Instructor: Evan Smith
Class Meetings: 17 Lex – 1008 (10th floor), M/W from 2:55 – 4:35
Office Drop-In Hours:
- Wednesdays from 4:45 – 6:00 – VC 7-248 (online available as well)
- Or by appointment – just ask!
***it’s always best to email me, discord me, or let me know in class
***I can also stick around for 30 minutes after each class
***don’t worry, other times are also available, just contact me
Course Texts:
- Digital – all texts uploaded to this blog under “Assignments & Texts”
- Purdue Owl – your free MLA style guide (online)
(You are responsible for downloading, annotating, and bringing copies to class when required.)
Course Theme: What Are the “Practices” We Need?
Course Description:
To tell a visual story, artist Eric Timothy Carlson spent years compiling images he found in the “Picture Collection” of the main branch of the New York Public Library. These images are kept physically, in folders, many cut out of magazines and books. They are archived by categories, like “gates,” “leather,” “protests,” and “institutions.” The above image, found spreading across two pages in Carlson’s massive book collage, NYPLPCETC, depicts the construction of a replica of France’s “Legion of Honor” building in Northern California. The Legion of Honor, an institution established by Napoleon Bonaparte, sought to recognize those in the highest order of civic and national duty. Of course, this meant its membership consisted of wealthy elites, aristocrats, high-ranking military officials, and those of royal lineage. In this plaster reconstruction in California we see an attempt to pay homage to the hierarchies of honor, service, and privilege on American soil. The exposed innards below the replication beg the questions: What are the ideologies and stakes behind our social institutions? Who do we have in mind when we create them? And what is rotten about them beneath their shiny veneers?
In response to a question about the structure of higher education in America, poet and theorist Fred Moten responded that teaching should seek to ask: What are the [current] practices and what are the practices that we need? What are the practices that have been initiated in times past that answered needs? Why are we here? These questions, which may feel abstract upon a first read, essentially ask us to consider the point of the ‘University’ in our current moment (and also, the point of all/any of our institutions). If the institution of the ‘University’ doesn’t have an answer to what people really need, or an answer to why we are here, spending this money, then the institution must change.
These questions are all the more pressing in our current moment, as students enter college during the tail end of a global pandemic (hopefully), bracing for an uncertain economy, seeing their lives become increasingly virtual, and dealing with a rash of authoritarian governments rising around the globe. On top of these evolving realities, movements around the world have reinvigorated conversations about this country’s white supremacist, militaristic, patriarchal, xenophobic, environmentally destructive, greed-based infrastructure.
In step with the moment our world is in, the overarching goal of this course will be for all of us to ask WHAT ARE THE PRACTICES WE NEED? The word “practice” can have an innumerable amount of meanings… practice can be studying, learning a craft or skill, conversing about issues or culture, involving oneself in activist work, doing math, developing one’s spirituality, chatting about politics, cooking, exercising, gaming, being a friend, a lover, a family member, staring into space, etc, etc, etc…
I consider this course practice… On an obvious level, it’s practice for reading, writing, editing, and thinking. On other levels it’s practice for identity discovery, community formation, friendships, connection, asking questions, etc. If must be said that within the context of establishing practices, we must seek to answer these questions: WHO ARE WE? AND WHO DO WE WANT TO BE?
During this course I will present you with texts that ask you to consider other practices. These pieces will ask you to consider how we might combat dangerous practices (racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, etc.) or might encourage us to create new practices (critical thinking, challenging authority, building community, etc.). And on a metacognitive level, this course itself is a form of practice for all of us. You should be asking questions like: What am I giving you? What are you learning? What would you teach if given the opportunity? These are the questions of a person who is developing as an autonomous learner, which should be the goal of this institution, in my opinion.
Activist, author, and academic, Angela Davis, writes “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” There are countless ways in which we would like to see our world change, but without any action, these changes are mere fantasy. This course will push you to interrogate the micro and macro communities you are part of, along with the language and rhetoric that is used to convince us of who we are, what we believe, and how we identify.
Ultimately, the final stages of this course will prompt you to write a personal essay/research paper on a contemporary issue of your choice that you see in your community, including an outline for an action plan (be it big or small) to attempt to address this issue. In this way, you will not only strengthen your skills of research and personal reflection, and critical reading and writing abilities, but you’ll also come away from this course a step closer to enacting some change in your world. Truly conscious citizens must continuously struggle to make their countries and worlds a better place, and I hope you will use this course as an opportunity to think critically about an issue that is important to you.
To get there, we will engage with a variety of textual genres: web-based texts and videos, film, fiction and nonfiction, and academic articles. You’ll first write a personal essay to think about the communities you belong to and to determine what practices might be important to you, and then you will begin to research a community of your choice. Finally, you will develop an action plan for your community, based on your research and personal experiences.
In our class you will develop your ability to read, write, and think critically. One of the most important abilities you’ll develop over the course of your studies (and hopefully throughout your life) is the ability to discern how the way we think is shaped by language and other semiotic codes such as sound and image. This course will ask that you think critically about the arguments of others and in turn develop and communicate your own ideas and arguments.
This course is designed to be a gateway of exploration for further writing and research you will do in your courses at Baruch. I invite you to open your mind, be ready to engage with your classmates and me, and to expand your thinking about what it means to be a good writer this semester.
** an excerpt from Moten and Harney’s book, The Undercommons **