thinking in community, in action

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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. 

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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!

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Sexuality on the Move

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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.

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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.

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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!

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• 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!]

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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 

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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.

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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

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