Tag: proposals

Class, Wed, 10/09

Of Interest

Sports as a Contact Zone: Tweeting in the NBA

Questions About Proposals

Conferences Next Week

We’ll have 15 minutes to talk together. I’ll have, maybe, a 3 or 4 minute response to your proposal. What else do you want to ask me about your project as you begin work on it? What other texts have you found to read or watch? How have you narrowed and define the sorts of field research (observation or memoir) that you hope to do?

Roxane Gay: Writing About Unruly Bodies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyUr_-jxWZA
Official Trailer, Shrill, Hulu (2018)
Fastwrite

I offer this trailer for the (I think, quite good) Hulu adaptation of Lindy West’s Shrill as a way of putting this question: We all know that fat-shaming is bad. So what else is Roxane Gay saying (or not)?

To Do

  1. Mon, 10/14, or Wed, 10/16: Come to my office in 134 Memorial ready to make good use of your 15-minute conference with me. Bring any drafts, notes, books, or other materials you’s like to share.
  2. Thurs, 10/17, 10:00 am: Post a text from your project that you feel will interest the other members of this class. Provide bibliographic info. Write a “teaser” summary that will entice other people in the room into reading or viewing it.

Class, Mon, 10/07

Defining a Project

An Example: Fat Shaming

You could read or watch any combination of:

  • Roxane Gay, Hunger
  • Kiese Laymon, Heavy
  • Lindy West, Shrill
  • The Hulu series, Shrill, with Aidy Bryant
  • Other writers and artists who discuss body size
  • Reviews of any of these texts
  • Interviews with any of the writers/artists

And you could also observe/listen to people talking about body size while at school, home, work, shopping, etc.

Crowdsourcing

What issues are you thinking of exploring? What texts will you look at?

Jamaica Kincaid, Natives and Tourists

The thing you have always suspected about yourself the minute you become a tourist is true: A tourist is an ugly human being.

Kincaid, p. 14
Fastwrite

In responding to Rebecca Solnit we talked a good bit about tone, about the worries that many of us had that her criticisms were too sweeping and severe. So what do you make of Jamaica Kinkaid’s angry tone here, of her willingness to accuse you, her reader, at least in those moments when you are a tourist, of being willing to turn the “banality and boredom” of others “into a source of pleasure for yourself” (19).

Of Interest

Some Thoughts From Jamaica Kincaid Collected on Lithub 2017)

To Do

  1. Tues, 10/08, 11:00 am: Group C posts responses to Roxane Gay. The rest of us read and respond to them by 11:00 pm.
  2. Wed, 10/09, class: Discuss Gay. Questions about project proposals.
  3. Thurs, 10/10, 11:00 pm: Email me your project proposal as a Word document. Title your document “First Name Last Initial Proposal”.
  4. Fri, 10/11: No Class. Fall Break.
  5. Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No Class. Conferences with Joe about proposals.
  6. Thurs, 10/17, 4:00 pm: Post Project Reading to this site. We will discuss them the following week.

Class, Fri, 10/04

Explaining Rebecca Solnit

Fastwrite

Please locate a passage in “Men Explain Things to Me” that you either especially admire or find especially provoking. Write a few sentences explaining why.

Proposals

Of Interest

To Do

  1. Mon, 10/07, class: Read the first section (pp. 1–19) of Jamaica Kinkaid’s A Small Place. I will lead our discussion. I am especially interested in the distinction she makes between tourist and native.
  2. Mon, 10/07, class: Come to class with two possible ideas for a project you might propose on Thursday. Be able to connect the project you are proposing to at least one of the readings we’ve discussed so far.
  3. Tues, 10/08, 11:00 am: Group C posts responses to Roxane Gay. Everyone else reads them and posts comments on at least two by 11:00 pm.
  4. Wed, 10/09, class: Discuss “Fullness” and Trevor Noah Interview”.
  5. Thurs, 10/10, 4:00 pm: Email me your proposal for your long project.
  6. Fri, 10/11: No class, fall break.
  7. Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No class, individual conferences instead.
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