Tag: difference

Class, Wed, 10/02

UD as “Literacy Sponsor”

[The President’s] priorities include: enhancing students’ success, investing in intellectual and physical capital, fostering a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, building an environment of inclusive excellence and strengthening interdisciplinary and global programs.

“President Assanis Reviews Top Five Priorities with Faculty and Staff“, UDaily, 2/17/2017.

Nathan Heller, “The Big Uneasy”

How do the politics of inclusion play out “on the ground” of a US college campus?

Fastwrite

Go to a point in Heller’s piece where he quotes a particular individual who is speaking in a way that you either admire or find troubling. Be ready to tell us why.

Safety and Engaging with Difference (John and Jennifer)

Of Interest

EJ Dickerson, “How a Small-Town Bakery in Ohio Became a Lightning Rod in the Culture Wars“, Rolling Stone, 7/18/2019

To Do

  1. Wed, 10/02/4:00 pm: Group B responses to Solnit.
  2. Thurs, 10/03, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group B’s responses and comments on at least two.
  3. Fri, 10/04, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Solnit.
  4. Mon, 10/07, class: Read Jamaica Kinkaid’s “A Small Place”. I will lead our discussion.
  5. Mon, 10/07, 4:00 pm: Group C responds to Roxane Gay.
  6. Tues, 10/08, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and comments on at least two.
  7. Wed, 10/09, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Gay.
  8. Thurs, 10/10, 4:00 pm: Everyone emails me a one-page proposal for their final project.
  9. Fri, 10/11: Fall “Break”.
  10. Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No class meeting. Individual conferences with me.

Class, Wed, 9/18

Gloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Different Kinds of Difference

Gloria Anzaldúa joins Barbara Mellix and Min-Zhan Lu in a growing list of writers who describe having to shift and adjust the ways they speak and write to meet the needs of the different situations they find themselves in. (Richard Rodriguez will continue this theme.) In some ways, you can hardly imagine a more banal insight—since we all routinely change how we talk depending on who we’re speaking to and why. So I’d like to press the question I raised in class on Monday a little more strenuously now: What do these writers add to that familiar observation? How is their version of difference different? And, most important, how do they differ from one another? What does Anzaldúa say that distinguishes her from Lu and from Mellix? How might the terms and ideas raised by Pratt, Hochschild, and Gee help us notice and understand those differences? Please locate a passage in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” that you feel will help us talk about these issues.

Donald Trump in New Mexico, Mon, 9/16
The Problem of We and Us (with thanks to Amanda G and Kyle)

To Do

Begin to think seriously about possibilities for your final project. In particular, think about the materials you might want to analyze: The books, articles, videos or music you’d like to analyze; the situations or experiences you’d like to describe. You will have a proposal due in three weeks (10/10), and will be asked to submit a text for the rest of us to read and consider in four weeks (10/17).

  1. Wed, 9/18, 4:00 pm: Group A posts responses to Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire”.
  2. Thurs, 9/19, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group A’s responses and posts comments on at least two.
  3. Fri, 9/13, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion of Rodriguez.
  4. Mon, 9/23, class: Read Jay Dolmage’s “Breathe Upon Us”. I will lead our discussion.
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