Welcome to our Class Message from Katie

===
Senior Seminar WMST 488K, Welcome to our class! I am looking forward to our work together this term. We have a great group of folks gathering for our course.

Please NOTE: WE WILL NOT MEET THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SEMESTER! Our class will begin on Th 2 FEBRUARY. 

Why? Well, I just had thyroid surgery and there were complications: my left vocal cord is currently immobilized. This could be very temporary or not. I have started speech therapy this week to help everything heal up, to learn to speak, swallow, breathe in new ways.

If it doesn't get miraculously better before we meet (and this is actually a possibility – the nerve could spontaneously regenerate), even so I can still speak, but very softly and a bit breathy. You will need to listen carefully, and I will need to ask YOU to talk more!

So be mentally prepared to talk in class please! I have also just acquired a voice amplifier and will be experimenting with using it. My voice gets softer and softer as time goes on and so the amplifier should be useful given the length of our class.

There are things for you to do this first week however, even though we are not meeting: stuff to read and analyze yourself before we meet for the first time, and things to bring in for our first class. Please be ready to participate! 

I SENT AN EMAIL WITH THE reading for our first time together, and other instructions are on our class website (scroll down to previous post).

Bookmark our site now, and email me, Katie, at katking@umd.edu to communicate. Please become very VERY familiar with this website right away! And this means we are doing nothing on ELMS, so don't go there and don't use it to communicate with me. 

Note that the email message came to you on a courselist to be used only for my announcements to you. BE SURE YOU CHECK for messages from here several times a week. Assignments, weather issues, events, and more will be sent out from here. Please do not miss them: getting these is a requirement of the course.

The attachment to that email message is:

• Lothian. 2016. "Choose not to warn." Feminist Studies 42/3: 1-14.

and notice you should immediately download two free items right away:

• Marcus. 2015. Self-Care for Activists. Mocana. ASIN BO18W816FW  Free on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Self-Care-Activists-Clearing-Yourself-Working-ebook/dp/B018W8I6FW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1485365527&sr=1-1&keywords=self+care+for+activists
• Svedmark. 2016. Becoming Together and Apart: technoemotions and other posthuman entanglements. Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics. Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS). Download Free here: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-120195

NOTE especially: 

1) You will need to bring in the art/design/making KIT you will assemble and share next week. We will talk about these then and compare what we think should be in them.
2) there are required websites to analyze and work with; just as important as texts
3) do listen to the Brené Brown podcast: http://www.onbeing.org/blog/courage-is-born-from-struggle-bren-brown/8601 (and see post below)
4) Also checkout link: What Will The Theme Of Your Life Be In 2017? "A theme is a common motivational thread or pattern that runs through a life story. The three themes detailed below—communion, agency, and redemption—have all been linked to well-being." http://www.dailygood.org/story/1475/what-will-the-theme-of-your-life-be-in-2017-kira-m-newman/
5) Also checkout link: What is your Activist Superpower? From Everyday Feminism: http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/whats-your-activist-superpower/
6) Also checkout link: Holding tension.... it's tricky! http://www.couragerenewal.org/democracyguide/v15/  

See you soon! Katie

===

Questioning Human, a senior seminar spr 17

===
WMST 488K: Questioning Human, a senior seminar spr 17 (UG course)
http://questionhuman.blogspot.com

REQUIRED materials:

• create your own art or design or making KIT of materials. bring to first class to demonstrate, share, get ideas about.

REQUIRED websites to explore, analyze, read, listen to: 
• #LETUSBREATHE Collective: http://www.letusbreathecollective.com
• THE SELF CARE PROJECT: http://theselfcareproject.org
• ALLIED MEDIA PROJECTS: https://www.alliedmedia.org

REQUIRED reading or listening: 
=Handout first day: 
• Lothian. 2016. "Choose not to warn." Feminist Studies 42/3: 1-14.
=Free online: 
• Marcus. 2015. Self-Care for Activists. Mocana. ASIN BO18W816FW  Free on Amazon.
• Svedmark. 2016. Becoming Together and Apart: technoemotions and other posthuman entanglements. Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics. Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS). Download Free here: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-120195 

REQUIRED books and transmedia required to be bought or borrowed or shared for reading, listening, analyzing: 

• Brown. 2015. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. 
AK Press. Paper ISBN: 9781849352093  Kindle ASIN: B00USBMIOC  Audible Audio: ASIN: B01DPSB46M  Amazon.
=Companion website: http://octaviasbrood.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ1B_BEsYuw
Xenogenesis Suite: A Musical Tribute to Octavia E. Butler: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2587152
Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower: the Concert Version: http://publictheater.org/tickets/calendar/playdetailscollection/utr-2015/parable-of-the-sower/

• Kirksey. 2015. Emergent Ecologies. 
Duke. Paper ISBN: 9780822360353  Kindle ASIN: B0173979J0 Amazon.
=Companion website: http://www.multispecies-salon.org/emergence/

• Chen. 2012. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. 
Duke. Paper ISBN: 9780822352723  Kindle ASIN: B00B9AQC2K Amazon.

RECOMMENDED transmedia resources, readings, speculative activisms, worldings: 

• Bateson. 2016. Small Arcs of Larger Circles. 
Triarchy. Paper ISBN: 9781909470965  Kindle ASIN: B01M4N4Q7F Amazon.

• De la Cadena. 2015. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. 
Duke.  Paper ISBN: 978-0822359630  Kindle ASIN: B0159YMBJY Amazon.

===
http://www.onbeing.org/blog/courage-is-born-from-struggle-bren-brown/8601

"Becoming Wise is an inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud. And it's even a New York Times bestselling book! Find out more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise. "


 
===

"Brené Brown has become a sought-out teacher in all kinds of settings, at every level of leadership, on this ancient, basic truth that had been lost from our common vocabulary for generations. It all began with research she did at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, where she’s a professor:"

"I always ask a very simple question to people. I just say, think of the last time you did something that you thought was really brave or the last time you saw someone do something really brave. And I can tell you as a researcher — 11,000 pieces of data — I cannot find a single example of courage, moral courage, spiritual courage, leadership courage, relational courage, I cannot find a single example of courage that was not born completely of vulnerability. We buy into some mythology about vulnerability being weakness and being gullibility and being frailty because it gives us permission not to do it." ...I started my research just very coincidentally six months before 9/11. Over the course of the last 12 years, I have seen fear absolutely run roughshod over our families. And I have seen us go to these crazy lengths to protect ourselves and our children from the uncertainty of the world today. I’ve not only seen that through my lens as a researcher, but certainly experienced it as a parent, and as a college professor. I see students come to us who have never had experiences, real experiences, with adversity. And how that shows up is hopelessness. One of the most interesting things I’ve found in doing this work is that the wholehearted share in common a profound sense of hopefulness. The literature on hope, very specifically C. R. Snyder’s work from the University of Kansas at Lawrence, shows that hope is a function of struggle."

"I think that’s one of the most stunning sentences that I saw in your writing."

"And that hope is not an emotion. Hope is a cognitive, behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity, when we have relationships that are trustworthy, when people have faith in our ability to get out of a jam."

===
What Will The Theme Of Your Life Be In 2017? 
"A theme is a common motivational thread or pattern that runs through a life story. The three themes detailed below—communion, agency, and redemption—have all been linked to well-being."

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1475/what-will-the-theme-of-your-life-be-in-2017-kira-m-newman/

===
What is your Activist Superpower? From Everyday Feminism: 

http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/whats-your-activist-superpower/

===
Holding tension.... it's tricky! http://www.couragerenewal.org/democracyguide/v15/

===

===