Occupy your closet?

As part of the Occupy movement, I am participating in a teach-in on my campus on November 3. I will be doing it in the Fashion and Consumer Culture course which will be conveniently in the middle of a unit on sustainability. When I saw the teach-in notice, I immediately saw the connection between economic injustice and consumerism, but I wonder how much I will have to explain to get students into the conversation. What do you see connecting the two?

Race, Twitter and Melissa Harris Perry

This may seen like a sudden shift of topic, but it is, in fact, directly linked to my last post. In explaining my teaching objectives, I listed two examples of what I meant by "thinking, listening and being present":

It means learning to recognize that we each experience life from our own unique position in time and point of view, shaped by our identity. It means listening to others' opinions and experiences and being able to understand them in the contexts of their own unique humanity.

That evening, an example of this way of thinking played out on The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC). Like many news organizations, the show included a segment on President Obama's comments about Michael Vick's second chance in the NFL. The host then brought in frequent contributor Melissa Harris Perry, a Princeton professor often asked to comment on race, gender and politics. In a very short time (actually three minutes less than she thought she had) Perry attempted to lay out the very complex history and multiple viewpoints involved in the controversy. I thought she did well, probably because it's a topic I already know and could fill in some of the blanks. Apparently the Maddow show audience did not agree. Her email inbox was flooded with angry messages, and her Twitter stream caught fire.

Professor Perry uses Twitter better than just about anyone I know, and she followed up her Maddow appearance with a series of 140-character posts that served as a mini-lecture on the nuances of America's racial history as played out most recently in the Michael Vick controversy. She even provided the slides from a class lecture/discussion that occurred when a PETA demonstration at Princeton angered African American students by comparing animal cruelty to slavery. The "twecture" and the class slides can be found at Mediaiate.

How does this connect to my post? We are fortunate today to have a multitude of ways to connect and interact with others, including people with very different lives and views. How well those conduits serve us depends on our own inclination to think and LISTEN to those views, and to understand that they come from real, living breathing people who are trying to tell us their "truths". The real truth -- if there is one at all -- may be theirs, or ours, or some yet-undiscovered truth. When we communicate only in one direction, or only with our own "tribe", it doesn't matter if we are speaking face-to-face or using the latest sophisticated social network. We do not learn.

Twitter can be an amazing tool for listening to a multitude of viewpoints, and for engaging with earnest questioners. Melissa Harris Perry has it right, in a tweet posted towards the end of the exchange:

Completely possible that I've explained nothing, but hopefully at least raised some questions. As always Tweeps provoke & engage.

Spoken like a true teacher!

Update: Professor Perry has posted her own follow-up at The Nation.com.

"think, listen, and be present"

With my home workspace ready for the new year, it's time to start preparing for my spring classes, which begin in about four weeks. Serendipitously, Randy Murray (Who Writes for You?) has a compelling post today that perfectly captures what I want for my students. No matter what I am teaching -- popular culture, fashion history, research methods -- my number one goal is to awaken them to thinking. Balzac's dismissive description of unreflective existence, "like skating on the surface of life" (Cousin Bette) jumped out at me from the page in 1977 and changed me forever. In that instant, I recognized what I wanted for myself, having drifted through most of my twenties waiting for "real life" to begin.

Murray's one resolution: "I want to think, listen, and be present".

In my daily life, that means taking some time everyday to stop and really attend to what is right in front of me, whether it is chopping onions or talking with my husband. Embracing the cold, gray winter day I have instead of the spring thaw I long for. One of the reasons I write is that I cannot do it mindlessly.

In my teaching, that translates into really thinking about our relationships with the "stuff" of everyday life. Clothes. Electronic gadgets. Music. Reality TV. It means learning to recognize that we each experience life from our own unique position in time and point of view, shaped by our identity. It means listening to others' opinions and experiences and being able to understand them in the contexts of their own unique humanity. It means learning to write from the center of their being, not from a graphic organizer and a thesaurus.

"think, listen, and be present" -- I like that!

 

Guest bloggers wanted on "Thoreau's America"

Between March 24 and the end of May, Thoreau's America (the public site for a course I am reaching this spring) will be exploring simplicity and anti-consumption in today's world. We are looking for guest bloggers to share their own experiences. If you are already a member, just post a blog (there's a minor hiccup of an approval step); if you are a regular reader and want to participate, just sign up for the network first.

Topics of interest include: what you are doing, why, what resources you find useful, tough decisions you have made, the evolution of your lifestyle -- just about anything as long as it is your own experience. We look forward to hearing your stories!

Pimp Cups and Soulcraft

My Advanced Material Culture class took an interesting turn this week: we made pimp cups. (For those of you unfamiliar with these artifacts, look here, here and here.) The genesis of this project was my request for someone to share a craft with the rest of the class. I'd made this request at the beginning of the semester, but no one stepped up at the time. They claimed not to know how to make anything, or nothing very interesting. Thanks to Fiona, we all know how to make pimp cups now. She supplied the blanks, bling and glue, and I chipped in to help pay the bill. My observations:

• I have not seen a class so quiet since the last time I gave a final exam. They were totally absorbed for about 30 minutes. Even the ones who are usually checking their phones or "taking notes" on their laptops.
• They got the connections between this activity and our first text "Shop Class as Soulcraft". Yes, craft engages the mind, Yes, it's problem-solving. Yes, materials impose discipline. (Be careful with the epoxy, or you make a mess or even glue your fingers together.)
  

Today, I am going to show them how to crochet a granny square, and we'll talk about crafting as part of childhood. I have some toy catalogs to share that might help jog their memories. The first day of class, one of my students made an off-hand comment about crafts are "kid stuff", and it keeps calling me back. Nearly all of the crafts I do today I learned as child, yet I don't see them as childish. The processes we learn as children have the potential to grow and mature as we do.

Artifacts of Loss -- and Survival

My Craft and production class is discussing Jane Dusselier's amazing and heart-breaking book, Artifacts of Loss. Dusselier uses material culture -- arts, crafts, gardens and other creations -- to describe and analyze the lives of Japanese-Americans in WWII concentration camps. One of the questions I've been mulling over is whether any handmade objects survived from the Nazi concentration camps. So far, I have found only this:

Eva Klein David — Clandestine Crafts That Saved Lives

Still looking for more, will post if I find any.

Spring course: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life

It's only October and barely fall, but I am working on my new spring course on Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life. The Craft and Production course is going well, considering attendance has been cut by a third for the few weeks and yesterday was even worse (5 students out of 11 showed up!). The size of the class is a bit disappointing, but that's probably a function of the prerequisite and the craziness of all the AMST upper level being offered at the same time. Here's my pitch for the spring course:

AMST498C Consumer Culture: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life (Spring 2010 W 4:00pm- 6:40pm)
Prerequisite: AMST201 AND either AMST203 or AMST205.

American Studies scholars have argued that consumer culture has eclipsed civic culture in its importance in American life.  This argument maintains that we define ourselves as Americans by what we consume; even the iconic American Dream is often expressed in terms of possessions. In AMST201 and AMS203 or AMST205 you have probably been exposed to texts or conducted research about advertising, marketing, consumer-identity, branding, and other aspects of consumption. In AMST 498C we will examine another strand in this narrative: the efforts, movements and trends that resist or oppose excessive consumption. Sometimes these impulses spring from necessity (the Great Depression, wartime) but often they are rooted in convictions about the moral peril of personal wealth or about environmental sustainability. We will consider historical evidence (Puritan sumptuary laws, Utopian communities, 60s communes) as well as recent trends such as frugality and Voluntary Simplicity.

I am considering offering it publicly via iTunesU, just in case the actual student count is anemic.

Update (response to a student query):

Working list of texts -
The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture (David Shi)
The Machine in the Garden (Leo Marx) (maybe... it's an American Studies classic)
The Good Life (Scott Nearing)
one of the many recent books on Voluntary Simplicity (or I may offer a choice on this one...)
selections from Theory of the Leisure Class (Thorstein Veblen) and Walden (Henry David Thoreau)
We'll also be viewing some excellent documentaries (such as Afluenza), blogs and websites (Center for the New American Dream, Adbusters)

As for format, with 2 hours and 40 minutes to fill, I am thinking about 1/3 lecture, 1/3 discussion, 1/3 other (viewing, student sharing).

Required reading: Shop Class as Soulcraft

I have added one more title to my book list for AMST 498Q (Craft and Production). It is Matthew B. Crawford's "Shop Class as Soulcraft", previewed in the NY Times Magazine on May 24. (Thanks, Jacob!) Crawford also appeared on the Diane Rehm show last week, which finally got me down to the local book store. He's a motorcycle mechanic with a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and he's written an engrossing and mind-bending examination of the value of manual labor. So far me only quibble is that he focuses on male-dominated trades, begging the question of the value of manual labor when it is "women's work". But that's really a small quibble; he is doing what all writers are told to do -- write about what you know -- and so far it's a marvelous book.

I spent a day last week volunteering in a museum costume collection, working with my hands and with a large group (most of them women). Crawford is quite right in his argument that handwork can involve the brain in very intricate ways, defying the modern dichotomy between "manual labor" and "knowledge work". Each object presented a unique problem to solve -- imagine trying to vacuum the dust (and insect casings!) off a child's parasol made of very fragile silk, then describing the object and carefully labeling it and preparing it for storage. Not only did we need to use our wits, we relied on each other, for expertise or suggestions or just an extra hand. The women I worked with that day were my special new friends the rest of the week!

Course description: Advanced Material Culture: Craft and Production

So I have a more formal description for my fall course! AMST498Q Advanced Material Culture: Craft and Production. This course will build on the theoretical foundation of AMST 205, using multiple approaches (ethnography, object analysis, history) to examine the
production of objects and the relationship between maker and artifact. Topics will include historical reenactment, professional craftspeople and amateur DIY (including gardening, knitting, furniture hacking, and all forms of cookery). Students will be expected to be willing to work and interact outside the classroom (required field trips and online activities).

I also have two books on order: Jane Dusselier's Artifacts of Loss (crafts in Japanese-American internment camps) and Shaping Things, Bruce Sterlings' very interesting (and very rich) work on the future of things. Dusselier's book will be a great way to reposition the discussion about crafts, which can get stuck on the mindless-hobby level. I actually don't believe that most amateur crafting is just so much meaningless filler;  when any activity consumes someone's time, money and energy, it has meaning and is worth serious consideration by cultural scholars. Being dismissive of scrapbookers is elitist and probably sexist.

There are seven students registered for the class so far and we don't start until August; exciting!

My academic side: teaching a new course on craft and production

I've been blogging here as a side interest, while a book project gets most of my attention. (It's related to ethical fashion on the gender vs. gender-free side of things, being about pink and blue and all that.) It's been a real luxury being on sabbatical; time is everyone's most precious commodity, and I was willing to go on half salary in return for a full year to research, think and write. (also knit, cook and take afternoon naps) With just under six months before I am back in the classroom, I now have my teaching schedule and and trying hard not to get too excited, lest the book slip to the back burner. Fortunately, next year's courses include two new courses which will be making frequent appearances in this blog.

Advanced Material Culture: Craft and Production (Fall 2009). Most material culture literature and teaching these days seem to emphasize either object analysis or consumer culture, as opposed to the production of objects and the relationship between maker and artifact. Given the interest in DIY (including gardening, knitting, furniture hacking, and all forms of cookery) and my own lifelong fascination with how things are made, this seemed to be a great, fresh angle to pursue. I am looking for good readings, but want the course to be very hands-on, not text-heavy.

Consumer Culture: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life (Spring 2010). This is a course I've been imagining ever since I migrated from textiles to American Studies. Consumer culture literature and courses tend to focus on advertising, marketing, consumer-identity/branding aspects of purchasing behavior, but American culture has always included movements which resist or oppose excessive consumption. David Shi's The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culturewill provide the historical perspective.

I'll be posting about both courses here as they progress.