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For our culminating event, I’d love to have a gallery walk of our Camphill portraits and self-portraits as well as listening conversations with our guests. I’ve been trying to think of a way to teach Monsoon and Benaifer’s methods without having a full day workshop. I’m not sure it’s possible to get everyone to the same place we got to, but if it can’t be done whole-heartedly, does it defeat the purpose of the technique all together?
Like smalina and sunshine, I'd like to read some theoretical texts. I know it's not Anne's favorite thing to do, but I think having her explain some of the theory to us in detail would be helpful. We could have a class similar to when she told us about the waves of feminism and then we transitioned into a more typically Anne conversation.
I would love to do an art showing for our final event. For me what pulled all of the aspects of our 360 together into something coherent were our experiences at Camphill, with Riva, and with Monsoon and Benaifer. And I think our portraits captured all of that. I think it would be cool if we all stood by our portraits and spoke about the experience of drawing them to the viewers, somewhat in the style of Monsoon and Benaifer.
Environmental Issues Across Novels
I think it would be really interesting to read Counting for Nothing! And I also agree with Sula that it would be very helpful to have some more theoretical framework to work off of.
For our end-of-semester 360 event, I'd like to really focus in on Monsoon and Benaifer's methods of close listening and talking, though not necessarily in a typical, vocal way. As I mentioned, Kristin and I discussed the ways in which our portraits of our Camphill partners represent a visual form of close listening. Similarly, I think the self-portraits we're continuing to work on demonstrate a very close listening and tuning into our own faces and current states of being. An optimal event would pull all of these forms of listening together, perhaps offering an audience a variety of listening formats.
For the three classes following Thanksgiving, I would like to look deeper into a couple of the theory pieces, in order to better understand what I might use as a lens for the upcoming web event. I'm a fan of theory, but don't generally feel confident with it until I've spent at least two class periods working through it in a group--I find it easy to get lost in theory, thinking I understand it, and later bringing it to class and learning I had no idea, in reality, of what it was discussing. I think I have a pretty good grasp of Mohanty and Nnaemeka's pieces, but would feel much better woring on my web event if we spent another class on both of them.
Anxious at School:
Enablement and Disablement at Women’s and Historically Black Colleges
Sula Malina
November 22nd, 2014
“Academic discourse operates not just to omit, but to abhor mental disability—to reject it, to stifle and expel it”
-- Margaret Price, Mad at School
Introduction
by Miriam Huang-Carlos: Portraiture, Disability and Identity: Explorations with Mellon Creative Resident Riva Lehrer, DeCentered. November 16, 2014.