thinking in community, in action

===
Welcome to the last day/week of class! Our time to analyze communities entangled, learning, social change, and how it all works together!

>>Reread this year's title of the course and say something about why it was added to the catalog title? 

tangled community, entangled communities: lesbians and always more

>>Reread the description of this year's version of the course too, and talk about how it explains why the title should properly change year to year? 

The term “lesbian community” might well mean something different in each decade since the 1970s when gay women began to use the term lesbian to describe themselves and feminism had to stop dyke baiting practices. Recently at UMD the LGBT Studies program became folded into our WMST department and there is talk about changing both names, but to what? And this last year a new scholarly journal began its first volume, named TSQ or Transgender Studies Quarterly. Transnational politics, legalities, travel, and scholarship under various names and umbrella terms have their own histories and timelines, something very unevenly obvious in and to the US. So in 2015 there are many questions to explore about lesbian communities. How do they/we name them/ourselves? What communities do we discover to be entangled here, how does naming matter, what intersectionalities should we center or network, what national and transnational ranges are our proper contexts for investigation? Are communities something to work for or against and why? Do communities protect or police or include or exclude those who might want to work together in solidarity today?

Today we share with each other our experiences of the class and our understanding of what has changed. This is our time capsule to ourselves: we see how things looked to us at different moments during the semester, at different times in the story of the course. 

===

We begin for everyone with some exercises, to help us focus and make it a bit easier to share what we have done in the learning analysis. Each person will speak for only 5 minutes!! (we want to hear everyone!) and offer their own unique sense of  traveling through the argument or story of the course. Our personal feelings are, of course, a special part of this. But do think of this primarily as an intellectual sharing of analysis as well as of any careful personal details. 

Celebrating each others' work and our own, and especially thinking together today about the knowledge we each bring into being is the collective project here. 

So listen as carefully as you speak, because active listening is also necessary to collective thought. 

If someone else says something you intended to say, then -- thinking on your feet -- find another something to say that is a unique bit of your own work instead. 

Focusing exercises for presenting:  

EVERYONE: 
1) find your favorite paragraph in the learning analysis. Put a star next to it.
2) write down what you are most proud of in this paper.
3) put an arrow next to the place you think best describes the argument of the course.
4) write down your favorite reading and be prepared to say what element of its ANALYSIS made it special for you. 

PICK ONE OF THESE TOO:
=write about a moment in the course where everything seemed to come together for you.
=write about a moment outside the course where you realized you were using something you had learned in the class.
=write about a moment when you discovered something new about how you were included in the argument of the class. 

WHEN IT IS YOUR TURN TO SPEAK: 
pick out two of these to share during your five minutes. (Have at least two others as mental backups, so that you don't say the same thing someone else says.) Focus on analysis -- of the course, readings, experiences, realizations -- especially, although feelings and politics have important places too. 

Give some real details: don't be too general. Do show off the hard thinking you are capable of. Make sure what you say is special and unique. 

And may we keep running into each other, over and over, in friendship and connection and intellectual community and joyful living!

===

Sexuality on the Move

===

Tuesday 5 May– Sexuality on the Move 
• READ: Finish Wekker, Chapters 5 & 6
• NEXT CLASS LEARNING ANALYSIS!

What does Wekker want us to experience in this book? How do we compare it to the experiences other course materials have set up for us? How might we look at all of these in the multiple timeframes, non-linear connections, and entangled meanings of lesbians and more?

Woman with Palm Leaf Skirt:
https://africa.si.edu/collections/view/objects/asitem/People@1236/6/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony


===

Japanese Artist Chiharu Shiota Installs Monumental Work in Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery

http://www.asia.si.edu/press/2014/shiota.asp

"Currently based in Berlin, Shiota (b. 1972, Osaka, Japan) is best known for her large-scale yet intricate installations that explore the relationships between the human body, memory and loss. Trained in drawing and sculpture, Shiota’s practice developed during her studies in performance art under Marina Abramovic and Rebecca Horn. Since 1999, she has been gaining international acclaim for her site-specific installations and stage designs. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (Sydney, 2013), Museum on the Seam (Jerusalem, 2013), Casa Asia (Barcelona, 2012), The National Museum of Art (Osaka, 2008), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin, 2006) and MoMA PS1 (New York, 2003), as well as the Biennials in Venice, Italy, and in Fukuoka and Yokohama, Japan."

===CONCLUDING SECTION 4: POLITICS OF ATTACHMENT! 

Tuesday 12 May– GATHERING: THE LAST DAY   
• DUE: LEARNING ANALYSIS AND LOGBOOK 3

On our last day we will share with each other our thoughts on how what we know has changed during our time together.

===

Learning Analysis for LesbianCommunities

  ===

Salience & Multiplicity: selves & realities, contextual, simultaneous, chosen

===
>>>SECTION FOUR: POLITICS OF ATTACHMENT 

===
Tuesday 28 April– Multiplicitous Self  
• READ: Wekker, Chapters 3 & 4

Wekker, p. 116: "The Afro-Surinamese Winti religion, with its gallery of active, meaningful beings, holds within itself a multiplicitous conception of the self and a gender ideology that permits people to 'choose' between roles regardless of one's biological sex. I have characterized the gender system as relatively flexible and nonhierarchical: a system of possibilities. Certain aspects of self become contextually salient without laying claim to a core, essential, trans-situational self. This is true as well for sexual subjectivity, as will be investigated in chapters 4 & 5. Selves are transactional, malleable, and multiplicitous. I have showed that this multiplicitous conception of self opens up a wider behavioral repertoire in an environment that is experienced as hostile, offering few chances for fulfillment. Sexual relationships are constructed against this background." [italics added]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salience


We take up again our work of
>> noting surprises and
>> charting their implications for
>> our assumptions,
>> the work of othering and
>> attachment, and
>> how to honor what we partially understand.

How will the Learning Analysis document these processes?

===
1) values writing exercise: what is this? see TAB: write values

2) Share in groups of three:
=then each group is assigned one of these to investigate and report back on in light of what folks have come up with in the whole class: 

HANDOUTS: Nyong’o on Subject; Joseph on Community; Rodríguez on Latino, Latina, Latin@ from Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU.

May include observations coming out of Workshop 2 as well as ways of connecting with reading of Wekker.

1) Joseph on Community: What jumps out at you? How do you connect this with conflicts among feminists? Which conflicts come to your mind? What connections to Wekker emerge, esp. concerning transnational community/ies? Reread the course description.
2) Rodríguez on Latino, Latina, Latin@: Why might a positive sense of multiple selves as developed by Wekker be valuable? How does this connect to other readings in the class?
3) Nyong’o on Subject: What does Wekker say about her sexual relationship with her informant? What is her argument for how to engage sexually in an ethical way?

===

Learning Analysis for LesbianCommunities

  ===

the last experience set in the course! The Politics of Attachment!

===
>>>SECTION FOUR: POLITICS OF ATTACHMENT 

EVENTS!! 
DC Queer Studies Symposium
Friday, April 17, 2015 – ALL DAY
Tawes Hall, University of Maryland

RAMZI FAWAZ, “Stepford Wives and Female Men: The Radical Differences of Female Replicants"
SHANTÉ PARADIGM SMALLS, “Superheroes, Queerness, and Anti-Blackness: Storm, Django, and Michael Brown”
Plenary: Friday, April 17, 2015; 3-4:30pm at Ulrich Recital Hall, Tawes Hall

JUANA MARÍA RODRÍGUEZ, "Feeling Queerly, Knowing Otherwise"
Keynote: Friday, April 17, 2015: 5pm at Ulrich Recital Hall, Tawes Hall

Masha Gessen's Maya Brin Residency will take place from April 16-25 at UMD, with public events and a conference. The Maya Brin Residency brings leading Russian scholars, artists, or cultural figures to UMD.

>Monday 4/20: 4:00 pm McKeldin Library: book talk
>Wednesday, 4/22: Public Lecture (ULRICH RECITAL HALL)
>Friday, 4/24: Conference on Freedom of Speech in Russia.

===
Tuesday 21 April– Not today, not tomorrow  
• READ: Wekker, Chapters 1 & 2
• HANDOUT: the Learning Analysis: how to do it.
• WIKIPEDIA INFO: Attachment Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory   

Wekker wants us to get a sense of context, method, and history. How has our work in Workshops 1 & 2 prepared us for this? How do we use this as we look forward to the final Learning Analysis?

Politics of Attachment Conference: http://asca.uva.nl/conferences/politics-of-attachment/politics-of-attachment.html  

Interview with Wekker: https://sta.uwi.edu/crgs/november2009/journals/CRGS%20Wekker.pdf  

Wekker Emeritus at Utrecht: 

http://www.let.uu.nl/~gloria.wekker/personal/   
http://www.uu.nl/hum/staff/GDWekker/0  
http://www.uu.nl/hum/staff/GDWekker/0  

Wekker is a social and cultural anthropologist (MA: UVA 1981, PHD: UCLA 1991), specializing in Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, African American Studies and Caribbean Studies. Wekker has held the Aletta (IIAV)-chair on Gender and Ethnicity at the Faculty of the Arts of Utrecht University since 2001. She is the coordinator of the one-year MA programme "Comparative Women's Studies in Culture and Politics" as well as the director of GEM, the expertise center on Gender, Ethnicity and Multiculturality in higher education at Utrecht University.

===
Tuesday 28 April– Multiplicitous Self  
• READ: Wekker, Chapters 3 & 4

We take up again our work of noting surprises and charting their implications for our assumptions, the work of othering and attachment, and how to honor what we partially understand. How will the Learning Analysis document these processes?

Tuesday 5 May– Sexuality on the Move
• READ: Finish Wekker, Chapters 5 & 6
• NEXT CLASS LEARNING ANALYSIS!

What does Wekker want us to experience in this book? How do we compare it to the experiences other course materials have set up for us? How might we look at all of these in the multiple timeframes, non-linear connections, and entangled meanings of lesbians and more?

Tuesday 12 May– GATHERING: THE LAST DAY   
• DUE: LEARNING ANALYSIS AND LOGBOOK 3

On our last day we will share with each other our thoughts on how what we know has changed during our time together.

===

Learning Analysis for LesbianCommunities

===

Think-Pair-Share: pick one: give 3 reasons: 
=Why do we end the class with an intensive reading of The Politics of Passion?
=Katie asked colleagues in women’s studies for recommendations: why did they recommend this book in particular do you think?

Share in groups of three:
=then each group is assigned one of these to investigate and report back on in light of what folks have come up with in the whole class: 
1) Who is Wekker? Interview and websites; what do you learn not in the book?
2) What happened at the Politics of Attachment conference? What events there can you connect to the issues we are exploring in this last experience set of the course?
3) What is Attachment Theory and how might it matter to a course on Lesbian Communities?
4) What does Wekker say about her sexual relationship with her informant? What is her argument for how to engage sexually in an ethical way?

===
1) values writing exercise: what is this? see TAB: write values

2) CONTINUE WITH READING OF AFTERGLOW: go around room and read out loud. Think of it as a poem and just let the words flow, as with a freewrite, let your thoughts wander and connect and be semi-conscious.

3) SHARE HANDOUTS: Nyong’o on Subject; Joseph on Community; Rodríguez on Latino, Latina, Latin@ from Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU.
=read in groups and report back on what jumps out at you. May include questions about Workshop as well

===

Preparations for Workshop 2! Queer Kinships & the Symposium this Friday too!

===
• Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin: analyze a text with tools from the LGBT lecture series
<Workshop 2, Tuesday 14 April>

“Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin” is inspired by the multi-year UMD LGBT program’s Spring lecture series and the Queer Studies Symposium. This year’s Thirteenth Annual Series’ theme is Queer Speculations. “What if? And what then? The time and space of gender, sexuality, race, and empire are shaped by acts of speculation…that invent, theorize, imagine, and enact different kinds of worlds…. This year’s lecture series invites you to join discussions about the speculation about queer bodies, objects, feelings, pasts, futures, utopias, dystopias, and transformations….”  More information about the series online here: http://lgbts.umd.edu/lectureseries.html

For our Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin workshop you will create either a ten-page paper (with enough handouts for each member of the class: 22 folks) or a research poster (and document it with digital pics): which one determined by lot in class 24 February. (If you did one for workshop 1 you will do the other for workshop 2.) You may work on these individually or with a collaborator.

For each of these possibilities you will explore class readings and LGBT lecture series presentations together carefully, and chose which text to analyze with the tools from particular lectures and discussion.

EITHER • a chapter of Rodríguez’ book, OR • an article you choose from either Transgender Studies Quarterly OR Sinister Wisdom at any point in their publication history.

Whichever text you choose, you will explicitly discuss HOW YOU USE the tools, perspective, methods, lens, ideas you glean from the presentation or lecture of one of the two people presenting as part of the LGBT Series in March, before our workshop convenes.

You will attend at least one of these events in order to note the concerns, themes, understandings, and approaches of EITHER Tavia Nyong’o (two possible events to go to) OR Miranda Joseph. (If for any reason you cannot attend one of these events, you will need to talk to Katie about the extra work required to substitute one of the author visits to our class.)

===
BE SURE TO BE ON TIME TODAY! DON'T BE LATE! WE NEED TIME TO SET UP! 

IF FOR ANY REASON YOU ARE NOT PRESENTING TODAY, COME ANYWAY AND PARTICIPATE! NO MATTER WHAT BE SURE TO TURN IN HARD COPY OF LOGBOOK 2 WITH EXPLANATIONS AND PLANS TO MAKE UP. 

Reminders and What to do!
=Is your name on paper, handouts, hard copy digital pics to hand in?
=Did you bring enough handouts for everyone in the class (22) and one to use for display?
=Did you bring hardcopy of Logbook2 to hand in today, with any notes or explanations?
=Did you bring tape or anything needed to create your display space? cords for laptops if using?

As soon as you arrive:
=SIGN IN on either Paper Sheet or Poster Sheet (two different ones).
=Begin set up of display spot as soon as you have signed in
=Fill out a display FORM and put it by your paper or poster in your display spot: KATIE WILL GIVE YOU NUMBER TO USE IN ORDER OF ARRIVAL. One number per PROJECT even if two authors.
=Pick up a NOTES sheet packet for your interactions during first and second sessions and to guide discussion after the break

As soon as everyone has set up their display space and coordinated with any collaborators:
=We will begin with 12 mins of silent inspection
=Go around and look at everything set up, write down information on your notes sheets for each project: number, names, titles, books used, etc.

Katie will assign equal numbers of papers and posters to each session, and tell you which session you will present in. About half the class looks at the work of the other half in Session 1, then we switch for Session 2.

>>SESSION 1: 30 mins! so be expeditious in interactions and notes: you need to examine around 10 projects in this timeframe!

Immediately followed by

>>SESSION 2: 30 mins! again be expeditious in interactions and notes: you need to examine around 10 projects in this timeframe!

>>QUICK BREAK! 10 mins only! return to class and prepare for discussion.

>>FOLLOWUP DISCUSSION after interactions with others about projects. This is the heart of the Workshop! EVERYONE SHOULD TALK! use your notes to be as specific as possible in our work to create a great forum for discussion! 

=Tell others what you liked most about their project: BE SPECIFIC!
=Talk about what you learned that you did not know until you saw the work of others! This can include HOW TO DO something, such as great poster ideas you see now, and ANALYSES you have had shared. Again, be specific!
=Ask questions! What more do you want to consider now? Ask for specific feedback on things you tried out in display or analysis and ask others how well it worked.
=Consider if you want to revise, add, redraft anything on your work before turning in electronically on Friday. Ask others for suggestions or ideas.

• Everything must be in final finished state on Tuesday to display, but you are allowed to revise one more time before turning things in electronically by Friday.
• Send to katiekin@gmail.com , use filename yrlastname 494 paper2 or poster2. Please number pics if more than one. Use this subject header too: yrlastname 494 workshop2

Remember we discussed in class why we use these filenames and subject headers: downloaded files will display on computer in last name alphabetical order and can be search for by name, class, and which workshop. Similarly, gmail handles attachments best so Katie can archive your materials and nothing will be lost. Subject header allows Katie to search by your last name, the class, the item when referring to your stuff for discussion with you, final grades, and so on. [NOTE: katiekin, not katiekinG! the second will go to the wrong person!]

===
TODAY'S TIMELINE: 

• @ 4:01: 9 mins: set up: create your space with handout as place holder; decide who will be displaying in each session

• @ 4:10-4:25: 15 mins: everyone silently looks at the handouts, makes notes about the title of the paper, author, other identifying info for feedback

• @ 4:25-4:55: 30 + mins: session 1: half display, half wander and interact with all displays

• @ 4:55-5:25: 30 + mins: session 2: switch

• brief break 10 mins around 5:30

• @ 5:40-6:30: last 45 or so mins of class for discussion and thoughts 

===

University of Maryland, College Park will close at 2 p.m. today, Tuesday 7 April, because of a regional power outage

===

APRIL 7

The University of Maryland, College Park will close at 2 p.m. today because of a regional power...

The University of Maryland, College Park will close at 2 p.m. today because of a regional power outage.

http://www.umdrightnow.umd.edu

===
Hi Folks! Just got the message:

"University of Maryland, College Park will close at 2 p.m. today because of a regional power outage."

I hope you are in a safe space wherever you are in the region. And that you will get this somehow soon: maybe on your phone.

Class is cancelled for today, but we will still have Workshop 2 next week, so please use whatever time this might free up, to continue your preparation for the Workshop on Queer Kinship.

I copied the post I have put up for today's class into an email message to you on coursemail, so to the extent you can go ahead and do this yourself, possibly with class buddies or even other buddies, please do! It may open up the Workshop in ways you might not otherwise experience!

I send you many good wishes! I plan to be around campus tomorrow, Wednesday 8 April, although I have appointments from 2pm on. But might be able to meet up around noon, if you email me for an appointment today.

See you next week for sure! Katie

PS I am just now listening to Masha Gessen on WAMU radio at 2 pm, in case you want to tune in!

===

bringing Experience Set 3 together! after this week, Workshop 2!

So remember: we work in Experience Sets, and we are doing the final shaping of the third one this week and next!

What have we done so far, and how does it contextualize our work together now? Be sure to review last week's post for specifics about how to shape your projects for Workshop 2! Especially note: 

How do you identify tools in a talk? Sharing notes and discussing what you hadn't known with others, not just content, but ways of thinking! Think of it as a puzzle or game or journey or a sport or a piece of music you are just learning! ASK BIG QUESTIONS AS YOU LISTEN AND LATER AS YOU REVIEW YOUR NOTES AND DISCUSS WITH OTHERS! "Why is this central to work in LGBT studies? How does this open up ways to experience the world?"

Section 3 included this so far:

>>>SECTION THREE: QUEER KINSHIPS 
Tuesday 24 March – Exiles and Globalizations  
• Included 1/2 Lesbians & Exile issue of Sinister Wisdom & beginning on the Wekker book. The conference Wekker keynoted in Amsterdam here: http://asca.uva.nl/conferences/politics-of-attachment/politics-of-attachment.html
• think: surprises, assumptions, where your/our information comes from, connections among the readings and web work.

Tuesday 31 March – Afterglows? <ENSZER VISITS AGAIN>
• Finished up Lesbians & Exile issue of Sinister Wisdom & beginning on the Rodríguez book. Read Acknowledgments and Introduction, and the last part “Afterglow.” What can you say about the book having done this?

• conflict and sharing: we ended up in class with many feelings and thoughts about trans inclusions in our class discussion and in both journals SW: http://www.sinisterwisdom.org  (find in hard copy in McKeldin too) & TSQ: http://lgbt.arizona.edu/transgender-studies-quarterly (find in hard copy in McKeldin too) & find through Research Port on UMD Libs.

• Figuring out how to productively include these carefully in our work together is also part of Queer Kinships. These feelings, the affect of conflict, are a continual element of any sort of political community/ies.

In her previous work, Miranda Joseph has explored what she has called "the romance of community." (See TOC of that book here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt4ng )

Wednesday, April 1, 2015; 5pm at Marie Mount Hall 1400 
• MIRANDA JOSEPH, "Investing in the Cruel Entrepreneurial University"
• one of the three possible talks from which to glean (harvest) tools, ideas, "fruits for thinking" to use in your analysis for Workshop 2, coming up soon!

AND NOW THIS IS WHERE WE ARE IN THE EXPERIENCE SET! TODAY: 
Tuesday 7 April – Knowing Otherwise  
• READ: as much of Rodríquez as you can! We will read "Afterglow" together in class!
• HANDOUTS: from Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU: Nyong’o on Subject (231); Joseph on Community (53); Rodríguez on Latino, Latina, Latin@ (36).
• NEXT CLASS IS WORKSHOP 2!

1) values writing exercise: what is this? see TAB: write values

2) CONTINUE WITH READING OF AFTERGLOW: go around room and read out loud. Think of it as a poem and just let the words flow, as with a freewrite, let your thoughts wander and connect and be semi-conscious.

3) SHARE HANDOUTS: Nyong’o on Subject; Joseph on Community; Rodríguez on Latino, Latina, Latin@ from Burgett & Mendler, eds. 2014 (2nd ed). Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU.
=read in groups and report back on what jumps out at you. May include questions about Workshop as well

4) OVERVIEW ON EXPERIENCE SET 3, SET UP FOR WS 2

BREAK

Art work on conflict, affect, community, subject, identity: queer kinships 

===
NOTE WITH OUR READING: 

Rodríquez is giving the Keynote for the Queer Studies Symposium Friday 17 April. She is is Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also affiliated faculty with the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies; the Berkeley Center for New Media; the Center for Race and Gender; and the Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures. She is one of the founding members of the Haas Institute's Center for a Fair and Inclusive Society's LGBTQ Citizen Cluster, and currently serves on the President’s Advisory Council on LGBT Students, Faculty & Staff for the University of California. Rodríguez is the author of two books, Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU 2003) and Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures and Other Latina Longings (NYU 2014) and has published numerous articles related to her research interests in sexuality studies, queer activism in a transnational American context, critical race theory, technology and media arts, and Latin@ and Caribbean studies. She is currently working on a third book project that considers the quandaries of representing racially gendered violence, pleasure, and trauma in visual culture.

===
NEXT CLASS! 

• WORKSHOP #2: Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin
This year’s LGBT lecture series invites you to join discussions about the speculation about queer bodies, objects, feelings, pasts, futures, utopias, dystopias, and transformations. You will explore class readings and LGBT lecture series presentations together carefully, chose which text to analyze with the tools from particular lectures and discussion, and •share in either poster or written analysis why it matters for lesbians in various communities. Our mind-bending questions are ones to explore at any developing moment in your understanding of lesbian and queer worlds. Good faith work to challenge your thinking and to share with and learn from others is the point here. Choose EITHER • a chapter of Rodríguez’ book, OR • an article you choose from either Transgender Studies Quarterly OR Sinister Wisdom at any point in their publication history. Whichever text you choose, you will explicitly discuss HOW YOU USE the tools, perspective, methods, lens, ideas you glean from the presentation or lecture of one of the two people presenting as part of the LGBT Series in March, before our workshop convenes. You will attend at least one of these events in order to note the concerns, themes, understandings, and approaches of EITHER Tavia Nyong’o (two possible events to go to) OR Miranda Joseph. (If for any reason you cannot attend one of these events, you will need to talk to Katie about the extra work required to substitute one of the author visits to our class.)

Tuesday 14 April
In the first part of class we will share our work poster session style: divide in two groups, and all move around talking to each other about work during the class time. After our break we will have a conversation about what we learned, noticed, thought about, and draw from class presentations. Make notes during the first part so you can run the discussion yourselves during the second part.

• Everything must be in final finished state on Tuesday to display, but you are allowed to revise one more time before turning things in electronically by Friday.
• Send to katiekin@gmail.com , name your files this way: yrlastname 494 paper2 or poster2. Please number pics if more than one. Use this subject header too: yrlastname 494 workshop2

===

you should have identified tools or texts or both by now and have writing to bring to class today!

===
Tuesday 31 March – Afterglows? <ENSZER VISITS AGAIN>
• READ: Finish Lesbians & Exile issue of Sinister Wisdom
• EXAMINE AND BEGIN TO READ: Rodríquez book. Read Acknowledgments and Introduction, and the last part “Afterglow.” What can you say about the book having done this?

Enszer will visit again and will talk more about Sinister Wisdom. You should be in the thick of your plans for and drafts of your work for Workshop 2 now. What we do today should be invaluable for your projects! 

Bring partially done work to share with others!!

MIRANDA JOSEPH, "Investing in the Cruel Entrepreneurial University" 
> Wednesday, April 1, 2015; 5pm at Marie Mount Hall 1400

===

Bring questions and ideas to share and ask Julie Enszer about! Remember Sinister Wisdom is one of the possible "texts" to analyze for Workshop 2! 

=How will you decide on texts? They should be worth a thorough analysis, with material that is not immediately obvious! if you want to work with short texts then use several and group them together. Being able to choose something worth this kind of attention is a pivotal part of the assignment for evaluation and care! 

=what opens up areas of life you never noticed before

=what makes you emotional and excited and changes your mind

=what connects things you never noticed could be connected before

MAKE NEW KNOWLEDGE! don't recycle things you already know: do something that makes you think differently! 

=How will you approach talks from the angle of finding tools? or points of view, other new ways of seeing and understanding something? Use surprise as a clue! Notice this means telling the difference between something you just didn't know, content, and having your assumptions or concerns turned around! Being able to identify such tools is the other pivotal part of Workshop 2 projects! 

So note what turns your ideas around in an important way! That is the new knowledge you take from the talk and use as a way into a text with an importance to you! 

And be sure to notice that somewhere in your paper or poster you need to explicitly talk about how you identified your tool/s and why the text you are working with is important! 

===

Work in drafts with your class partner and perhaps also a collaborator!! meet together several times to figure out tools and texts, to share writing and thinking, to do a final edit before the Workshop itself! Your work should be of a quality that shows you have done this. 

You know how workshops work now, how posters are made, how to share your paper in an interactive format, and how to reflect on these experiences. LEVEL UP! now you know that, make this project especially exciting, for yourself and for all of us! 

===
Worried how to get going? Freewriting is a good way to start! http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/freewrite.html

How do you identify tools in a talk? Sharing notes and discussing what you hadn't known with others, not just content, but ways of thinking! Think of it as a puzzle or game or journey or a sport or a piece of music you are just learning!

ASK BIG QUESTIONS AS YOU LISTEN AND LATER AS YOU REVIEW YOUR NOTES AND DISCUSS WITH OTHERS! "Why is this central to work in LGBT studies? How does this open up ways to experience the world?" https://sites.google.com/site/reflection4learning/why-reflect

===

The third possible event to use for Workshop 2! Joseph W 1 April 5 pm!!

===
Remember, to do the work for Workshop 2 you must have attended one of three events! Two have already happened, and only one is still upcoming: Miranda Joseph speaks on The Cruel Entrepreneurial University as part of the LGBT lecture series Wed 1 April at 5 pm, Marie Mount Hall 1400 (right near our classroom!)

Why and how are university politics entwined with LGBT issues and concerns? We mentioned in the last class the conference going on this very week in which Wekker, our author of Politics of Passion you should have begun reading already, is keynoting. And while that conference is going on so are the protests by students at the University of Amsterdam.

Learn something about those students protest in the context of international struggles in UK paper the Guardian, here:

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/mar/25/university-protests-around-the-world-a-fight-against-commercialisation?CMP=share_btn_fb

And this is the website of the collective at Amsterdam: http://rethinkuva.org/about-rethink-uva/

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the third section of our course: our next experience set leading to Workshop 2

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We begin this week our next experience set, which will culminate in Workshop 2! 

• Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin: analyze a text with tools from the LGBT lecture series
<Tuesday 14 April>

You may have already begun by attending either the Nyong'o talk or the colloquium:

TAVIA NYONG’O, "Deep Time, Dark Time: Kara Walker’s Anarchaeology"
> Thursday, March 12, 2015; 5pm at Francis Scott Key Hall 0106
> Friday, March 13, 2015 Colloquium with Tavia Nyong’o; 12:30pm-2pm at Taliaferro Hall 2110

If neither of those yet, then you must attend:

MIRANDA JOSEPH, "Investing in the Cruel Entrepreneurial University" 
> Wednesday, April 1, 2015; 5pm at Marie Mount Hall 1400  

Any of these three events in the LGBT lecture series can serve for tools for Workshop 2. You should be meeting with your class partner to discuss these and share what you have learned, are learning, will learn from these events. If you intend to collaborate with someone for Workshop 2, then you should be meeting with them as well! 

And it is also time to come up with texts to use these tools to address. You have three kinds of choices there too:

EITHER • a chapter of Rodríguez’ book, OR • an article you choose from either Transgender Studies Quarterly OR Sinister Wisdom at any point in their publication history. Whichever text you choose, you will explicitly discuss HOW YOU USE the tools, perspective, methods, lens, ideas you glean from the presentation or lecture of one of the two people presenting as part of the LGBT Series in March, before our workshop convenes. 

So come to class with ideas and experiences and notes to share with class partners and to jump start this section of the class!

NOTICE you will need to READ AHEAD and to do research in addition to preparation for class each week. And also notice that attending class each week will make it much easier to prepare for Workshop 2!


>>>SECTION THREE: QUEER KINSHIPS 

Tuesday 24 March – Exiles and Globalizations  
• READ: Lesbians & Exile issue of Sinister Wisdom: read about half this week and the rest next week. You can read in any order you choose!
• EXAMINE AND BEGIN TO READ: Wekker book. Read Preface and Acknowledgments, and then the first and last paragraphs of each chapter. What can you say about the book having done this?
• ON THE WEB: find out what you can about the Conference Wekker is keynoting this week in Amsterdam. Follow up in case any videos or other materials go up on the web: http://asca.uva.nl/conferences/politics-of-attachment/politics-of-attachment.html

Create a list of things you read about in all this material that surprises you. Explore why you are surprised: what did you think instead and why? Where has your information come from? Why might these materials be different? What connections do you see between the conference Wekker is keynoting and the issues we are exploring? Think ahead to Workshop 2!! Bring questions and ideas!

Tuesday 31 March – Afterglows? <ENSZER VISITS AGAIN>
• READ: Finish Lesbians & Exile issue of Sinister Wisdom
• EXAMINE AND BEGIN TO READ: Rodríquez book. Read Acknowledgments and Introduction, and the last part “Afterglow.” What can you say about the book having done this?

Enszer will visit again and will talk more about Sinister Wisdom. You should be in the thick of your plans for and drafts of your work for Workshop 2 now. What we do today should be invaluable for your projects! Bring partially done work to share with others.

MIRANDA JOSEPH, "Investing in the Cruel Entrepreneurial University" 
> Wednesday, April 1, 2015; 5pm at Marie Mount Hall 1400

Tuesday 7 April – Knowing Otherwise  
• READ: as much of Rodríquez as you can!
• NEXT CLASS IS WORKSHOP 2! 

Rodríquez is giving the Keynote for the Queer Studies Symposium Friday 17 April. She is is Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also affiliated faculty with the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies; the Berkeley Center for New Media; the Center for Race and Gender; and the Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures. She is one of the founding members of the Haas Institute's Center for a Fair and Inclusive Society's LGBTQ Citizen Cluster, and currently serves on the President’s Advisory Council on LGBT Students, Faculty & Staff for the University of California. Rodríguez is the author of two books, Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU 2003) and Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures and Other Latina Longings (NYU 2014) and has published numerous articles related to her research interests in sexuality studies, queer activism in a transnational American context, critical race theory, technology and media arts, and Latin@ and Caribbean studies. She is currently working on a third book project that considers the quandaries of representing racially gendered violence, pleasure, and trauma in visual culture.

• WORKSHOP #2: Queer Speculations & Lesbian Kin 
This year’s LGBT lecture series invites you to join discussions about the speculation about queer bodies, objects, feelings, pasts, futures, utopias, dystopias, and transformations. You will explore class readings and LGBT lecture series presentations together carefully, chose which text to analyze with the tools from particular lectures and discussion, and •share in either poster or written analysis why it matters for lesbians in various communities. Our mind-bending questions are ones to explore at any developing moment in your understanding of lesbian and queer worlds. Good faith work to challenge your thinking and to share with and learn from others is the point here. Choose EITHER • a chapter of Rodríguez’ book, OR • an article you choose from either Transgender Studies Quarterly OR Sinister Wisdom at any point in their publication history. Whichever text you choose, you will explicitly discuss HOW YOU USE the tools, perspective, methods, lens, ideas you glean from the presentation or lecture of one of the two people presenting as part of the LGBT Series in March, before our workshop convenes. You will attend at least one of these events in order to note the concerns, themes, understandings, and approaches of EITHER Tavia Nyong’o (two possible events to go to) OR Miranda Joseph. (If for any reason you cannot attend one of these events, you will need to talk to Katie about the extra work required to substitute one of the author visits to our class.)

Tuesday 14 April  
In the first part of class we will share our work poster session style: divide in two groups, and all move around talking to each other about work during the class time. After our break we will have a conversation about what we learned, noticed, thought about, and draw from class presentations. Make notes during the first part so you can run the discussion yourselves during the second part.

• Everything must be in final finished state on Tuesday to display, but you are allowed to revise one more time before turning things in electronically by Friday.
• Send to katiekin@gmail.com , use filename yrlastname 494 paper1 or poster1. Please number pics if more than one. Use this subject header too: yrlastname 494 workshop1
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WORKSHOP 1 ON QUEER METHOD TODAY!!

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• A Queer Method: Reading one book object through the lens of another  
<Workshop 1, Tuesday 10 March>

“A Queer Method” is inspired by the conference hosted at the University of Pennsylvania 31 October and 1 November 2013: http://queermethod.tumblr.com  The conference took context as its focus, “examining not what the subject of queer theory should be, but rather how its work has been and might be done” …“and to ask what it means to understand queer work as having a method, or to imagine method itself as queer.” (Katie was a speaker at this conference and you can see her talk online here: http://fembooo.blogspot.com/p/slides-and-handout.html )

For our A Queer Method workshop you will create either a ten-page paper (with enough handouts for each member of the class: 22 folks) or a research poster (and document it with digital pics): which one determined by lot in class 24 February. You may work on these individually or with a collaborator.

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BE SURE TO BE ON TIME TODAY! DON'T BE LATE! WE NEED TIME TO SET UP! 

IF FOR ANY REASON YOU ARE NOT PRESENTING TODAY, COME ANYWAY AND PARTICIPATE! NO MATTER WHAT BE SURE TO TURN IN HARD COPY OF LOGBOOK 1 WITH EXPLANATIONS AND PLANS TO MAKE UP. 

Reminders and What to do!
=Is your name on paper, handouts, hard copy digital pics to hand in?
=Did you bring enough handouts for everyone in the class (22) and one to use for display?
=Did you bring hardcopy of Logbook1 to hand in today, with any notes or explanations?
=Did you bring tape or anything needed to create your display space? cords for laptops if using?

As soon as you arrive:
=SIGN IN on either Paper Sheet or Poster Sheet (two different ones).
=Begin set up of display spot as soon as you have signed in
=Fill out a display FORM and put it by your paper or poster in your display spot: KATIE WILL GIVE YOU NUMBER TO USE IN ORDER OF ARRIVAL. One number per PROJECT even if two authors.
=Pick up a NOTES sheet packet for your interactions during first and second sessions and to guide discussion after the break

As soon as everyone has set up their display space and coordinated with any collaborators:
=We will begin with 12 mins of silent inspection
=Go around and look at everything set up, write down information on your notes sheets for each project: number, names, titles, books used, etc.

Katie will assign equal numbers of papers and posters to each session, and tell you which session you will present in. About half the class looks at the work of the other half in Session 1, then we switch for Session 2. 

>>SESSION 1: 30 mins! so be expeditious in interactions and notes: you need to examine around 10 projects in this timeframe!

Immediately followed by

>>SESSION 2: 30 mins! again be expeditious in interactions and notes: you need to examine around 10 projects in this timeframe!

>>QUICK BREAK! 10 mins only! return to class and prepare for discussion.

>>FOLLOWUP DISCUSSION after interactions with others about projects. This is the heart of the Workshop! EVERYONE SHOULD TALK! use your notes to be as specific as possible in our work to create a great forum for discussion! 

=Tell others what you liked most about their project: BE SPECIFIC!
=Talk about what you learned that you did not know until you saw the work of others! This can include HOW TO DO something, such as great poster ideas you see now, and ANALYSES you have had shared. Again, be specific!
=Ask questions! What more do you want to consider now? Ask for specific feedback on things you tried out in display or analysis and ask others how well it worked.
=Consider if you want to revise, add, redraft anything on your work before turning in electronically on Friday. Ask others for suggestions or ideas.

• Everything must be in final finished state on Tuesday to display, but you are allowed to revise one more time before turning things in electronically by Friday.
• Send to katiekin@gmail.com , use filename yrlastname 494 paper1 or poster1. Please number pics if more than one. Use this subject header too: yrlastname 494 workshop1

Remember we discussed in class why we use these filenames and subject headers: downloaded files will display on computer in last name alphabetical order and can be search for by name, class, and which workshop. Similarly, gmail handles attachments best so Katie can archive your materials and nothing will be lost. Subject header allows Katie to search by your last name, the class, the item when referring to your stuff for discussion with you, final grades, and so on. [NOTE: katiekin, not katiekinG! the second will go to the wrong person!]

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DISPLAY FORM

NOTES FOR INTERACTION
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You should be halfway into your project for Workshop 1 by Tuesday, this week, 3 March. Workshop 1 itself follows the following week, 10 March

Hi Folks! Some classmates missed our absolutely CRUCIAL class this last week! They have been emailed individually with their assignments for either paper or poster for the workshop since they missed the lottery. If you don't get this, please email Katie as soon as possible so you will know.

Please reach out to anyone who was missing. Be a class buddy and fill them in, IN DETAIL, about how to participate in Workshop 1, what to have done by the next class, how the workshop will operate and so on. It will help you too to go over it again and think it through.

By next class everyone should have a class partner to work with for the rest of the term on all projects. You will be asked for that name then. See form here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmKs1Fz7m9uZW9wbDIwWTNoNXM/view

If you wish to work with another student, make arrangements and be able to name your collaborator in the next class.

Begin projects now: they will need two weeks to do properly. By THIS WEEK'S class you should be able to say all the things you have already accomplished.

Your class partner will review your materials BEFORE the workshop, so be sure you set up a time you both can do that by then and have things finished for that point in the process.

Please review instructions for the Workshop on the website: http://lezcom15.blogspot.com/p/workshops.html

Best wishes! Katie

PS. Remember this is what you are to do when you miss class: from the class website TAB: organization at the bottom: http://lezcom15.blogspot.com/p/how-class-will-be-organized-this-class.html

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what to do when you must unavoidably miss class, for emergency or perhaps for illness:

·       TALK TO AT LEAST TWO CLASS BUDDIES IMMEDIATELY. Before you even come back to class, call them up or email them and find out if any special assignments are due the day you return, and make sure that you know about any changes in the syllabus. Try to have done the reading and be as prepared as possible to participate in class when you return.
·       MAKE A DATE TO MEET WITH CLASS BUDDY TO GET NOTES AND DISCUSS WHAT WENT ON IN CLASS WHILE YOU WERE GONE. You are responsible for what happened in class while you were gone. As soon as possible, get caught up with notes, with discussions with buddies and finally with all the readings and assignments. Always talk with class buddies first. This is the most important way to know what went on when you were gone and what you should do.
·       AFTER YOU HAVE GOTTEN CLASS NOTES AND TALKED ABOUT WHAT WENT ON IN CLASS WITH BUDDIES, THEN MAKE APPOINTMENT TO SEE KATIE. If you just miss one class, getting the notes and such should be enough. But if you've been absent for more than a week, be sure you make an appointment with Katie, and come in and discuss what is going on. She wants to know how you are doing and how she can help. Or, while you are out, if it's as long as a week, send Katie email at katking@umd.edu and let her know what is happening with you, so she can figure out what sort of help is needed.
·       IF YOU ARE OUT FOR ANY EXTENDED TIME be sure you contact Katie. Keep her up to date on what is happening, so that any arrangements necessary can be made. If you miss too much class you will have to retake the course at another time. But if you keep in contact, depending on the situation, perhaps accommodations can be made. Since attendance is crucial for all assignments and thus for your final grade, don't leave this until the end. LET KATIE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING so that she can help as much and as soon as possible.
·       THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN EXCUSED ABSENCE AND ANYTHING ELSE: generally speaking you are only allowed to make up work you missed if you have an excused absence. That the absence is excused does not mean you are excused from doing the work you missed, but that you allowed to make it up. I usually permit people to make up any work they miss, and do not generally require documentation for absences. Be sure to give explanations in your logbook and do make up all work you have missed.

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NOTE: the structure of our course: we are now in Section Two and it culminates in Workshop 1. After this section of the class, the LGBT series begins and we have spring break. Then Section 3 starts up.

How the class is put together and where you are during each section of the course -- intellectually, emotionally, politically, personally; indeed overall in your life -- is something to chart and notice: you will analyze how it all fits together in the final assignment of the course, the learning analysis.

>>>SECTION TWO: ACCELERATING QUEERNESS

Tuesday 24 February – Sisterhood’s Table of Parts <ENSZER VISITS>
• READ: Enszer, Sisterhood: as much as you can. Read as individual poems, but also read as a long story: what is that story about? How do you know? What difference does it make to read many poems as well as single poems? Pay close attention to the book’s Table of Parts: what sort of poem is this too?
• If for any reason you have been unable to secure a copy of the book for today’s assignment, then make a point of using the time you would have spent reading the book to find our what you can about the author, Julie Enszer, and reviews of the book, online. Bring that material into class too.
• Bring questions for the author and interests to share!

• CONSULT: Transgender Studies Quarterly: http://tsq.dukejournals.org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/content/by/year  Look for the journal on the UMD Libs Research Port system: http://researchport.umd.edu/ : figure out how to learn about a journal and its history: Enszer may have pointers about how to do this….

Today we want to think of books and readings and publications as alive, as companioning their authors, editors, and makers: they are objects, gateways, bits of actual people, changing and connecting….

Enszer is faculty here at UMD, has a PhD in the WMST program in which she works now, and is a long time pioneer in transdisciplinary uses and promotions of creative writing as theory and activism. She will visit our class today to talk about her books. So bring your interests and questions, bouncing off what you have read and what you have been able to find out about her and her work online! She is another of several authors who will either visit class or who will be on campus for exciting events! Find her website online….

The second half of class we will go over what you will do for the first workshop, which will take place 10 March, in two weeks! We will have a lottery to see whether you will do a paper or poster, if you will collaborate, how to work with partners, and more! For more information and a handout go to the TAB: workshops.

Tuesday 3 March – Using one book to look at others: making meanings 

• READ: Finish Enszer, finish Gessen, use Paoletti to think about both

• LOGBOOK TEMPLATE; NEXT CLASS IS WORKSHOP 1!



We will use the class to strengthen our understandings needed for Workshop 1, clarifying how to use insights from one book and apply them to others. When have you done this before? We call this knowledge transfer and it is one of the most important skills one can learn in college! And in life! (Stories from the Gessen collection suggest how too.)  

1) LOOK TO WORKSHOP & THE NEXT WEEKS' ACTIVITIES:

• WORKSHOP #1: A Queer Method
We explore context, method, and queering as a practice for understanding newly. You will identify a theme from one of two books, a theme that captures your imagination, and then interconnect it with methods from the other book. You will then share in either poster or written analysis why these concerns you raise matter for lesbians in various communities. These mind-bending questions are ones to explore at any developing moment in your understanding of lesbian and queer worlds. Good faith work to challenge your thinking and to share with and learn from others is the point here. Chose EITHER • to analyze Gessen’s book through the analysis (eyes, lens, perspective, tools) of Paoletti’s Pink & Blue with its multi-linear histories and causes; OR • to analyze Paoletti’s book through the analysis (eyes, lens, perspective, tools) of Gessen’s Gay Propaganda’s interviews of people trying to figure out how to deal with changing legal and social systems. NOTICE that you will need to do some additional research. Always make a point of connecting projects to class readings and activities.

Tuesday 10 March
In the first part of class we will share our work poster session style: divide in two groups, and all move around talking to each other about work during the class time. After our break we will have a conversation about what we learned, noticed, thought about, and draw from class presentations. Make notes during the first part so you can run the discussion yourselves during the second part.

• Everything must be in final finished state on Tuesday to display, but you are allowed to revise one more time before turning things in electronically by Friday.
• Send to katiekin@gmail.com , use filename yrlastname 494 paper1 or poster1. Please number pics if more than one. Use this subject header too: yrlastname 494 workshop1

TAVIA NYONG’O, "Deep Time, Dark Time: Kara Walker’s Anarchaeology"
> Thursday, March 12, 2015; 5pm at Francis Scott Key Hall 0106
> Friday, March 13, 2015 Colloquium with Tavia Nyong’o; 12:30pm-2pm at Taliaferro Hall 2110

Tuesday 17 March – SPRING BREAK

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2) NOTICE HOW THINGS FIT TOGETHER AS THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE SET TO UNDERSTAND HOW ALL OF IT IS GRADED AS A UNIT OF ACTIVE MAKING, NOT JUST PAPERS AND POSTER THEMSELVES:

Sections of the course: how it fits together. With workshops and LGBT series.
Think: transfer of learning and meta-cognition.

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Sections of 494 Syll15

 

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3) AFTER BREAK: LOGBOOK QUESTIONS & PROTOTYPING: DRAFTING POSTERS, VISUALIZATIONS, HANDOUTS 

Prototyping activities: play and creative activities on the edge of our brains! 

Wondering why we do this? about posters and handout?

...a range of reasons: research posters are more prominent even in the humanities nowadays and getting into the disciplinary uses is good. Creative posters are sometimes helpful for the prototyping activities that precede digital projects, or any projects. And posters and visualizations have cognitive uses and value, something that mulitimodal composition and action experiment with now too.

Learning specialists interested in how some technologies used well might open up learning as this sort of fun develop so-called constructionist pedagogies. The MIT Media Lab’s “lifelong kindergarden” group are people who work with learning as a form of play. Making things, making ideas, making connections and patterns, enjoying these with others, these are all elements in constructionist ideas about learning. Physically getting up and moving around, talking passionately with other students, enjoying the not-quite-under-control elements of communication and thinking and coming up with something new. Our class conferences and workshops are ways of putting constructionist learning into action in our class, as are the web posters, our uses of web actions, and even the paper handouts.

• How to make a great poster

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BUT NOTICE THAT HOW THE POSTER LOOKS -- FANCY OR NOT -- IS MUCH LESS IMPORTANT THAN HOW WELL IT TELLS US THE RESULTS OF YOUR RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS AND HOW YOU ACCOMPLISHED THIS!!

Leeann Hunter's discussion of using posters: http://multimodal.wsu.edu/blog/?p=97

Crafty posters on poster board with fabulous research contents will get better grades than the nicest electronic poster with sketchy content. If you don't already know how to do fancy electronic posters, then don't use your time learning how now. Do a simple poster demonstrating excellent research practices and outcomes that work with the messy interests in how feminisms name themselves and others, why, and in what forms.

You can use powerpoint to create a single poster frame, as a graphics package,  BUT A POWERPOINT SLIDE SHOW WILL NOT BE ACCEPTABLE! 

And if you do do something electronic, you must bring a print out of it -- do it cheap! -- to share, or bring YOUR OWN LAPTOP to show it on using wireless. You cannot use the class projector, or computer, or Katie's laptop.  

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