Building Community Syllabus

kjsanchezepp — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:49:36 +0000

Building Community Syllabus Karen J. Sanchez-Eppler Monday, 1/23/2012, at 10:49 AM

Click on this link for a copy of our syllabus in Word

Syllabus%20AS221.doc

[American Studies 221 Syllabus]

kjsanchezepp — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:47:50 +0000

Karen J. Sanchez-Eppler Monday, 1/23/2012, at 10:47 AM

Karen Sánchez-Eppler Molly Mead

101 Morgan, tel. 2186 102 Keefe, tel. 2948

kjsanchezepp@amherst.edu mmead@amherst.edu

Office Hours: Wed 10-12 Office Hours: Tues 9-10

and by appointment and by appointment

Building Community

Webster 217

American Studies 221

Spring 2012

This course investigates the practice and ideal of community in America both on a national and a local level, asking students to engage in specific projects aimed at strengthening the public sphere and fostering community life. We will consider the nature and limits of democracy, the meaning of belonging, the experience of stigma and exclusion, the concepts of civic responsibility and public discourse, and the conflict and compromises inherent in political advocacy. This course will pay particular attention to the struggles of often-marginalized groups to build healthy and just communities. Coursework will include contemporary and historical case studies, literary depictions, and more theoretical readings, as well as a substantial commitment to the development and fulfillment of projects that assess or respond to contemporary concerns. Projects may range from youth work, to cultural events, to work on local policy goals, environmental, poverty and rights initiatives, or the 2012 elections.

Books

Available at Amherst Books

Timothy Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid (Pantheon, 2009) ISBN 0307377741

Tomas Rivera, ...y no se lo tragó la tierra / …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (Arte Publico Press, 1995) ISBN 155885083X

Chang-Rae Lee, Native Speaker (Riverhead, 1996) ISBN 1573225312

Ellen Baker, On Strike and On Film: Mexican American Families and Blacklisted Filmmakers in Cold War America (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) ISBN 0807857912

All other readings and streamed films are available on line through e-reserves
Syllabus

What is community?

Monday, Jan. 23^rd Introductions

Wednesday, Jan. 25^th

Keith Morton and Sandra Enos, “Building Deeper Civic Relationships and New and Improved Citizens,” The Journal of Public Affairs (2002), 82-102.

Rebecca Solnit A Paradise Built in Hell (2009), 1-10 and 305-313.

Kai Erikson Everything in its Path (1976, 2006 ), Prologue i-xiii and 246-259

“Letter from the People of New Orleans to Our Friends and Allies” (2007)

Monday Jan. 30th

Panel of Holyoke folks: elected official, community organizer, direct service provider, arts initiative

“Destination Holyoke” exhibit created by the Wisteriahurst Museum, view all 4 sections: immigration, industry, social diversions, and cultural identities at http://wistariahurst.org/onlineexhibits/exhibit6/2008/05/post.html

I Corinthians: 12

Robert Bellah et al. “We Live Through Institutions,” The Good Society (1992), 3-18

The Grassroots

Wednesday Feb. 1^st

Kamala Visweswaran, “Refusing the Subject” in Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (1994), 60-72. E-book

Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly with Mauricio Gaston, “Transformative Populism and the Development of a Community of Color” in Dilemmas of Activism (1990), 302-323.

Timothy Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid (2009) introduction and Part I

Monday Feb. 6th

Group work

John L. McKnight, “Introduction,” “Releasing Individual Capacities,””Youth,” “Releasing the Power of Local Associations and Organizations” Capturing Local Institutions for Community Building” in Building Communities from the Inside Out (1993) 1-46, 109-119, 171-187.

Marshall Ganz, “What is Organizing” (2006)

Timothy Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid, Part II

Wednesday Feb. 8^th

Timothy Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid, Part III

Jennifer Pastor, Jennifer McCormick, and Michelle Fine etal., “Makin’ Homes an Urban Girl Thing” in Urban Girls Revisitied (2007), 75-96.

Monday, Feb.13^th

Group work

Tomas Rivera, ...y no se lo tragó la tierra / …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him

Wednesday, Feb 15^th

Tomas Rivera, ...y no se lo tragó la tierra / …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him

Saturday, Feb. 18 HOLYOKE BOUND FIELD TRIP

Electoral Politics

Monday Feb. 20^th

Group Work

New SI Voter Participation Analysis: Severe Disparities Persist, Lots of Factors (2011)

www.springfieldinstitute.org/?p=5077

John D. Griffin and Brian Newman, “Which Groups Govern?” and “Differences in Political Preferences and Priorities” in Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality in America, 11-35 and 39-58. E-book

Wednesday Feb. 23^rd

Chang Rae Lee Native Speaker (1996)

Lani Guinier, “Political Race and Magical Realism” in The Miner’s Canary (2003) 11- 31. E-book

Monday, Feb. 27^th

Group Work

Chang Rae Lee Native Speaker

George Marcus, “The Sentimental Citizen” in The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics (2002) 133-148

Wednesday, Feb. 29^th

Chang Rae Lee Native Speaker

Jeffrey B. Ferguson, “Freedom, Equality, Race” and Glenda R. Caripo, “Race and Inheritance in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father” in Race in the Age of Obama special issue of Deadalus (Winter 2011) 44-52 and 79-89.

Civil Society

Monday, March 5^th

Class Visit from Marie Kennedy

Robert D. Putnam, “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life,” The American Prospect (March, 1993) 1-11.

Cliff Hague “Can We Reinvent Planning?” forum authors Marie Kennedy, Carlos García Pleyán, and Maria Teresa Vázquez-Castillo, Progressive Planning (2008), 34-45.

F. A. Hayek, “Freedom and the Economic System” (1939)

Wednesday, March 7^th

Nichael Edwards, “Introductory—What’s the Big Idea?” Civil Society (2004), 1-17.

Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, "A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the US Welfare State," Signs 19 (1994): 309-336

Sharon Hays, “Money and Morality” and “Cultures of Poverty,” Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform (2003) 3-32 and 179-214.

Monday March 12^th

Group Work

Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government (1849)

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil/

“This is SCLC” Pamphlet (c 1960)

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text2/thisissclc.pdf

Emma Goldman, “Anarchism: What it Really Stands For”

http://books.google.com/books?id=VJZYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PT2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wed March 14th

Film: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Spring Break

Charity

Monday, March 26^th

Group Work

Ralph Waldo Emerson “Gifts,” Essays Second Series (1844)

Wednesday, March 28^th

Kathryn Mathers, “Moving Fieldwork: Traveling with Americans to and from Africa” and “Conclusion: saving Africa: Love in the Time of Ophra” in Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa (2010), 11-41 and 181-199

Monday April 2^nd

Theresa Funiciello, “City Silos and the Pop-Tart Connection,” in Tyranny of Kindness (1993), 119-161 and 326-29.

Andrea Smith, “Introduction” and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “In the Shadow of the Shadow State” in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex 1-8, 16-17 and 41-52.

Wednesday April 4^th

Kavita N. Ramdas, “Philanthrocapitalism: Reflections on Politics and Policy-Making” Symposium: The Politics of Philanthrocapitalism Springer Science (August 2 2011)

http://pacscenter.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/images/KNR_philanthro_capitalism.pdf

Work and Money

Monday, April 9^th

Dean Cycon, class visit

David Bornstein, “ Restless People,’ “From Little Acorns” and “The Emergence of the Citizen Sector” in How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas (2004) 1-20, 271-288, 307-310 and 324-327.

Wednesday, April 11^th

Film: Salt of the Earth (1954)

Bill Fletcher Jr. and Fernando Gapasin, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (2009) 9-17. E-Book

Ellen Baker, On Strike and On Film: Mexican American families and blacklisted filmmakers in Cold War America (2007) 45-174

Monday, April 16^th

Group Work

Ellen Baker, On Strike and On Film 177-254

Art

Wednesday, April 18^th

Wendy Ewald, class visit

Monday, April 23^rd

Group Work

Film: W.A.R.: Women Art Revolution (2010)

Wednesday, April 25^th

Harriet Senie, The Tilted Arc Controversy (2001), 1-54

Video of Serra discussing the controversy, on the San Francisco MoMA website: http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/90

Monday, April 30^th

Rick Lowe's projects in Houston http://projectrowhouses.org/

Erica Doss, “Raising Community Consciousness with Public Art: The Guadalupe Mural Project,” in Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy (1995), 157-196.

Wednesday, May 2^nd Endings

Amherst College: Syllabus

Building Community Syllabus

[American Studies 221 Syllabus]