Two weeks or four classes until we meet together in
WORKSHOP #1 – Power, Movements, Worlds
By today you should have talked with your class partner and come up with ideas about what you are going to do, and how! Will you collaborate with someone? What will be your approach to your poster or paper with handout?
We explore how feminists analyze how power structures our worlds.
Will you analyze Zandt’s or McGonigal's book through the analysis (eyes, lens) of Davis’ The Making of Our Bodies, Our Selves?
OR analyze Davis’ book through the analysis (eyes, lens) of Zandt’s Share This? or McGonigal's Reality is Broken?
NOTICE THIS IS MORE THAN COMPARE AND CONTRAST: this is more complex and difficult but also more fun!
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NOTE: Next week you will need to have read
· Davis, Kathy (2008), 'Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful', Feminist Theory, 9 (1), 67-85. (Handed out or otherwise shared).
What IS a buzzword?
Wikipedia says (what do you think? compare to "myth" as Davis also uses?)
"A buzzword (also fashion word) is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon[1] that is used in the media and wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context, often in an inaccurate manner, or for purposes other than the conveying of information.
"Buzzwords differ from jargon in that jargon is esoteric but precisely defined terminology used for ease of communication between specialists in a given field, whereas a buzzword (which often develops from the appropriation of technical jargon) is often used in a more general way, inaccurately or inappropriately.
"A person who chooses to use buzzwords may have one or more of the following objectives:
"Intentional vagueness. In management or politics, opaque words of unclear meaning may be used: their positive connotations prevents questioning of intent. The most notable essay on this theme is George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" [2] (See newspeak)
"A desire to impress a judge, an examiner, an audience, or a readership, or to win an argument, through name-dropping of esoteric and poorly understood terms in an attempt to inflate trivial ideas to something of importance.
"Therefore a phrase is not in itself a buzzword: it becomes one in the context of inappropriate usage or usage with an ulterior motive."
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Compare buzzword and myth in Davis' use?
• "generated a powerful symbolic imagery" that allowed for global impact
•"a shadow side": "deny or gloss over events in the present that did not fit their collective sense of who they were or what their project was about"
• "an impediment to a more historically informed and self-reflexive understanding of themselves and their project"
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TIMELINE TEMPLATE HERE!
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· Davis, Kathy (2008), 'Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful', Feminist Theory, 9 (1), 67-85. (Handed out or otherwise shared).
What IS a buzzword?
Wikipedia says (what do you think? compare to "myth" as Davis also uses?)
"A buzzword (also fashion word) is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon[1] that is used in the media and wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context, often in an inaccurate manner, or for purposes other than the conveying of information.
"Buzzwords differ from jargon in that jargon is esoteric but precisely defined terminology used for ease of communication between specialists in a given field, whereas a buzzword (which often develops from the appropriation of technical jargon) is often used in a more general way, inaccurately or inappropriately.
"A person who chooses to use buzzwords may have one or more of the following objectives:
"Intentional vagueness. In management or politics, opaque words of unclear meaning may be used: their positive connotations prevents questioning of intent. The most notable essay on this theme is George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" [2] (See newspeak)
"A desire to impress a judge, an examiner, an audience, or a readership, or to win an argument, through name-dropping of esoteric and poorly understood terms in an attempt to inflate trivial ideas to something of importance.
"Therefore a phrase is not in itself a buzzword: it becomes one in the context of inappropriate usage or usage with an ulterior motive."
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Compare buzzword and myth in Davis' use?
• "generated a powerful symbolic imagery" that allowed for global impact
•"a shadow side": "deny or gloss over events in the present that did not fit their collective sense of who they were or what their project was about"
• "an impediment to a more historically informed and self-reflexive understanding of themselves and their project"
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TIMELINE TEMPLATE HERE!
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Thursday 10 October, Intersectionality’s Foundations
· Hewitt, Intro; Berger, Intro & all of Section I (pp. 25-80)
· LOOK UP ALL YOU CAN ABOUT HEWITT, DILL, YUVAL-DAVIS AND GUIDROZ ON THE WEB AND BRING IN PRINT OUTS
Why would Dill start off with the notion of sisterhood? “All-inclusive”? What does that mean? What can you learn about feminism in 1983 on the web that will help you understand why she is approaching these issues the way she does? Use the web research you brought in to share.
problematize, criticize, critique, debunk
• using privileges of class and race to get into public sphere despite the disadvantages of gender
• calling into question the politics of personal experience as decentering experiential differences (of power by race and class) that are structural
• "sisterhood" as feminist myth, usable by some more than others, with its shadow side.
• women of color, inside, rejecting, along side, pushed outside, uninterested in, accomplishing other justice goals....
salience and intersections: intersectionality
oppositional consciousness and chicana theories and mythologies of malinche
More on intersectionality & underlining principles
from European perspectives....
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Tuesday 8 October, Feminist Myths in a Feminist Politics of Knowledge
· Davis, all of Part II (Chs 3, 4, 5)
Why does Davis connect “empowerment” and “bewitchment”? What’s her point here? What are feminist subjects and why do they need to be created? How does Davis make us aware of the time periods involved? How are “myths” moveable in space and time? What sorts of feminist actions do they make possible? How might they help with epistemological projects? Why are they different from something just untrue?
• "make sense of their history"
• "an origin story"
• "become agents of historical change"
• "heroic tale with plucky female protagonists who bravely take on a series of powerful adversaries...and come out victorious."
•"a family saga about a group of women who created an enduring personal bond that enabled their political project to survive and thrive for more than three decades."
• "constructing a history that made sense in different and sometimes contradictory ways."
• "understand their individual and collective experiences at different periods"
• "provided the motor for the group's activism."
• "generated a powerful symbolic imagery" that allowed for global impact
•"a shadow side": "deny or gloss over events in the present that did not fit their collective sense of who they were or what their project was about"
• "an impediment to a more historically informed and self-reflexive understanding of themselves and their project"
[image: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/uploads/images/founders.jpg ]
From the Wikipedia on "myth":
"The term 'myth' is often used colloquially to refer to a false story, but academic use of the term does not pass judgment on truth or falsity. In the study of folklore, a myth is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form. Many scholars in other fields use the term 'myth' in somewhat different ways. In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story."
[images: Photo from Davis 2007:34: Hazel Hankin; http://www.motherpeace.com/karen_female_shamanism.html
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(From John Cage and Corita Kent: Ten Rules for Students and Teachers: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/10/10-rules-for-students-and-teachers-john-cage-corita-kent/
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