretical reframing asserts that the 'object' participates in the creation of meanings: of identity, or usefulness, of function, of possibilities. The concept of a 'boundary object' was promoted by the late Susan Leigh Starr (a prominent feminist scholar in science/technology studies) to assert that objects (material, digital, discursive, conceptual) participate in the co-production of reality. At base, the notion asserts that objects perform important communication 'work' among people: they are defined enough to enable people to form common understandings, but weakly determined so that participants can modify them to express emergent thinking.” FEMTECHNET’S BOUNDARY OBJECTS THAT LEARN (Juhasz & Balsamo 2013): http://femtechnet.org  




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Monday, October 20, 2014

What is Feminism? in struggle, collective action, and working with process

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Tuesday, 21 October – Raising our Consciousness: What is Feminism?
DUE ASS. #2: feminist event project elements & logbook 2

Everyone will say something today! Everyone should be in class today, working with their group, and talking about the experiences that coalesce around this set of projects. Prepare with your group at the beginning of class so that your group’s presentation will allow everyone to be introduced and talk about feminist process and CR, and discuss how definitions of feminism entail collective action. See the Assignment TAB 2:Event for specifics for preparation!

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Be sure to click these pics for valuable links! 


event group presentations -- these take place during our Tuesday seminar -- Be sure you are there -- it's part of the assignment!  bring your flyer to share around. 

Everyone must say something, so as soon as you get to class, get together with your group and plan what each person will say. Each person should be detailed but brief! Try to say something new, and not just repeat what others have said: something special from your very particular viewpoint and experience of the processes involved!  

HOORAY! WE GET TO SEE THE FRUITS OF YOUR HARD WORK AND THOUGHTFUL CONSIDERATION OF PROCESS! feminism in its collective aspects and processes is the heart of this assignment. 

    • First everyone in turn will introduce themselves to the whole class. Tell us both your first and last name, slowly and clearly. 
    • Someone will read the group's definition of feminism.
    • Someone will describe the event the group came up with. 
    • Someone will describe the flyer and its design
    • Someone will characterize who the flyer and event is directed to, their audiences and distribution.
    • One or more people will describe some relationships between the definition and the event. 
    • One or more people will talk about the group process, esp. how work was divided and how disputes were resolved.
    • One or more people will discuss how the process of the assignment helps us consider what is feminism and how feminist process involves engaging in reflection and action.


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      INTRO TO OCTAVIA BUTLER:
      • Read about Earthseed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthseed

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      What can be un-done?

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      A striking comment in the New York Times by trans activist Susan Stryker! 

      http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/10/19/is-checking-the-sex-box-necessary/undoing-sex-classification-can-provide-justice?  

      Undoing Sex Classification Can Provide Justice

      Should the government legally distinguish between sexes? I think not. This is not to deny that bodies have different biological capacities, or to assert that all bodies are alike, but rather to point out that sex classification undergirds unequal access to employment, marriage, parental rights, inheritance and many social services — to name a few of the consequences of creating two distinct legal categories of personhood.
      The male-female distinctions undergird unequal access to employment, marriage, parental rights and inheritance, creating two distinct legal categories of personhood.
      As the work of the political scientist Paisley Currah documents, sex is not, in fact, clearly defined in the United States. Rather, there exists only a hodgepodge of fuzzy, contradictory, assumption-riddled habits, practices, procedures, rules, ordinances, statutes, rulings and judgments in various, often overlapping, jurisdictions (as the difference between birth certificate amendment practices in New York City and New York State demonstrate).

      We assume sex to be naturally given and apparent, but when pushed to define it, we fall down the rabbit hole and can’t say definitively what biological sex actually is, or exactly how it relates to the social categories we call “women” and “men.” Is sex in the gonads, the chromosomes or the brain? Can it be defined by socialization, or by the assertion of a profoundly felt identity? Is it immutable, or can it be changed by a scalpel or stroke of a pen?

      What if “sex” is just a shorthand for the most familiar configuration of these elements, a concept we are compelled to define only when confronted by anomalous cases such as those presented by transgender and intersex people?

      Undoing sex classifications might seem utopian — it would mean, for example, abolishing the sex-segregated way prisons and the military are currently organized, just as we are now abolishing sex-segregated rights to marriage — but that doesn’t mean justice wouldn’t be served by heading in that direction.



      http://gws.arizona.edu/user/161  

      https://www.dukeupress.edu/TSQ-Transgender-Studies-Quarterly/  


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      Wednesday, October 8, 2014

      two feminist elders from the Women's Liberation Movement and more: our novel & immigration feminisms, and what we will do on Tuesday! Prepare yourself!

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      Hear bell hooks talk about internalized oppression and Gloria Steinem agreeing and disagreeing with her about many feminist issues: a great conversation that illuminates a lot about the folks of the 70s women's movements. Enjoy!



      http://new.livestream.com/TheNewSchool/Forever-Young-bell-hooks-Gloria-Steinem/videos/64181039

      • You will want to have watched the WHOLE video above by the end of the class. Even better if you watch it all now (and the Q&A at the end is really wonderful too!) and watch it again when you are writing your final Learning Analysis (which is Assignment 4).

      • Katie is right now listening to one of our course texts, Octavia Bulter's novel (a fictional work, in this case science fiction without aliens) Parable of the Sower. (It is available in print, as ebook such as for Kindle, and as an audiobook too! Katie listens to it, after having read and reread it many times, because she has eye problems and listens to books whenever possible.)




      You might want to start reading Butler's book now too, especially if you like to read novels slowly. On the other hand, you may find yourself unable to put it down! It is exciting, emotional, reflective all at once.

      In any case, WHENEVER you read it, you will find many echoes in it of life for various folks around the world right now, even though it takes place in the future. As you read it, you might consider what these are, how they compare with your own life and lives of folks you know about, all the time remembering that Butler always says she is trying to mix things up, and not just represent one "real" story in fiction, but many emotions and possibilities all tangled together in, sometimes, new ways.

      This morning, Thursday 9 October 2014, I was struck with resonances between Butler's book and a radio show on why people are immigrating to the US from El Salvador today. You may want to listen to it as you read the book, especially if you want to know more about many people's lives, both similar to and different from your own. Our class is a diverse one, and we may wish to share experiences and concerns with each other.

      The radio program is here: http://wamu.org/news/14/10/09/listen_reporter_armando_trull_reflects_gang_violence_in_el_salvador

      It is part of a series of programs on immigration and you can find them all here: http://wamu.org/immigration




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      Tuesday, 14 October – The Art of Protest
      • Read Reed Intro, Ch 1-2, and look over the whole book as an event itself!
      • Examine Reed’s book website: http://art-of-protest.net/tvreedhome.html 
      • Check out his teaching site: http://libarts.wsu.edu/english/TV%20Reed.html 
      • Look at his cultural politics resources: http://culturalpolitics.net/about 

      What sort of “art” is protest? How do social movements create culture? Which social movements do you know the most about? Which ones would you like to learn more about? Which arts have engaged the feminist issues you care about most? How do you know? How is women’s studies involved?



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      EXAMINING A BOOK AS AN EVENT! 

      FreewriteHow is a book an "event"? what could that possibly mean? 
      Work in pairs: share ideas from freewrite and make a list between you of possible ways a book is an event. 
      Pairs share with another pair: which of the ways a book could be an event can you illustrate from Reed's book specifically? Pick the best example you four can work out. 
      Each group of four choses a spokesperson for the whole group to name and very very briefly explain the best example you chose. Each other person names a social movement that comes to mind during this discussion! keep a list while you are talking! you will need to have checked out Reed's website links above to do this! 

      = Each group of four has a spokesperson for whole group.
      = But everyone in each group names a social movement, and takes responsibility for thinking in terms of movements during your four person group discussion. 

      Everyone in the class will say something! prepare yourself to make this fun even! (what is the best way to do that, for you? write that down before class as a time capsule to your future self for assignment four). 

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      ► 2:57► 2:57SNCC Freedom Singers and the Civil Rights ...
      SNCC Freedom Singers and the Civil Rights Movement ... Freedom Songs The Music of the Civil Rights ...► 5:38► 5:38The Black Panther Party - YouTube
      A tribute to the Black Panthers. In Oakland Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panthers in ...
      "'Panther Baby,' From Prisoner To Professor," on TELL ME MORE from NPR News, 4 March 2012: "Jamal Joseph was a 15-year-old honor student when joining the Black Panther Party. He later faced a 12-year sentence in Leavenworth Penitentiary for helping fugitive Panther members. Behind bars, he taught a theater group, and now he teaches the arts at Columbia University. His new book is part of Tell Me More's Black History Month memoir series."  Read the transcript, hear the interview here.  ► 2:01► 2:01Poetry Everywhere: "What Kind of Times Are These ...
      Adrienne Rich reads her poem "What Kind of Times Are These. ... 5 poems by Audre Lordeby ...► 3:53► 3:53SPARCGreat Wall of LADonna Deitch ...
      1976-Present: The Great Wall of Los Angeles 1/2 mile long Mural/Education Project is one of Los Angeles ...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWGTMSYA7g
      SPARC: Great Wall of LA: Donna Deitch historical short film
      Uploaded on Aug 8, 2011
      1976-Present: The Great Wall of Los Angeles 1/2 mile long Mural/Education Project is one of Los Angeles' true cultural landmarks and one of the country's most respected and largest monuments to inter-racial harmony. SPARC's first public art project and its true signature piece, the Great Wall is a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950's, conceived by SPARC's artistic director and founder Judith F. Baca. Begun in 1974 and completed over six summers, the Great Wall employed over 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds working with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members.

      Music "Black Man" by Stevie Wonder ( • • )
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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLzIsJqxC5I
      Uploaded on Sep 2, 2008
      A tribute to the Black Panthers.
      In Oakland Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panthers in 1966 with a ten-point platform for addressing racial and economic inequality in America.
      http://www.bobbyseale.com
      Edited by: Mateo
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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRQapdNY-F4
      Poetry Everywhere: "What Kind of Times Are These" by Adrienne Rich
      Uploaded on Mar 30, 2009

      Adrienne Rich reads her poem "What Kind of Times Are These." Part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/

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      1. The Freedom Singers Perform at the White House - YouTube

        www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhafyI6-Bp0

        Feb 12, 2010 - Uploaded by The White House
        The Freedom Singers perform "(Ain't Gonna let Nobody) Turn me Around" at the White ... You need Adobe ...
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      Saturday, October 4, 2014

      Poetry is Not a Luxury: feminism, action, social movements, arts

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      Tuesday, 7 October – The F-word? Steps to taking Action
      • Read Reed, Ch 3 & 4
      • Have you chosen your 5th book with your Thursday seminar yet? Make sure this week that your EVENT planning is up and running!
      what else do you need to consider for Ass. #2?


      These readings with Reed are the beginning of the experience that culminates in Assignment #2: your group’s event, flyer, and collective definition of feminism. What do we learn about Women’s Studies as we go about deciding on a fifth book? Why is feminism defined collectively, in our project and in the world? Each feminist speaks from several collective locations. What are yours? Which collective locations might matter the most to you? To people you care about? To people you don’t know? What does taking action mean in Women’s Studies?

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      http://www.onbeing.org/program/words-shimmer/feature/poetry-not-luxury-audre-lorde/318

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      From Reed 2005: xiii (type shape is mine): "This book hopes to prove useful to three main types of readers. 
        
      = For students and general readers new to the subject, it presents an introduction to social movements through the rich, kaleidoscopic lens of artistic and cultural expression.
      = For scholars of social movements, it offers intriguing observations on particular movements and useful insights into various ways to think about the relations between culture and social change.
      = For activists, it seeks to offer inspiration and a tool kit of ideas about how art and culture can further social movement goals.
      These three sets of readers overlap, of course, in the form of scholar activists or activist students, but to the extent that they sometimes speak different languages, or have different interests, I hope that each type of reader will be patient when encountering portions of chapters that may speak more clearly to another of these audiences. Finding a style equally appropriate to all has been my goal, but no doubt I have not always succeeded." 
        

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      Movement Sites Links:  

      NEW: Occupy Wall Street  
          Abolition of Slavery  
          American Indian / Native American Activism  
          Anarchist Movements  
          Anti-AIDs Activism  
          Anti-Nuclear Movements  
          Art Activism  
          Asian American / Pacific Islander Movements  
          Black Nationalism & Black Arts  
          Chicano/a Latino/a Movimientos  
          Civil Rights Movements  
          Disability Rights Movements  
          Environmental Movements  
          Gay / Lesbian / Bi / Trans / Queer Movements  
          Global Justice Networks  
          Labor Movements  
          Media Activism  
          Socialist Movements  
          Women's Movements & Feminist Sites  
          Multi-Issue Movement Sites  


      What ARE these "social movements? Reed calls them (xiii) "the unauthorized, unofficial, anti-institutional, collective action of ordinary citizens trying to change their world...." (xiv): "...'progressive' social movements like the ones at the heart of this book have been crucial in taking the important but vague and unfulfilled promises of 'freedom' and 'democracy' announced in the [American] revolution's best known manifesto, the Declaration of Independence, and given them more reality, more substance, and wider applicability to the majority of people -- women, people of color, the poor -- who were initially excluded from those promises.... Movements, in contrast to their tamer, more institutionalized cousins, political parties and lobbyists, seek to bring about social change primarily through the medium of 'repeated public displays,' or, as I would put it, through dramatic action." (xvi-xv): "...as centrally important as dramatic, public action has been to social movements, it is by no means the totality of their activity, or the sole source of their impact...dramatic actions are themselves the products of usually rather undramatic, mundane daily acts of preparation...the impact of dramatic moments is only as great as the follow-up forms of daily organizing that accompany them...dramatic movement events happen in other, less celebrated spaces, including apartment living rooms, academic offices, and classrooms."

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      Reed, Chaps 3 & 4:

      Take a moment to look through these chapters and refresh your memory of reading them and preparing for today's class. As you do this, take note of three things in the chapters that were surprising. Write them down.

      In threes, share what you found surprising, and pick 3 of them to share with the class: each person will briefly discuss one. What was the surprise? Were any challenged assumptions involved? If so, what were they and where do you think they came from? If not, what about the surprise is important do you think?

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      Welcome to Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, a global online exhibition from the International Museum of Women (IMOW). 

      Muslima presents a groundbreaking collection of thought pieces and artwork from contemporary Muslim women who are defining their own identities and, in the process, shattering pervasive stereotypes. Explore work from artists, activists, and thought-leaders around the world, representing a broad spectrum of Muslim realities and identities, addressing such topics as Power, Leadership, Appearance, Myths, Generations, Faith and Connection.  

      
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      Here are some terms we want to add to our word-hoard! Notice that words are alive! defining them is fixing their meaning, holding it still. There can be good reasons for this, but it still flies in the face of how words actually work in the world. Better to notice how words are USED rather than defined! 

      Building on our exercises and experiences so far with assumptions we can add these terms for our on-going use. We will need them, or perhaps better, the IDEAS they help us think about, for thinking throughout the semester.

      = ideology: a word that helps us think about the common sense assumptions we use without reflection. Or, in a different meaning, helps us locate our own or others' "prescriptive" visions: how things "ought" to be. Wikipedia
      = hegemony: this word refers to how ideologies can be so taken for granted that we literally cannot think without them, cannot imagine something else. Someone might say "I cannot imagine how someone could do that." "Grades just ARE the way to motivate students to learn!" Wikipedia
      = structural oppression: ways in which power is so embedded in everyday life and the institutions we are required to live inside of that getting outside of this is extremely difficult, sometimes hard to even imagine. Oppression on Wikipedia
      = internalized oppression: ways in which structural oppression has actually become part of the person we are, the powers over us something we defend, consciously or unconsciously. 
      = complex personhood: how we are never entirely taken over by oppression or the hegemony of various ideologies (even good ones), but always a bundle of being, experiences, hopes, ideas, misunderstandings (including of ourselves), and interactions with the world. Gordon's coinage

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