March 23, 2015 - 22:10
I. coursekeeping
link up on course homepage to "meeting outside"
Abby modeled for all of us what to do--
thx re: being inside (chilled all night).
Amala's on for next Tuesday.
The point here is to be reflective about where we are meeting,
and then how the environment influences our interations;
remind you to post about our interactions today. You'll
have seen what I did on Tuesday; do something similar.
Thoughts/reflections on our shared 'day of learning' y'day?
'facilities'? pronouns, 'bless your heart,' "white trash,"
personal, not structural focus of theater piece,
laughter @ end re: affording college education.
By midnight tomorrow: report on this week's site sit--with an invitation
to mix it up in a way that makes it more meaningful to you.
By midnight on Monday, your seventh 'inside' posting--re-visit the visualization of
the campus that you put up on January 30. Analyze it in terms of one of the keywords
we've now put on the table: was your image 'strange"? "natural"? "ecological"? What
do you see now, w/ the help of one of the terms we've highlighted wchi you didn't
notice when you first put it up?
Reminder that you can catch up on postings by putting up what you write in class--
for ex, that read-around about strangeness was poetic, evocative;
just posting what you wrote would count. Rosa's been writing responses to texts-->
saw that Cam[bell used "strange" as what the elite deem as not necessary-->
can mean exclusion and separation, a severing of connections ('estrangement').
As you do catch-up postings, and/or just extra ones--make these connections;
don't just hold forth, but think of/put yourself in conversation.
Your reading for Tuesday's class: Gary Snyder and Paula Gunn Allen.
Respecting Tosin and Celeste reading @ last minute,
am not asking for Serendip posting on this material.
II. For today, I asked you to read raymond Williams' essay on keywords,
his essay-lets on "community," "individaul" and "eduation,"
nad to write up your own keywords.
Any surprises? Busy or useful work?
How adequate were the dictionaries?
Which dictionaries were most useful?
Tosin's "belong" (be as long as) and "retreat" (withdraw your weapons).
Caleb's self as "same," translation "into heaven," knowledge as a practice--and use of a medical dictionary.
Amala's co-existence: equality of religions violates the law of non-contradiction (?);
life: a sexually transmitted, terminal disease; comfort--a relief (vs. necessity or luxury).
What did you learn by selecting, etymologizing, reaidng-and-commenting on others'?
How important is the history-and-evolution of words in our current understandings?
Words you selected not classically "eco" ones; no one picked environment or ecology--
eco--> oiko (home) --> ecology (study of it) vs. eco-nomics (management of it);
Ellen Straud's story about an early feminist teaching "home economics."
Also consider Timothy Morton's argument, in Ecology without Nature, that
"the very idea of 'nature' which so many hold dear will have to wither away
in an 'ecological' state of human society....the idea of nature is getting
in the way of properly ecological forms of culture...the idea of nature...
sets people's hearts beating and stops the thinking process....
nature is all about things that are not identical to us or our preformed concepts...
what precisely counts as human, what counts as nature..."?
Your words-->
Ariel: experience, impact, anthropocene
Marian: interdependence, home, ecosystem
Celeste: green, interrelationship, egocentric
Maddie: ruderal, succession, permaculture
Liz: evolving, influence, home
Abby: understand, green, hybrid
Tosin: belonging, retreat, interaction
Caleb: self, translation, knowledge
Amala: co-existence, life, comfort
Teresa: mindful, plant, animal
Nkechi: fresh, tangled, conservation
Rosa: node, biotic
Joni:
III. how might using keywords sharpen your vision/change/refine/re-orient
the focus on what you said in your second set of web-events?
what other words did/do you need to define?
break into pairs to discuss this:
talk w/ your partner about revising the opening paragraph of your webevent:
what keyword should you look up to do this?