Author: Sujit Shrestha

October 24 & 25: events, guest speakers, and course materials

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Wednesday, October 24 (for Wednesday class members and interested participants from our Thursday seminar group)

Our Wednesday class will be attended the inter-campus seminar session titled, “The mid-term elections: AUC edition“. 

AUC stands for Atlanta University Center (http://aucenter.edu/). This particular event is organized by our partners at Spelman College and will be taking place at the Atlanta University Center (Room 202, Robert W. Woodruff Library, located at 111 James P. Brawley Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30314), on Wednesday at 5:30 pm. This event falls squarely within our scheduled class time and we expect everyone in this section to attend. 

Please click here for the event poster that has more details about location and parking. 

This time too we will be organizing a car-pool system to make sure that all of us are able to attend. I have created a simple table in Google Docs to organize this carpool. Please do take a look at it and put your names down at your earliest convenience.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8W3zqeDNQ1wQt5BWxZxNbqJrRPmEqZ-MdNnwjM0yKY/edit?usp=sharing

Suggested reading:

The following news article might offer a useful comparative point for “community defense” practices that our guest from South Bend Commons (Hunter) shared with us on October 17, 2018:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/philadelphia-juntos-community-resistance-zone-immigrant-rights-ice

 

Thursday, October 25 (for Thursday class)

Guest speaker: Estrella Sanchez

We will have a regular class session on Thursday, October 25. Estrella Sanchez has kindly agreed to return as a guest speaker for our Thursday class. In order to prepare for Estrella’s session, please read the following articles:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/immigration-ice-deportation-undocumented-trump

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/05/living-in-fear-every-single-day-as-immigration-raids-wreak-havoc

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/philadelphia-juntos-community-resistance-zone-immigrant-rights-ice

IMPORTANT NOTE: APPOINTMENTS FOR INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS

We will be setting up individual meetings with participants from the Thursday section to discuss your plans for a’field-based project’. Please use the following Doodle Poll Link to select date and time that works for you. The meeting place will be at Prof. Nugent’s office in ANT 212. Here the Doodle Poll link:

https://doodle.com/poll/pw7ew86iz8vrm4y5

 

October 17 & 18: guests speakers and reference materials

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Guest speakers:

Wednesday, October 17: Hunter Bolin from South Bend Commons
Thursday, October 18: Abby Scribber (PhD student of Comparative Literature at Emory University, and member of South Bend Commons)

Please go through the website hosted by South Bend Commons to familiarize yourself with their work. The website can be found using this link here:

http://southbend.co/

 

 

Readings and assignment for October 10 & 11

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Guest speakers:

Wednesday, October 10 – Dr. Sydney Silverstein, Anthropologist/ filmmaker – Dr. Silverstein will be making her guest appearance via. video conferencing
Thursday, October 11 – Mr. Birendra Dhakal, Clarkston resident and community member, our guest will be accompanied by Jake Watson, Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Boston University, presently conducting research in Clarkston.

 

Readings (both Wednesday and Thursday sections):
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/05/living-in-fear-every-single-day-as-immigration-raids-wreak-havoc

Additional readings for Wednesday class:

TO BE UPDATED SOON!

Additional readings for Thursday class:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/24/clarkston-georgia-refugee-resettlement-program

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-03/america-will-become-majority-minority-2043-many-ways-new-america-has-already

In addition to the article and podcast referenced here, please find and read other materials (news articles, websites, etc.) that will provide you some more information about Clarkston in anticipation of our guests on Thursday.

Assignment for both sections:

For next week (Oct 10 & 11), please bring polished drafts of your response to RefuseFascism to class. We will use a part of the second half of our class time for you to work in your groups to finalize these responses to share with our guests from RefuseFascism. If possible, we will also publish it as a ‘public blog post’ on our website that will be widely accessible. If your group doesn’t already have a polished draft yet, please do be sure to have one ready to bring to class next week. Also, please post your drafts (one person from the group can do this) using the following link:

https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/gcop/2018/10/05/group-post-drafts-of-responses-to-refusefascism/

Wednesday class: please post by noon on Wednesday

Thursday class: please post by noon on Thursday

Assignment for Oct 3 & 4: Working with Constituencies Beyond the University

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PART I:

Working with Constituencies Beyond the University.

Over the last several weeks we been exposed to the ideas of a range of speakers whose concerns are not strictly academic.  One of the central goals of our seminar is to learn how to work with such groups.  Toward that end, for next week we would like you to choose one of our guest speakers and sketch out your preliminary ideas about how you would do a field/research/engaged project that is based on the concerns expressed by that speaker, and that takes the concerns of the speaker seriously.  Please note that this does not mean that you need to agree with everything that the speaker said.  It also does not mean that you should try to choose a speaker whose views are “correct.”  The challenge is to develop strategies that take seriously the concerns of the speaker while recognizing the limitations of the views expressed and learning to go beyond those limitations.  To take but one example, you do not need to agree with everything our guests from Refuse Fascism said to recognize that there may be valuable elements to what they are trying to do.  The challenge is to help them do what they seek to do while helping them overcome the limitations of what they are trying to do. 

In assessing the limitations of the views of the speaker you select you should feel free to draw upon concepts and theories based upon your disciplinary or program background.  Each discipline or program is likely to have different ideas about what is and is not a limitation and how to deal with such limitations.  From the perspective of our seminar that is a good thing.  The point is not for everyone to agree.  Rather, we want to initiate discussions in which everyone in the seminar has the opportunity to hear from and hopefully be challenged by one another.   

For next week please prepare a page of bullet points (single-spaced) that reflect your ideas about how to work on the concerns expressed by one of our guests.  Students in Wednesday’s class should post their responses by next Tuesday at 8 pm.  Students in Thursday’s class should post their responses by next Wednesday at 8 pm. 

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR PART II OF THE ASSIGNMENT.