Schedule
This schedule is likely to change – always check the week before readings are due. Follow the links and read or watch assigned material before class unless otherwise stated.
Each week, we have a number of texts everyone is expected to read closely, as well as an additional, optional reading marked with a star (*). I expect everyone to glance over the optional reading, but only those who are most enthusiastic about learning the material to engage with it in depth. Knowing DCC students’ intellectual curiosity, I’m confident that lots of you will be excited to spend time with these texts and deepen your knowledge of media, identity, intersectionality, and justice!
Unit 1: Confronting the Issues, Situating Ourselves
Week 1
8/29: Introductions, Intentions, Commitments
In class: setting the parameters for respectful engagement, thoughtful creativity, and deep conversation.
Friday September 1: Confidential questionnaire and blog post 1 due.
Week 2
9/5: Intersectionality and Justice––Diving into Complexity
• Audre Lorde, “Race, Class, Sex, and Age: Women Redefining Difference” and “Poetry is Not a Luxury”
• Eli Clare, “The Mountain.” (You can listen to the author reading it aloud at this link; Brief mention of sexual abuse in part III.)
• Janet Mock, excerpts from Redefining Realness and interview in Queer and Trans Artists of Color
• Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, “What is Intersectionality?”*
In class: practicing intersectional analysis with excerpts from Orange is the New Black
Friday September 8: Blog post 2 due
Week 3
9/12: DIY Media––Zines and Social Justice
Class will be at the Women’s Studies Multimedia Studio/DCC Sound Studio (Taliaferro 0135)
• Raina Lee, “A Personal History of Zines”
• Allison Piepmeier, “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community”
• Nia King, Introduction to Queer and Trans Artists of Color
• Adela Licona, “The Role of Imagination in Challenging Everyday Dominations”*
In class: spending time with zines, attending to process and content.
Creative Exploration 1: Intersectionality Zine.
Process post due on blog Friday September 15.
Bring 5 hard copies of your final zine to class on 9/19.
Unit 2: Shaping Media, Changing Worlds
Week 4
9/19: Visionary Fiction
• Imarisha and Brown, Octavia’s Brood: read the following (the stories are very short, it’s not as much as it seems) and as much more as you wish. (Note: several of the stories, particularly “Hollow,” include vivid descriptions of violent oppression.)
-Introductions by brown and Imarisha
– Pauline Gumbs, “Evidence”
– Terry Bisson, “Fire on the Mountain”
– Dani McClain, “Homing Instinct”
– adrienne maree brown, “the river”
– Mia Mingus, “Hollow”
– Mumia Abu-Jamal, “Star Wars and the American Imagination” (OB)
• adrienne maree brown, excerpts from Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds*
In class: developing visionary fictions in response to current events.
Friday September 22: Blog post 3 due
Week 5
9/26: Visionary Media
• Film (watch outside of class): Born in Flames
• Craig Willse and Dean Spade, “We Are Born in Flames”
• Anne Friedberg, “An Interview with the Filmmaker Lizzie Borden”
• Alexis Lothian, “It Looks Like the Past, But It Feels Like the Future” (ELMS)*
In class: exploring how media form shapes our understanding of justice movements.
Friday September 29: Blog post 4 due.
Creative Exploration 2: Speculative vision. Due on blog Monday October 2.
Week 6
10/3: Identity, Media, and Politics Here and Now
No class: attendance required at panel discussion with Jessica Marie Johnson, Amanda Phillips, and Michelé Prince. Multi-Purpose Room.
Friday October 6: Blog post 5 due.
Unit 3: Reframing Dominant Media
Week 7
10/10: Gender, Race, and the Dominant Gaze
• John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” Part One and Part Two (half an hour each)
• bell hooks, from “The Oppositional Gaze”
• Lisa Nakamura, “Media”
• Janell Hobson, “Black Beauty and Digital Spaces: The New Visibility Politics”
• Mia Fischer and K. Mohrman, “Black Deaths Matter? Sousveillance and the Invisibility of Black Life”*
In class: practicing the art of critical viewing, reading images for what they can tell us about intersectionality and justice.
Friday October 13: Blog post 6 due.
Week 8
10/17: Fandom and Social Justice: Marvel, Queerness, and Fascism
thingswithwings visiting class for guest lecture/discussion via Skype!
• Film (watch outside of class) Captain America (optional extra: Captain America: The Winter Soldier*)
• thingswithwings, Known Associates. Use the PDF uploaded at ELMS and read the following page selections:
4-38; 53-83; 117-118
146-150; 159-160; 163-181
269-274; 315-323; 518-525
How to read: start each page after the * symbol, if there is one, or at the first full paragraph if not. There will be passages that don’t make sense because you don’t have the context of the full story; don’t worry too much about that and just pick up what you can. Expect erotic and romantic same-sex content, some of it sexually explicit.
Optional: read the entire story and look at some of the comments on its original posting (easy to find via Google)*
In class: discussion with thingswithwings; exploring fan fiction as political commentary and critical intervention.
Friday October 20: Blog post 7 due.
Week 9
10/24: Remixing Media and Identity
• Jonathan McIntosh, “A History of Subversive Remix Video Before YouTube”
• Francesca Coppa and Rebecca Tushnet, “An Editing Room of One’s Own”
• Julie Levin Russo, “Femslash Goggles: Fan vids with commentary by creators”
• Alexis Lothian, “Remixing the Future of Race and Empire” (ELMS)*
In class: fanvid screening and discussion
Friday October 27: Blog post 8 due.
Week 10 10/31: Remix Practicum
We will use a media text we have all viewed – the film Born in Flames – to experiment with the process of creating video remix. Though we will all share the same video footage, you will be responsible for your own audio, so bring a sound file (most likely a song, but it can be something else if you like) that you would like to work with. We will also discuss what it might mean to utilize this method in a capstone project.
Creative Exploration 3: Creative Media Intervention.
Due on blog Friday November 3.
Unit 4: Critical Play
Week 11
11/7: Games as Zines
• Anna Anthropy, “The History of Magic” from Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
• Brendan Keogh, “Just Making Things and Being Alive About It: The Queer Games Scene”*
• Laura Hudson, “Twine, the Videogame Technology For All”
• micha cardenas, “Shifting Futures: Digital Trans of Color Praxis”*
Play games: Redshift and Portalmetal by micha cardeñas; Depression Quest by Zoe Quinn; explore Porpentine’s games.
In class: interactivity and justice; embodying our values through play.
Friday November 10: Blog post 9 due.
Week 12 11/14: No class. Individual meetings with me this week to discuss capstone proposals and final project plans. Click here to sign up for a meeting.
Capstone Proposals due to DCC Monday November 20.
Week 13 11/21. Collaborative Twine Practicum
Creative Exploration 4: Interactive Story. Due on blog before class.
Instead of doing readings to prepare for this week’s class, you will come up with an idea for an interactive story or game based on some aspect of the semester’s discussions. Then, in class, we will work in small groups to develop and code a few of these games using Twine. We will also explore how our ideas could be further expanded and discuss what it might mean to utilize this method in a capstone project.
Week 14 11/28: Practitioner presentations
Week 15 12/5 Final Project Presentations
Monday December 12: Final reflection, participation questionnaire, and any outstanding class work due.