Tag: Lambeth

My Stuffed Animal

An object of mine that always makes me think of beauty in imperfection is my stuffed animal rabbit that I’ve had since my childhood. My rabbit would follow me everywhere I traveled: on long vacations, trips to the grocery store, and every night when I would go to sleep. With every journey my rabbit has been on, it has started to look less and less like an actual rabbit. It has become ripped, lost almost all of its stuffing, and rather than being short and round, it is now long and skinny. I’ve tucked my rabbit away in my closet for years now, but every now and then I stumble upon it when I clean and can’t help but feel all the memories of my childhood flood back. I think of all the family vacations, how each rip and tear got there, and of how this stuffed animal embodies my entire childhood in just one tangled object.

            A particular quote that stood out to me while reading Lambeth’s piece was that of which discussed wabi sabi and its meaning. “Wabi sabi, the Japanese aesthetic philosophy closely tied to Zen Buddhism, insists upon asymmetry and imperfection, aware that these are signs of life’s impermanence and decay. In wabi sabi, fallen leaves may carry more meaning than those still on the tree…” (Lambeth, Three-Legged Dog). This quote makes me think of the impermanence of childhood I can see when looking at this stuffed animal, as well as the meaning that lies within it. I find that there is much more meaning in this torn stuffed animal than there could be in a perfectly stitched rabbit.

Class, Wed, 9/04

Using WordPress

Please create a free account on WordPress.com. I suggest you use your first name and last initial (e.g., “Joe H”) as your “Public Display Name”.

I will send an invitation to contribute to this site to your Udel email. (The sender of the email will probably be listed as WordPress.) Please accept this invitation immediately. Stay logged in to WordPress.

Responding to Lambeth

Fastwrite

Please write a ¶ about a memory or object that holds beauty for you because of its “asymmetry and imperfection”. Then write another ¶ in which you relate your thoughts to Lambeth’s. Try to quote at least once from Lambeth’s piece. Copy and save your text.

Laurie Clements Lambeth, with Patou. Photo by Ian Lambeth.

Posting Your Response

  1. Go to this site (https://e367fall2019.home.blog/). If you have accepted my invitation to contribute, you should see a button on the upper righthand corner that says +Write. (If you don’t see this, click on the My Sites button on the upper lefthand corner, and then click on Posts.) A text box should appear.
  2. Paste your response into the text box. Check formatting (headings, italics, spacing, etc.).
  3. Think of a good title for your piece. Type that into the Title Bar.
  4. Choose Responses as your Category. Uncheck any other boxes.
  5. Think of two or three Tags that will help identify your piece from the others posted. (You’ll thus want something more specific in addition to “Wabi Sabi” and “Lambeth”.)
  6. Hit Publish. If there’s something you don’t like about your post, you can click on Edit, make changes, and Update.

This will be the process you’ll want to follow in posting your responses to readings for this course. Don’t worry. The steps quickly become routine.

Of Interest

To Do

  1. Fri, 9/06, class: Read “Arts of the Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt. This is a challenging but also rewarding piece. I’ll want to discuss what Pratt means by contact zone, autoethnography, and asymmetrical relations of power. I’ll also be interested in hearing your thoughts about Pratt’s attempts to connect the experiences of Guaman Poma with those of her young son.
  2. Mon, 9/09, class: Read Arlie Hochschild’s “Empathy Maps”. I will lead our discussion.
  3. Mon, 9/09, 4:00 pm: Group A posts responses to Babara Mellix’s “From Outside, In”.
  4. Tues, 9/10, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group A’s responses (along with Mellix, of course) and posts comments on at least two.
  5. Wed, 9/11, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion of Mellix.

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