Week 11: Mar 31-Apr 6: Kirschner, Mia: Book Three: Ciudad Juárez (read entire book) AND Kirschner, Mia: Book Four: Malawi (read entire book)*or one if you are running short of time
Our third book brings us much closer geographically. My original thought was to read just the Juárez book in this series. That's why I chose this book. But, what I think these four books give us, is a witness and reminder to violences especially against children and women throughout the world. Even at Texas Tech, I am reminded of the levels of violence and safety here. During night courses, when a class will end at 9 pm, women in the class walk together or strategize about how to get safely to their cars parked somewhere on campus. With all of the freedoms we enjoy in the US, there are levels of violence against particular classes of people--women being just one--that we can ignore but they are there. I’m thinking of all of the rape culture scenarios and actions that are taking place across US university campuses.
At a Texas Tech University's Women's Studies annual conference a few years ago, I had the privilege to preview a film titled Girl Rising. It parallels what we have been reading about. The documentary narrates the stories of nine young women from throughout the world. These girls/women face constant violence. You can google the tile to get more info. It's a disturbing/hopeful film. The film states that to teach young girls is one way our of the violence. Statistics hold that education does help; can help. There is hope.
What can happen when we side on the side of peace? What is possible that is never possible with violence?
Also, notice what happens when we read about "things" that are of real importance in terms of people's lives. In fictions and films, there can be happy endings--maybe they are even necessary--because in real lives, reality often verges on the realm of fiction itself. So much of it seems/reads as unbelievable. We learn where to tell our own truths--and often it is rarely in schools or in public art.
I have always used difficult reads/books in the research class when I teach. By difficult I mean books that address real issues. I've used HANDS by Janet Zandy; that book is about how workers are dispensible. Zandy writes about a woman losing her arms from the elbows down in an essay called "How much are two hands worth?" Zandy writes that we can learn important things from workers and their lived lives. Working class is a way of knowing life.
In Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, Herman documents the histoires of violence against women, war vets and domestic abuse survivors. She counters with a recovery possibility for some--not all. Felstiner's To paint her life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi era documents the life of a female painter who would have committed suicide early in her life, as her grandmother and mother did, but chooses to make art and live only to have to face the force of Hitler's fascist regime. In bell hooks' Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, hooks writes about art from the perspectives of African American lives and voices--realities that are rarely addressed in middle class white European histories. Joanna Kadi's Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker is also about what it means to grow up working class in a middle class world. And Guy Brett's Through Our Own Eyes: popular Art and Modern History documents genocides across the globe through art. For example, Brett write about victims from Hiroshima, non-artists who made art to document what radiation and war did to their towns. It is simply breathtaking and heartbreaking. All of these texts have many things in common--talking about real issues--art connected to real lives; people bearing witness to their lives.
I hope you can at times divorce yourself from the content that is truly wrenching to look at the methods and media the artists are using to write and tell the stories. This current book, our third in the series, hits very close to home. And it is as raw as the first two. You can google more about the maquiladora zone in Juárez. Look at the stitchings, the photos and other media the artists used to document atrocities and the contrasts to their lives--and maybe think about why do these artists do this? Why them?
I'm reminded of an extended quote that I had on the backside of my business card for years. It's from a book where the author had to take a side job teaching poetry to senior citizens. He wrote that he didn't think they could write. This took place near New York and many of those seniors had endured the holocaust. Their poetry was riveting and demanded not only attention but respect. He that art is possible anywhere at any time.
"All our lives, the things we are interested in--sex and self-knowledge and work and death--are made shameful for us. At every stage of our lives, we are taught not to be what we are, and we end up by not allowing ourselves to be concerned in the things which most concern us. We live stupid lives, we live with blinders on, and we die the way we have lived--in ignorance of what is happening to us. In schools and on jobs we are screened from the knowledge of our lives. In old age homes and terminal wards, we are screens from the knowledge of our death." (Marc Kaminsky, 1974, What's Inside You It Shines Out Of You, p. 21)
Keep in mind global hope rather than hopelessness. Keep in mind our connections to the rest of the world and its people. How do people survive? How do people mourn? How do people live? How do people succeed? These are questions for sociologists, educationists, artists, activists, historians, government officials--for us all. What does it mean to speak a truth? Where does one speak it? What can truths do? What have they failed to do?
Some posts/comments from last week:
Susan posted about how to upload a pic. It can be done by creating a new post at the top right-OR-by uploading it in the same way to your individual blog site and giving us your address so we can see it. Keep in mind that everybody will have to create their own bloodspot or use a current website where you will post your project. Keep in mind, whether your project is mostly visual, that I'd like you to provide some project and cultural or personal context/writing--where you will tell your story of your project: pitfalls, successes, doubts, vision/s, etc.
The majority of posts from last week focused on how we survive/live and the power of telling stories. Please remember that I am assuming that you are posting a minimum of four times per week. That's a minimum of four times. Also, post past week comments in the current week, letting us know what you are posting for.
Mary posted about children and is it possible for them to restore their childhoods? It's interesting that childhood is a recent social construction. Historically, children were considered small people/adults and helped out families as soon as they were able. Childhood is a privilege in many cultures. I worked since I was a kid and formally since I was in third grade: I worked on a brother's paper route (still have nightmares about that). But childhood is an interesting topic as many children in these four books may not have any or different versions from what ours were like.
