DOWNLOAD Syllabus and first 2 weeks assignments HERE
DOWNLOAD Info sheet HERE
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"Violinists practicing scales and dancers repeating the same movements over decades are not simply warming up or mechanically training their muscles. They are learning how to attend unswervingly, moment by moment, to themselves and their art; learning to come into steady presence, free from the distractions of interest or boredom." From poet Jane Hirshfield in her 1997 essay collection Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. [Syndicated from BrainPickings: https://www.brainpickings.org and shared at: http://www.dailygood.org/story/1377/the-effortless-effort-of-creativity-maria-popova/
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Weekly outline of class assignments & activities
This is an experimental class and will involve a lot of shaking, stirring, doing, and figuring this out on the fly! Grades will be determined generously, but hard, imaginative, collaborative work in good faith and using smart processes are essential. Working with something like the five-step process discussed below is key for good collaborations. Each step involves team-work, demos and products of various sorts; their presentation and documentation will be worth 20% of your grade for each project. We will decide together what projects are according to your interests and skills. We will figure out documentation forms appropriate for various kinds of making. You will research these yourself and come up with guidelines that will shift and shape with projects as we figure them out. one approach involves various versions of a five step process developed for social justice media. How does this need to be altered for other purposes?
It turns out that we remember and learn in the spaces between attentions. So shifts of focus can be good, yet you need to pay attention and notice them for them to work for you. You need to learn what your best learning practices are: we will not all learn best in the same ways. Bring your own laptop, netbook or iPad if you can. Be prepared to respond quickly and appropriately, and to demonstrate that your use of electronic media is for class and even allows you to attend more intensively and creatively.
Handouts are downloadable at the class website either from Google Docs or Scribd.
Reading is very tricky in this class! You must read ahead constantly in order to begin work on the assignments at the right time. We have portions assigned on particular days to discuss, but often this is properly a REREADING, as you sometimes you should have read that a first time already. Notice that some days you have a choice of several readings to focus upon, say, 3 chapters out of 5 in a section of one book. This is to give us all the chance to hear about readings we may not have time to do ourselves by that point. That means you need to be able to tell others about the readings, making note taking and preparation even more important. However, by the end of class you should have read the entirety of each of our books. So you can see that keeping up with the reading, discussed on the day on which it is named, is essential, as is attendance on both days! And that doing all this carefully will make your graded assignments so very much easier!
Notice that you are assigned web research as well as readings. Put as much time into this as you do for reading and take it quite as seriously. Web reading and analysis is as important today as book reading is and should be done as carefully and with as much thought, not as a easy substitute for harder work: it IS the harder work! Similarly, everyone should spend time in McKeldin library, checking out the MakerSpace there and finding on the bookshelves stuff not available on computer databases. Schedule time on campus to to to Library in person and to meet, face to face, with your partner or with other class buddies. In this class we think carefully about how to do all this as well as doing it! Learn to cite your sources, web and print, carefully and conscientiously. This means keeping good records of them all.
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>>FIRST LAYER: TEXTILES ⇒ DIGITAL CULTURES
Thursday, Sept 1 – Welcome to Making! The fun of learning in multiple modes…. The fun of changing worlds.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS WE BEGIN WITH THE FIRST LAYERING OF NETWORKS AND SYSTEMS, PRACTICES OF MAKING, AND FEMINIST MEANINGS AND CARES:
>BEFORE CLASS:
• EXPLORE CLASS WEBSITE CAREFULLY! NOTE HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR FIRST CLASS! http://wmstmake.blogspot.com
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: Redmond, L. 2014. "Subversive Spinning." On Made by Lea Blog. Leafcutter Designs. http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/blog/subversive-spinning
• READ: Embedded excerpt from Barber. 1994. Women's Work: the first 20,000 years. Norton.
Embedded on course website <Home> tab. Free Scribd Mobile app: http://www.scribd.com/about
>IN CLASS:
• HANDED OUT: Syllabus, Info Sheet
• MAKING 1: 5 min. Attendance Portraits (Barry. 2014. Syllabus. Drawn & Quarterly. p. 56.) https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/syllabus
• MAKING 2: On the first day of class we will begin making by creating a CD Drop Spindle. (The materials for both makings will be available in class on the first day and we will do them first thing as we arrive in class. Please be on time!)
http://www.worldinaspin.com/articles/cd_drop_spindle
http://glennaharris.org/pdf/CD_Drop_Spindle_Spinning.pdf
http://www.albc-usa.org/EducationalResources/NATonline/pdf/SpindlePhotoEssay.pdf
http://www.aitc.ca/bc/uploads/resources/Inspired%20By%20A%20Smelly%20Sweater.pdf
• CLASS BUDDIES, CLASS WEBSITE, SMART PHONES?
• Intro to course texts. Bring all the books you have so far!
We will start off with our first MAKING & PROTOTYPING practices: Taking Attendance with Index Portraits, a exercise drawn and played with by cartoonist Lynda Barry. We then move into the second one: making CD drop spindles and beginning to spin using them. Wonder about and reflect on this first layer as we make a drop spindle and consider women's work. You should have already done some reading to think about WHILE you MAKE!
We will also read, interconnect, and discuss the Redmond blog post and talk together about the embedded excerpt from Barber's Women's Work. We will discuss the layers of the class, and take up the first one: textiles => computers and digital culture. How do textiles lead into computers and digital culture? what do you already know about this? what makes this a curious layering? how are you already involved in this somehow?
We will explore all our class texts and the possibilities for recommended reading, making, doing.
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Thursday 8 Sept – Transformative Change: participations
If this is your first time in this class, as soon as you arrive, introduce yourself to two people already there and ask them to help you get up to speed on what happened in the first class. Be sure to read the syllabus online and to note what to do when one misses any classes. If necessary, read or REREAD last week's assignments, esp.
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: Redmond, L. 2014. "Subversive Spinning." On Made by Lea Blog. Leafcutter Designs. http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/blog/subversive-spinning
• READ: Embedded excerpt from Barber. 1994. Women's Work: the first 20,000 years. Norton.
Embedded on course website <Home> tab. Free Scribd Mobile app: http://www.scribd.com/about
>BEFORE CLASS:
• NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: FIND OUT ABOUT MAKERSPACES IN THE AREA. Go to one. Bring in your research to share.
• READ: look at the pics on the right side of the course website. Click each one and examine and read the materials linked in. Find the one from SEW ELECTRIC, one of our class texts. Read that carefully because we are going to MAKE what's there in class next!
>IN CLASS:
• HANDED OUT: Syllabus, Info Sheet
• MAKING: 45 mins. The Sew Electric Project you found on the website.
• CLASS BUDDIES
We will review all the knotted materials for the course, strategizing how we will synthesize MAKING and other kinds of research. We will brainstorm projects, ideas, processes, class practices, and more!
===
Thursday 15 Sept – Making the class for feminist making and Makers, for ourselves
>ALWAYS NOW BEFORE CLASS DO THE FOLLOWING:
>IN CLASS:
• MAKING: CIRCUIT SCRIBE basic kit handed out for you to keep. We will explore its offerings and decide how to use it.
• CREATING OUR CLASS: We will set up our procedures for identifying projects, research, activist actions, and classroom practices, considering the LAYERS of the course and what we want to do when.
• ESTABLISHING PRACTICES: We will consider what sort of learning space and community we are creating, and how we enter that space.
===
>>SECOND LAYER: FOOD ⇒ CLIMATE CHANGE & ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIES
Thursday 22 Sept – Food: feelings, eatings, stories, how to do it.
WE MEET AT THE MARYLAND ROOM FOR THE NEXT 3 CLASSES: 0100 Marie Mount, next to Woods Hall.
ALWAYS NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: Bring food. Bring feelings about food. Bring knowledges about making food. What issues does food raise for you? personally, in terms of social justice, in ways that affect your life, in forms that worry you, in things you like and don't like and why, and when you know and when you don't! What stories about food do you have? does your family have? how does this matter in Women's Studies: guessing is good!
• READ: Katie's presentation in Sweden, here: http://spiralfood.blogspot.com Please have read this BEFORE class on the 22nd. (Do you know how to read a website?) Be ready to discuss and talk as well as make and eat.
• MAKING: Spiralizing & fermentations. We will assemble a spiralized vegetarian dish: Zucchini "noodles" with home made Pesto from the Farmer's Market, and pea shoots. We will taste two kinds of sauerkraut and one kind of kimchi, all fermented traditional foods now promoted in new eating regimes.
• CLASS PROJECTS BEGIN: We will start making plans for projects for the class, taking inventory of your interests and ideas about women's studies.
• ESTABLISHING PRACTICES: We will consider what sort of learning space and community we are creating, and how we enter that space.
• KATIE WILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER CLASS FOR ANY CONCERNS, QUESTIONS, DISCUSSION, IDEAS YOU MAY WANT TO SHARE.
===
Thursday 29 Sept – Tofu wonders, artichoke meanings, recipes and stories: Paoletti visitation!
WE MEET AT THE MARYLAND ROOM FOR THE NEXT 2-3 CLASSES: 0100 Marie Mount, next to Woods Hall. Today until 6, after that until 5 with individual meetings with Katie after. Be sure you have signed up!
ALWAYS NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• VISITATION! Jo Paoletti, author of Pink & Blue, and Unisex, will visit our class today to tell us histories of Marie Mount and other UMD Makings. See https://smile.amazon.com/Jo-B.-Paoletti/e/B005MLVS4Y/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1475155449&sr=8-1
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: Again: Bring food. Bring feelings about food. Bring knowledges about making food. Be open to sharing all these: food, feelings, knowledges.
• READ or REREAD: Katie's presentation in Sweden, here: http://spiralfood.blogspot.com Please have read this BEFORE class on the 22nd. (Do you know how to read a website?) Be ready to discuss and talk as well as make and eat.
• MAKING: Blue is bringing a tofu dish to share and its recipe. Katie is bringing equipment to make tofu and to share how it is done. She is also bringing an artichoke dish in her celebration of artichokes.
• CLASS PROJECTS BEGIN: Be sure you have signed up to meet with Katie to discuss!
===
Thursday, Sept 1 – Welcome to Making! The fun of learning in multiple modes…. The fun of changing worlds.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS WE BEGIN WITH THE FIRST LAYERING OF NETWORKS AND SYSTEMS, PRACTICES OF MAKING, AND FEMINIST MEANINGS AND CARES:
>BEFORE CLASS:
• EXPLORE CLASS WEBSITE CAREFULLY! NOTE HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR FIRST CLASS! http://wmstmake.blogspot.com
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: Redmond, L. 2014. "Subversive Spinning." On Made by Lea Blog. Leafcutter Designs. http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/blog/subversive-spinning
• READ: Embedded excerpt from Barber. 1994. Women's Work: the first 20,000 years. Norton.
Embedded on course website <Home> tab. Free Scribd Mobile app: http://www.scribd.com/about
>IN CLASS:
• HANDED OUT: Syllabus, Info Sheet
• MAKING 1: 5 min. Attendance Portraits (Barry. 2014. Syllabus. Drawn & Quarterly. p. 56.) https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/syllabus
• MAKING 2: On the first day of class we will begin making by creating a CD Drop Spindle. (The materials for both makings will be available in class on the first day and we will do them first thing as we arrive in class. Please be on time!)
http://www.worldinaspin.com/articles/cd_drop_spindle
http://glennaharris.org/pdf/CD_Drop_Spindle_Spinning.pdf
http://www.albc-usa.org/EducationalResources/NATonline/pdf/SpindlePhotoEssay.pdf
http://www.aitc.ca/bc/uploads/resources/Inspired%20By%20A%20Smelly%20Sweater.pdf
• CLASS BUDDIES, CLASS WEBSITE, SMART PHONES?
• Intro to course texts. Bring all the books you have so far!
We will start off with our first MAKING & PROTOTYPING practices: Taking Attendance with Index Portraits, a exercise drawn and played with by cartoonist Lynda Barry. We then move into the second one: making CD drop spindles and beginning to spin using them. Wonder about and reflect on this first layer as we make a drop spindle and consider women's work. You should have already done some reading to think about WHILE you MAKE!
We will also read, interconnect, and discuss the Redmond blog post and talk together about the embedded excerpt from Barber's Women's Work. We will discuss the layers of the class, and take up the first one: textiles => computers and digital culture. How do textiles lead into computers and digital culture? what do you already know about this? what makes this a curious layering? how are you already involved in this somehow?
We will explore all our class texts and the possibilities for recommended reading, making, doing.
===
Thursday 8 Sept – Transformative Change: participations
If this is your first time in this class, as soon as you arrive, introduce yourself to two people already there and ask them to help you get up to speed on what happened in the first class. Be sure to read the syllabus online and to note what to do when one misses any classes. If necessary, read or REREAD last week's assignments, esp.
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: Redmond, L. 2014. "Subversive Spinning." On Made by Lea Blog. Leafcutter Designs. http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/blog/subversive-spinning
• READ: Embedded excerpt from Barber. 1994. Women's Work: the first 20,000 years. Norton.
Embedded on course website <Home> tab. Free Scribd Mobile app: http://www.scribd.com/about
>BEFORE CLASS:
• NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: FIND OUT ABOUT MAKERSPACES IN THE AREA. Go to one. Bring in your research to share.
• READ: look at the pics on the right side of the course website. Click each one and examine and read the materials linked in. Find the one from SEW ELECTRIC, one of our class texts. Read that carefully because we are going to MAKE what's there in class next!
>IN CLASS:
• HANDED OUT: Syllabus, Info Sheet
• MAKING: 45 mins. The Sew Electric Project you found on the website.
• CLASS BUDDIES
We will review all the knotted materials for the course, strategizing how we will synthesize MAKING and other kinds of research. We will brainstorm projects, ideas, processes, class practices, and more!
===
Thursday 15 Sept – Making the class for feminist making and Makers, for ourselves
>ALWAYS NOW BEFORE CLASS DO THE FOLLOWING:
- NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
- WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: each person volunteered a web-world research action to bring in results for this week's class, Thurs 15 Sept. What did you decide to do? Bring in documentation of your research and its results to share before making and think about while making.
- READ: this is also the read assignment for this week.
>IN CLASS:
• MAKING: CIRCUIT SCRIBE basic kit handed out for you to keep. We will explore its offerings and decide how to use it.
• CREATING OUR CLASS: We will set up our procedures for identifying projects, research, activist actions, and classroom practices, considering the LAYERS of the course and what we want to do when.
• ESTABLISHING PRACTICES: We will consider what sort of learning space and community we are creating, and how we enter that space.
===
>>SECOND LAYER: FOOD ⇒ CLIMATE CHANGE & ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIES
Thursday 22 Sept – Food: feelings, eatings, stories, how to do it.
WE MEET AT THE MARYLAND ROOM FOR THE NEXT 3 CLASSES: 0100 Marie Mount, next to Woods Hall.
ALWAYS NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: Bring food. Bring feelings about food. Bring knowledges about making food. What issues does food raise for you? personally, in terms of social justice, in ways that affect your life, in forms that worry you, in things you like and don't like and why, and when you know and when you don't! What stories about food do you have? does your family have? how does this matter in Women's Studies: guessing is good!
• READ: Katie's presentation in Sweden, here: http://spiralfood.blogspot.com Please have read this BEFORE class on the 22nd. (Do you know how to read a website?) Be ready to discuss and talk as well as make and eat.
• MAKING: Spiralizing & fermentations. We will assemble a spiralized vegetarian dish: Zucchini "noodles" with home made Pesto from the Farmer's Market, and pea shoots. We will taste two kinds of sauerkraut and one kind of kimchi, all fermented traditional foods now promoted in new eating regimes.
• CLASS PROJECTS BEGIN: We will start making plans for projects for the class, taking inventory of your interests and ideas about women's studies.
• ESTABLISHING PRACTICES: We will consider what sort of learning space and community we are creating, and how we enter that space.
• KATIE WILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER CLASS FOR ANY CONCERNS, QUESTIONS, DISCUSSION, IDEAS YOU MAY WANT TO SHARE.
===
Thursday 29 Sept – Tofu wonders, artichoke meanings, recipes and stories: Paoletti visitation!
WE MEET AT THE MARYLAND ROOM FOR THE NEXT 2-3 CLASSES: 0100 Marie Mount, next to Woods Hall. Today until 6, after that until 5 with individual meetings with Katie after. Be sure you have signed up!
ALWAYS NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
• VISITATION! Jo Paoletti, author of Pink & Blue, and Unisex, will visit our class today to tell us histories of Marie Mount and other UMD Makings. See https://smile.amazon.com/Jo-B.-Paoletti/e/B005MLVS4Y/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1475155449&sr=8-1
• WEB & WORLD ASSIGNMENT: Again: Bring food. Bring feelings about food. Bring knowledges about making food. Be open to sharing all these: food, feelings, knowledges.
• READ or REREAD: Katie's presentation in Sweden, here: http://spiralfood.blogspot.com Please have read this BEFORE class on the 22nd. (Do you know how to read a website?) Be ready to discuss and talk as well as make and eat.
• MAKING: Blue is bringing a tofu dish to share and its recipe. Katie is bringing equipment to make tofu and to share how it is done. She is also bringing an artichoke dish in her celebration of artichokes.
• CLASS PROJECTS BEGIN: Be sure you have signed up to meet with Katie to discuss!
===
