happy international women's day!

a few golden nuggets from this day in history:

[this morning while listening to Amy Goodman]
ben: "happy international women's day!"
me: "thanks, happy international women's day to you too! how should we celebrate?"
ben: "hm... get our nails done together?"
me: "THAT'S NOT WHAT REAL WOMEN DO!"
ben: "then what do real women do?"
me: "i'm going to booty camp*"
ben: "yea? cuz real women need rockin' booties"

*"booty camp" is actually "BOOT camp," an intense 50-minute aerobic workout. we run sprints, lift weights, do push-ups, kick box, and drag bodies across the floor. i've been going twice a week for 6(?) weeks now and i feel FIT. my body and heart have never been stronger or more resilient. i pride myself on being able to run faster, do more sit ups, box harder, and do it all longer than anyone else in those classes, women and men. so boo-yea, what i meant to say is that real women are strong women.

and finally, a quote from another strong woman:
"And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem, as I am considered a minority. And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then YOU are considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you’re worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, “Ugh, I’m so ugly, I’m so fat, I’m so old.” Don’t you know that’s not your authentic self? That is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising: magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn’t turn around shit. If you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue. I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos, to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you’re into leather, then by all means, use restraints. Thank you.”

—	Margaret Cho happy international women's day! show yr love by paying yr respects and giving love to a strong woman!

a beginner's guide to domination and suppression

how to kill activism, reassert the market's dominance of everyday life, and ruin democracy:

1) authority + passivity

(teach 'em not to think for themselves)

2) empty promises

(keep em running. employ 'carrot and stick')

3) divide & conquer

(kill their communities, take away their friends - better yet, have them do it to themselves)

4) the illusion of choice

(make them think they want/need these things and that they're being taken care of)

you'll have a totalitarian state in no time!

(disclaimer: i, of course, don't agree with any of these things. it was just that while i was writing my thesis today i made a list like this to clarify the points i was going to be making in this particular section of my paper and i thought it was interesting enough to share.)

p.s. it should be noted that all these were, and are, being practiced everyday, in the media industry, and especially the school.

on the nature of change: skepticism vs. cynicism

as you know, i'm teaching a class called Education for Social Change. this is the 6th week of class, and it's been great and fun for the most part, there are a lot of high's and low's, lots of excitement and disappointments and many more frustrations, but in general i'm really happy to begin developing a critical pedagogy.

the most enthralling part of this whole experience has been the challenge of enacting a critical praxis when many of my students/peers are resistant (after years of conditioning) to taking ownership of their own educations. even after i have attempted to give them the freedom to create a course that would fit their interests, they are reluctant to meet me halfway, frequently reimposing control and authority on me. the challenging part for me has been fostering the determination and dedication to critical-democratic education and encouraging and pushing them to be active students and citizens.

and my efforts have met with occasional success. as i always tell the class, "learning is a process." and a long one, at that. while i am trying to encourage them to develop radical stances toward their educations, they are teaching me the importance of endurance and resilience in the face of an overwhelming systematic inertia when it comes to social change. but, as i told one of my students, change has got to start somewhere. why not here?

what follows is an example of some of the best (and i mean WORST) of my students' reluctance to develop a critical stance. and then, my (rad!cal) response.

x's and o's,
stef

==========
[these posts come from my class's online discussions about their final public projects]

student post:

I'm finding that I'm really not sure how to respond to other people's final project ideas, or what kinds of comments would be helpful for them. None of these projects (including mine, to at least some extent) seem likely to produce much real change in society. They're too small and too unofficial to really be visible or to create anything tangible. And they're too abstract and confusing to the intended audience, and too extremely counter-cultural, to succeed without large-movement backing. In short, it's too much like individual crusuaders charging out there with a lot of passion and not much else, each of us waging our own tiny grassroots war against a system that will roll its eyes at us, if indeed it notices us at all.

Maybe I still don't understand the assignment properly. What exactly are we supposed to do? What is our goal, ultimately? To create some dramatic form of expression about our feelings on our favorite social issue? To scream our passions into the wind, in the most anti-traditional-education way possible? I'm sure we'll all feel very satisfied that we've gotten our hands dirty, done something "real" outside the classroom, etc. But I don't understand how these projects will create any tangible, lasting social change; or even how they will give us the right skills for future social change endevors.

-----

These are good concerns to be having, Leo. Of course social change doesn't happen with a few small actions here and there. It needs to be systemic. But, it's also got to start somewhere. And that's what these projects should signify, some attempt on all our parts to ACT toward the change we want to see.

Too many people sit on their hands and shrug as they watch grave injustices committed around them every day. Why the apathy? Why the inertia preventing us from acting? I'm not suggesting you grab a bullhorn and storm the streets and burn down buildings, but I am asking you to begin PRACTICING a critical democracy.

What does that mean? It means being a skeptic, rather than a cynic. To clarify further: cynicism is fatalistic. It causes you to be doubtful of yourself and the people in your community, it means to resign to an idea of powerlessness, to feel unable to make any difference and so, letting your agency and critical faculties atrophy. To be skeptical is completely different; it requires critical questioning of otherwise accepted opinions and ideas. It is generative, productive, and active, because you are always evaluating the world around you and finding ways in which to insert yourself - be still no more! Action is the critical entrance into actualization! It's exciting, it's here, it's now!

In short, I'm tired of people crossing their arms and complaining. Droopy frown and weak "but"s be gone! Any change at all is still change, and that's exciting!

-Stephanie

the present is a mystic trance...

it's 4:20 in the anti meridiem and i am still awake, typing furiously, obsessively, at my senior thesis. 

it seems i finally stumbled across a burst of inspiration, and despite my overwhelming sense of tire, i decided that if i went to sleep i'd waste this precious moment(um).

the problem now tho is i'm not sure how to actually begin the thesis. i have some strong points that need introduction, and i'm not sure how best to accomplish it. i want it to be urgent, but not too abrupt. i suppose i want to ease the reader into an energized discussion of the failings of our educational system and my scathing critique of capitalist society in large, but how...?

these things are delicate, first impressions make a big difference. and it really sets the pace and tone for the rest of my work...

but some of what i have written so far is somewhat exciting. such as:

America isn't at the polls; America is at the mall. A generation of pseudo-citizens, their brains doped up on reality TV, atrophied from instant access and instant gratification, tricked into thinking their children's happiness is a McDonald's Happy Meal and duped into believing democracy is texting a vote for their next American Idol. This isn't real life; this is reel life. 

and i find myself worrying about this crick in my neck that seems to be attendant with lack of sleep and long hours in front of my laptop in awkward sitting positions.

perhaps to bed?

-stef

senior project nuggets

hi all -

making a tiny bit of progress on the lofty project. since i've found myself incapacitated by the lit review and unable to generate anything new or original of my own (figures... when u waste time regurgitating other ppl's thots u soon forget yr own...), i began compiling useful fragments from some sources i'm reading, as i try to rediscover my ability for original thought.

so here they are, some inspiring nuggets:

from Jane Addams's Twenty Years at Hull House

...I had been sharply and painfully reminded of "The Vision of Sudden Death" which had confronted De Quincey one summer's night as he was being driven through rural England on a high mail coach. Two absorbed lovers suddenly appear between the narrow, blossoming hedgerows in the direct path of the huge vehicle which is sure to crush them to their death. De Quincey tries to send them a warning shout, but finds himself unable to make a sound because his mind is hopelessly entangled in an endeavor to recall the exact lines from the Iliad which describe the great cry with which Achilles alarmed all Asia militant. Only after his memory responds is his will released from its momentary paralysis, and he rides on through the fragrant night with the horror of the escaped calamity thick upon him, but he also bears with him the consciousness that he had given himself over so many years to classic learning--that when suddenly called upon for a quick decision in the world of life and death, he had been able to act only through a literary suggestion.

This is what we were all doing, lumbering our minds with literature that only served to cloud the really vital situation spread before our eyes.

---

from Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society

...the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school.

The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring.

---

from Situationist International's "On The Poverty of Student Life"

Modern capitalism and its spectacle allot everyone a specific role in a general passivity. The student is no exception to the rule. He has a provisional part to play, a rehearsal for his final role as an element in market society as conservative as the rest. Being a student is a form of initiation. An initiation which echoes the rites of more primitive societies with bizarre precision. It goes on outside of history, cut off from social reality. The student leads a double life, poised between his present status and his future role. The two are absolutely separate, and the journey from one to the other is a mechanical event "in the future." Meanwhile, he basks in a schizophrenic consciousness, withdrawing into his initiation group to hide from that future. Protected from history, the present is a mystic trance.

---

!!!
-stef

poetic deference

so, despite last week's setback, i'm going ahead with my project. in fact, i've begun the tedious process of mapping (a la my efforts in the spring of 2006) the flow of arguments therein, in what i think will be quite the impressive finished document, a physically expansive display of the scope of my thesis.

and i've come to the decision that just because the gate-keepers demand i conform to a certain form and formula, doesn't mean i can't enjoy it. or that i can't successfully subvert the institution and its mechanic rituals by satirizing them. i can adopt the form as my weapon, like Monique Wittig's Trojan Horse. a bomb masked in stealth by which to explode the ramparts from within. my subversion and radicalism all the more effective for wearing the disguise supplied by the Academy.

and, i've been reading this beautiful book called On Learning and Social Change (sadly out of print), which i accidentally discovered at Highlander. it's full of some astute observations, including a chapter on the ecology of violence in the university (notes on the tao of education).

i plan to quote from it extensively. so, to put some fantastic poetic imagery in your face, some words from Michael Rossman:

"one mode of teaching is triumphant in the University. minds are to be filled with information. image of a hand closing on a piece of data, fist plunging into watermelon. image of a cock ejaculating. SOCK IT TO ME!" (p.160)

sound of a gun blasting!
-stef

i should have seen this coming...

and of course, just as i got going, i hit a brick wall.

yesterday i found out that i might not get my degree.

"why?" you ask? it's called gate-keeping. it's why i hate the educational system.

listen/read:
Why aren't you going to get your degree!?!

9:35 AM me: oh that's a funny story

we had senior project presentations yesterday

9:36 AM and i was explaining how i had this radical idea to change the format of my project

9:37 AM i'm looking at the educational system as a power system, an extension of the capitalist hierarchy that has historically ignored and excluded communities of difference

9:38 AM well, i'm also looking at schooling rituals, and seeing my project as an extension of this power system and its rituals and habits, i don't want that to be the kind of project i write

9:39 AM also, theory and practice is one of the core considerations in my thesis, i'm arguing for better educational practices that honor the "democratic promise" and theory of education

9:43 AM so, when i was explaining to Bill that i wanted to write my thesis with as little jargon as possible (jargon being the language that conveys power and authority to an arbitrary author. jargon also being the technical language that wedges a distance between communities, the language that marginalizes), opting instead for a dialogic or conversational writing style (a la Myles Horton and Paulo Freire and other practitioners i've been studying), Bill asked me "if i wanted my degree."

8 minutes

9:51 AM me: i didn't really think he was being serious, but then he explained to me that "this is an academic exercise and you're going to have to conform to its expectations if you want to be recognized by the institution"

9:52 AM i was extremely upset

it's just so frustrating because i knew this would happen, i just wasn't prepared to have to fight for the integrity of my project so early in the process!

oh's
-stephanie

project progress

i finally articulated my Senior Project focus in 50 words or less! it is, admittedly, a little obvious to me now, and i wonder why it took me so long, but i think the actual project itself will be a little more nuanced, particularly in its execution.

anyway, my thesis topic:
"Student Activism as Critical-Democratic Praxis" (working title)
how student groups and movements create democratic spaces that challenge and rewrite traditional power structures found in the (increasingly market-influenced) world of academia.

important note to self: explore "the academy" itself as a symbol of power, oppression (in its history of ignoring minority voices and communities, i.e. based on race, gender, class, and age/experience)

Highlander

readers,

i'm gone this weekend, leaving in a matter of minutes for a conference/ 75th anniversary celebration for Myles Horton's Highlander Folk School. i'll be taking workshops on community organizing in the mountains of Tennessee, re-reading Horton's autobiography, The Long Haul (one pivotal resource in my senior project), and trying not to get bitten up by mosquitoes like i did the last time i was in TN!

so while i enjoy the company of progressive educators and social change makers, pls enjoy the inspiring words of Myles Horton, and imagine you were there with me (oh, if only i could take all of you with me...)

"education is meant to help you do something for others" (3)
"When you work toward equality, you have to devise some kind of structure in which there can be justice, but in the meantime you have to do the best you can in an unjust society. Sometimes that means that the laws you go by are moral laws instead of book laws." (7)
"you learn what you do, and not what you talk about." (16)
"i wanted action to be the main thrust, instead of just talking about future action that you don't practice." (16)
"in order to act on my beliefs i had to accept the idea of civil disobedience. i knew that i might have to violate those laws that were unjust, and i made up my mind never to do something wrong just because it was legal." (16)
"the violence of poverty destroys families, twists minds, hurts in many ways beyond the pain of hunger. there is another kind of violence that supports the violence of poverty, and that is institutionally sanctioned violence." (27)
"i couldn't be an absolute pacifist, because i thought that there might be times when it would be a lesser violence to have a revolution." (38)
"you can't use force to put ideas in people's heads. education must be nonviolent. i can't conceive of another type of education." (41)

blabracadabra

= the magic that ensues from a deluge of talking.

sorry for the lack lately, things have been unusual.


how unusual? perhaps they start by being undescribably so. mostly i'm depressed b/c i wish i had done something else with my summer. i blame Mongolia and China for this. after spending such a short amount of time in such beautiful and stimulating environs, it is hard to return to my home in Kentucky and not fill with consuming regret. and regret is one of my top least favorite feelings in the world. i'd say "an itch you can't scratch" and water-logged shoes are pretty close behind.

i've been seeing doctors to try to sort out some nagging pains in my legs and stomach. that hasn't helped things, i suppose. i've always harbored some vague suspicion i won't live beyond 40, but feeling like it is worse than thinking it.

early mortality is ok, once you learn to accept it. you just learn to think about things differently. for example, i'm 21 now, past middle age. that means i feel even more entitled to go out and party than a normal 21-yr-old, because i'm also going thru a midlife crisis. (what this means in actual practice is that i party half the amount a normal Miami girl does (while wearing twice the amount of clothing, i might add), get drunk maybe half that time, but can outdrink most of my friends. considering my size, i have an astounding tolerance. go figure.)

speaking of freedoms, i registered for classes this morning, and found out most of my classes fall on tuesday/thursday. which means, amazingly, a four-day weekend. that is, if i decide not to take Elementary Chinese. the thought of taking Mandarin in a formal educational setting is exciting and terrifying at once. i fear reliving my high school French days, when the awkward pedagogical stylings of one Madame Keegan made me drop out of French classes before my time. i love learning French now, and still speak and write at an acceptable proficiency, but i hate to think of that happening to my mother tongue. the very idea of studying it brings me back to Sunday afternoons cooped up by the window of the language building on the UK campus, wishing my Chinese School classes would be over so i could go home and play in the yard.

on my list of classes for the fall?
-Cultural Studies of Power and Education
-Human Development and the Learning/Educational Environment
-Studies in Educational Issues
& Senior Sem (or, as i'm lovingly dubbing it, "The Extraavaganzaa." or "XG" for short. kinda like exegesis. haha, oh stop it.)
+ possibly El. Chinese
(that's 17 credit hours, 5 of which are to the intense wrapping up of my senior thesis, another 3 of which are a capstone. is that too much for a senior year? sounds like i'll be needing the 4-day weekends!)

i found a guy who's starting a media collective in LA and wants me to work with him. i'm considering it, having no other really exciting things in my life right now. only problem is, he wants me to go in the fall, which means i won't get to finish this thesis 4 years in the making. i always get commitment-phobia this time of summer, though, so i'm feeling highly at risk of flight. i get this way too with a job that's almost done. when i'm getting to the last page of a term paper, that's always the hardest one (after the intro paragraph) to sit down and write, because i know i have the necessary words in me, it seems pointless to do it just to do it. i suspect i prefer to leave the last pages off, rather than finish them. isn't that more seductive anyway? the welcoming openness and potential of halfness, rather than the rigidity and futile arrogance of mistaken completion.

i've been reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (the pre-Oprah's book club version, thank you very much). i'm loving the suggestive implications on human nature and the tension between nature and nurture. it has me wondering if everything we are, everything we do, the way we think, if our primordial unarticulated languages are indeed inherited. if perhaps, nothing is really possessed or uniquely "ours." if we are only mirrors reflecting endlessly into ourselves.

i am 21 years old, my own kind of middle-aged, but i am still afraid to grow up. the idea of going to grad school, or possibly getting a job, is terrifying. i find myself envying all the high school graduates, like my brother, who get to experience college for the first time. i've realized that college itself has become a new kind of security for me, that i will miss the familiar buildings and people after every summer. Summer itself, like Childhood, seems to be a constructed concept. no longer will i experience the clear divisions between school years by the blissfully relaxed laziness of Summer.

unwittingly, i have styled my life after the movies. this week, i painted the nails of one hand a sunny, daffodil yellow. the other hand, an icy, chrome-like blue. like the priest from Night of the Hunter, it seems i've polarized myself into love/hate. or i guess in my circumstance, sunny/cold. it seems i only have two options in these last days of Summer vacation.

BLABRACADABRA!
-stefan!e

re-presenting radical student politix

i've been playing with the idea of "re-presentation" [sic]

that is, to represent some things via media is quite different from the things themselves, and so, re-presented. and so, reimagined. the representation is itself a new thing.

this came out of an earlier idea to collaboratively write a book. tho now i am thinking that rather than getting submissions and compiling the disparate pieces, a group of us (student activists) could conduct the writing as an action in itself. we "speak" (rather than write) the book.

so check this out:

a book.
(books are symbols of power, crystallized knowledge, authority. how to remove the weight of the text? (or, how to co-opt it?))

self-published by SFS
(1. challenges the top-down structure of the media industry that mirrors the hierarchies of knowledge found in the educational system. 2. challenges notion of author/reader, performer/audience, producer/consumer. 3. active, rather than passive, participation in the generation of media, dissemination of knowledge)

containing conversations
(VOICE! one thing i've noticed in my study of critical pedagogy is the concentration on theory and lack of PRACTICE. education is fundamentally social. education for the betterment of our society and its citizens - what could be more social?)

about our activism
("our." "we" "us" "you" "me". first person plural. positions my self, our selves IN the discourse. there's no distance between me (the author) and you (the reader). i am part of the problem and solution, just as you are. draws reader in...)

there are so many books out there written about student activism and disengagement of our youth, but they're all by academics and theorists, not by actual students themselves.

furthermore, participatory media builds community and can empower students with a feeling of agency if they are involved in the process.

i dunno, but i'm thinking this could become a pretty cool creative project portion of my thesis...
-stephan!e

the hits they keep on coming

as is my usual practice, whenever my favorite student activist group (Students for Staff) has events on campus, i plug it like hell in all my classes and daily conversations. i send mass emails to everyone i can think of, and make (perhaps) excessive use of all the BlackBoard class email banks, where i've discovered i can easily send one announcement to something like 400+ honors kids at a time.

after doing this for the last 2 events, i've gotten to expect maybe one or two angry responses to my spamming. most are wondering who i am, and how i got their email, not realizing that Miami has a history of favoring spammers over the privacy of its students (in fact, Mother Miami sells our information to spammers and telemarketers. ironic since one of the frequent complaints of the Miami student specious is the excessive barrage of Barracuda Spam Quarantine Summary emails.)

well this most recent spam session resulted in the quickest deluge of responses yet. those clever honors kids! they're so sun-starved and attention-hungry, just chomping at the bit to engage in meaningful interaction with any fellow human being, that their anger pours forth like effervescent steaming magma, spewing in my face.

but no matter. little do they realize that i'm more than willing to bite back. mine is a rhetorical fight, and i am ruthless.

below, a sampling of the rantings i found pleasantly awaiting me in my inbox, a mere 5 minutes after the first wave of emails. [angry Honors kid's response, followed by mine]

but first, the context:

----

The campus org Students for Staff, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress and the Bishop Debate Society, has organized a week of events for discussing and taking action for a living wage in our community. We invite you to attend the following events on April 10 & April 12 as we explore the intersections of work, wages, class, and economic disparity at Miami University.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10TH
LIVING WAGE FORUM
- talks by living wage expert Dr. Stephanie Luce and economist Dr.
Christian Weller
- discussion with students and staff to follow
Fisk Lounge, Ogden Hall, above Bell Tower Dining Hall
4:30 PM
FREE FOOD AND DRINK PROVIDED

---

THURSDAY, APRIL 12TH
LIVING WAGE RALLY!
come show your support for a living wage!
4:30 PM, the patio behind Shriver
FREE DINNER

----


chomp chomp,
stephan!e

--- Matt Kern [email removed] wrote:

Stephanie,

You realize this is two days, and not a week's worth
of events, yes?

Can I also ask how you got my email address?

and who is the Bishop Debate Society? I've never heard of them
before. Do they have meetings?

thanks for your response...whenever it comes.
-matt kern

--- Stephanie Lee wrote:

Matt,

The Bishop Debate Society is, in my most basic
understanding, a funding source that provides
assistance to student groups who bring speakers
to campus. It was created, I assume, in the spirit
of dialog and community-engagement.

I probably got your email address from one of the
many BlackBoard sites. Miami makes it easy for all
student groups to advertise for their events this way,
and it is no form of trickery on my part.

And you are correct, 2 days does fall short of a week.
Thank you for pointing that out to me.

-Stephanie


===========

---Tim Nordquist wrote:

The more we pay them the more they will charge us to
go there. [sic]


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

That is definitely not true. Tuition has been rising the maximum amount every year, regardless of increases in wages.

As someone concerned about rising tuition, you should be wondering where all your money is going, and asking why your money is being used to pay sub-poverty wages.


=========

--- Preston Parry wrote:

Have you done any research into the economics of
living wage laws? There's a lot of factual research out
there, available widely on the internet, or through the
library's databases. It would be wise of you as the leader of
this movement to know any and all arguments you will
come up against.

Also, how much work have you done with the actual
staff members themselves? Have you tried hard to
understand their position, to get to know them as
human beings, or just as a single entity that serves
as an outlet for you and your group? I'm just curious,
because not once have I ever heard a staff member
mention to me that they weren't getting paid enough,
or that they in any way disliked their job. Maybe my
sample's just too small, but I was curious how much
research you had into this area as well.


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

Preston,

I have indeed been speaking to workers, as have other members of Students for Staff. It is our invested conversations and relationships with workers that drive many of us to continue working toward a living wage. While we could not possibly speak with all 1,600 of the Classified staff (hourly employees) at Miami, we have made an effort to get to know as many as possible, and have been working diligently in conjunction with many staff liaisons, and have met with staff advisory committees such as CPAC, in order to better understand the staff as a whole.

As someone working diligently on writing and researching my thesis, I can assure you that we do not do this for our own amusement, but because we care very much for the health of our community, and the individuals therein.

I'm glad to hear you've been talking to staff on your own, and that you've been "getting to know them as human beings." I encourage you to continue doing so.

I also encourage you to attend the Forum on Tuesday April 10th for the economics research on living wages. There will be two prominent economists from Washington DC and U Mass-Amherst who will speak to the very concerns you mentioned.

-Stephanie

rhizomatic

sorry for the lack of posts, but lately i've been working on my thesis.

in fact, i'm making some impressive progress in gathering my resources. though no actual research has commenced yet (i haven't read a lot of the information i've found due to the sheer volume of it), i have some very interesting plans for the future, once the motivation strikes me.

allow yrself a small peek into my world, if you dare...

my recent research, as bookmarked on del.icio.us, includes some interesting theoretical discussion of Situationist, anarchist, and Marxist applications in daily life and practice.

-> has inspired much fevered and passionate writing, the makings of the beginning of a chapter of my thesis! sample below:


"Students for Staff [has] created an educational grassroots movement from the ground up, cemented with bonds of friendship and respect. We learn by doing together. Students for Staff (re)writes its text every day, and preserves/sustains itself through the passing down of histories of experience through individual relationships. The content of these experiences are found in the web of interactions extant among the members of this community. Because of the lack of a hierarchical power structure (as in the capitalist model), every individual has responsibilities and potentialities, multiplied by their roles in the community, and their commitments to its individual members. The potential for growth within such a community is thus exponential; as each member interacts and forms relationships with every other member, the strength of the connecting fibers mushrooms. The power in grassroots organizing is its rhizomatic potential: lateral roots whose blossoms continually reappear, never able to be stomped out."

--> this inspired by the philosophy of the rhizomatic:

[from Wikipedia:] The term rhizome has been used by Carl Jung as a metaphor, and by Gilles Deleuze as a concept, and refers to the botanical rhizome.

Carl Jung used the word "rhizome", also calling it a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

Furthermore:


Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they opposed it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which worked with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.

so, as you can see, i'm keeping busy.

back to the grindstone,
stephan!e

chance imagery

i read part of George Brecht's "Chance Imagery" [.pdf] today. i found the part about "randomness" particularly interesting. allow me to indulge:

"chance images are characterized by a lack of conscious design. [...] in general, the reason for the importance of randomness for purposes of scientific inference will be the same as the reason for its importance in the arts, that is, the elimination of bias." [Brecht, p.17, emphasis added]

this got me thinking about the relationship of randomness and sense, and how meaning is derived mostly from the proximity of certain images and sounds, the creation of contexts.

this is why experimental film can sometimes frustrate me, b/c it seeks to explode these meaning webs, drawing attn to the mind's assumptions by playing with them, with arbitrary constructs.

if art as i understand and conceive of it is unique in that it presents the artist's meaning, that there is a message hidden within for the viewer/audience, then the frustration i have with chance-imagery IS the very fact that it removes bias.

bias is what i go to art for. if i wanted to go to something cold and free from personal perspective, i'd go to science.

but anyway, the thot i had that would change my understanding of chance-imagery would be something along the lines of the jots pictured on my hand:
if i were to film an ordinary day in the ordinary life of an ordinary person, nothing spectacular, nothing worth judging, just something simple that ppl would watch and think, 'oh, how ordinary...' that is, if i could capture on film something that would not elicit strong bias or intimations of bias, just an omniscient passive observer lens recording an average daily occurence, then i could invert its meaning (or lack of meaning) with a parallel chance-imagery version of the same day.

that is, it would be two complementary film records of an ordinary day:
1. the linear (real) version, which would be conventional, and free of bias. &
2. the nonlinear/ subconscious (surreal), which would use chance-imagery. in this film, i would record footage of all the random things i find along the day while filming/ things my subject might come across randomly on an average day: magazine ads strewn on the street, a lost scarf strewn on the grass in the lawn outside, the used condom found in the parking lot, the sign blinking "cookie ugh" instead of "cookie dough" and etc. these chance images would provide meaning, rather than erase them, and would instead construct a narrative that perhaps wasn't even there to begin with.

what kinds of thots come to one's mind as one finds trash and treasures on city streets while walking about in an ordinary day?

that would be the subject and crux of such a film exploration.
-stephan!e

early starts

hear here, here hear!

it's 9 am on an ice-tinged saturday, and i have begun official work on my thesis!

today, we shall flesh out the outline, determine which research will be necessary before i can begin writing the first chapters, and --i hope-- have a rough understanding of democratic educational history and philosophy.

the goals for this semester's research:
-history/philosophy of democratic ed
-timelines and maps and lists
-case studies (my educational autobio, Highlander School, Central Academy)
-field work (local school, local U, local community)

first nuggets of the day:
the language of education. education vs schooling. learners vs students. mentors vs teachers. finding ways to make language "work."
the pedagogy of the oppressed. schooling can be oppressive. teachers use grades as leverage against undesirable student behavior. grades and favoritism as ways to silence challengers. we become slaves to grades before we become wage slaves. (we're always slaves!)
"educational reform" = my death blow. i want to integrate theory and practice, toward a more empowering and effective (rather than efficient) system and method of education. but as long as i'm open about what i see as egregious flaws in the educational process, i will be met with heavy criticism and hostility. no one wants to admit they're doing things wrong, or concede to an undergraduate. no one can acknowledge that i have experience in the educational system enough to be a critic of it.
why split my experience in education into hierarchies, levels of understanding? why limit the study of higher education to the graduate level? this assumes an undergraduate cannot understand what they experience on a daily basis? must i really have all 4 yrs of undergrad under my belt before i can be a critical, conscious student of higher education?
why are we always looking back rather than simply looking? if i can examine it closely now, why wait until it's even further away?

and these thoughts from a classroom experience last thursday:
relationships of power - students become afraid to challenge/ to speak their mind
-they learn to love convention and obey rules. there's safety in rules. there's safety in passivity. to submit is to be safe and invisible in passivity. to speak one's mind is to challenge the teacher's authority, to make the banking method difficult, to interfere with the completion of the teacher's job. to be vocal is to be a terrorist.
-students sacrifice their intellectual freedom for safety, both in the classroom and in life

senior (project) moments

i've theorized myself into a wall!

i've been thinking constantly about my senior project since i got home from school, and i've been jotting little post-it notes to myself all over my room, with little "nuggets" of theories and ideas to further research, little blurbs i will probably use in my thesis in some capacity. it's exciting, but it's also very exhausting work. i want to do it all at once, but i don't have the proper resources yet. i have so many ideas and energy, i don't know what to do with it all. i spent hours today sorting thru old books, articles, literature i've compiled since i began my studies at school, looking for readings to support my spontaneously generated theories, but merely tire myself out in the search.

i'm going to the library tomorrow to do some much-needed mulling away from my computer, and to read a book. i've made an effort to read a book about every week since i've been home, and so far, i've surprised myself with my results: i finished IN COLD BLOOD in 4 days, finished EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED in 2, and read EINSTEIN'S DREAMS on the insistence of a friend in about a week. now, i'm reading fragments from ANIMAL FARM, DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM, and various senior project books on language, metaphors, and psychogeography, including an ex-boyfriend's senior thesis. and trying to decide between starting CAT'S CRADLE or THE BELL JAR before school.

sweet dreams,
stephanie

p.s. this is what the senior project is known to do to good people. let's say i'm willing to spend extra time stressing out if that means protecting my sanity next year.

meaningful moments

this is the last stretch before the semester ends, and as i was scrambling away and chipping away at various tasks, i remembered that i had multiple posts that i'd been trying to write over the course of the year that i'd neglected under a pile of other obligations.

i thot i'd resurrect them now, in incomplete forms. but i think the intent in their conception is plain to see and certainly makes them no less real, so let them be. perhaps later i will find time to fill in the holes. until then, allow them to be the living non-dead.

yours,
stephanie

~~~
[from Nov 18, a Saturday]
i have had the most productive day, in the most unproductive way.

-----

i have developed a habit of doing little to no work on weekends, piddling my days away at parties, and in aimless wandering. i've been on a 20 year search for meaning in my life, and with little to no feelings of success.

dreams aren't enough to grow meaning from, and they only float for so long. when you try to cover your holes with feathers, they only get swept away. i've been learning to pack the feathers tight, and building them into wings...

-----

i've learned to actually enjoy my life for the first time. i've quit frittering toward meaningless ends, and have found pleasurable meaning in my own self-determined ways. while i used to feel accomplished because i did well in the university and formal educational system, now i realize the value of an external education. and i firmly believe that more can be learned in brief transitory exchanges with strangers than can be read from the pages of a textbook.

and forging a lasting friendship out of a meeting with a stranger can be the best tutorship one will ever receive. for instance, i have two professors this semester whom i owe a great deal of thanks to, especially my Satiric Film professor. the wonderfulness of this individual is beyond my descriptive abilities, but let me explain what is truly remarkable: our educational system teaches us to value professors as authority figures. this immediately calls into existence a relationship of power, which holds the student in the receptive role. there's no room for interaction in this relationship. in fact, it's not a relationship at all, but a very limited manufacture of knowledge. it's a mechanical view of human value and exchange:

IN: prof's knowledge/experience, student's attention
OUT: knowledge/experience

the products of this exchange are limited and not very profitable. from a capitalist standpoint, this would be a shit-poor business. there's no profit, no gain, the amount you put in is the same as what you get back. there's no room for growth or development, no progress, just a stagnation. it conceptualizes education as a producer of intellectual capital and pretends that capital is all we need.

call me a hedonist, i think i am one.

but for the first time in my life, i feel at ease with the uneasiness, comfortable with the discomfort. which isn't to say that i've become complacent or that i've resolved to accept things the way they are. surely not. but i've found pleasurable ways to deal with them. rather than agitate myself, rather than try to limit

i slept for 11 hours for the first time in years last
night, and it was amazing. i woke up and felt like 20
years had passed me by. the sun was shining off the
dew on the grass outside and lighting up the dark
little corner in my room where i rest my head at
night. i wanted to take a picture of it, but i just
put my head back down and fell asleep again.

luckily i have a mind camera and i wasn't too sleepy
to use it.

i've been seeing everything in vivid cinema lately.
that is, i've been lucky enough to pause and watch
things, and they're somehow fitting together in this
on-going screenplay i have in my head. hard to
explain, but maybe when i see you again it will all be
clearer.

how's this for an educational focus?

I am an Interdisciplinary Studies major, focusing in the intersections of mass media and education, and how these two systems may be better utilized to include and empower marginalized groups in cultural production.

yea buddy... ;-)

spectacled society

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation. The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving. The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation. The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

--Guy Debord (1973), "The Society of the Spectacle"

statement of intent

the free radical manifesto, if you will:

this blog is...
--a mirror, in so much as it reflects my thoughts and reactions to my messy life, and perhaps reflects on those of the reader or stranger and projects an ideological longing
["The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror." -Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces" (1967)]

--action potential: In chemistry, radicals (often referred to as free radicals) are atomic or molecular species with unpaired electrons on an otherwise open shell configuration. These unpaired electrons are usually highly reactive, so radicals are likely to take part in chemical reactions... [wikipedia]

and so, will strive to be...
1. uninhibited, uncensored, irreverent, maybe even intrepid
2. truth-seeking thru art and dialogue
3. no pretensions (i know i can only speak for myself and my experience, i don't want it --or pretend to have or want it-- any other way)
4. creation and destruction and recreation and innovation
5. mediated creativity as a way to subvert and balance the ordering and limiting of artistic and academic filters
6. exploration of time and space and memory and physical presence, materiality and immateriality, eternal and ephemeral, the infinite and the indefinite
7. attempt to connect strangers across a physical and emotional distance thru shared experiences and longings
8. a visionary ordinary
9. (added 11.27.06) subversive practice, the fulfillment of theory and dream sequences.
10. going against the grain, the rubbing, the friction, the contact i need to start the fires i need to survive.

"fire is motion. work is repetition. this is my document. we are all all we've done. we are all all we've done. we are all all defenses."

--cap'n jazz, "oh messy life," analphabetapolology

-stephan!e
7.28.06