Book/Essay Discussion Club

should i have this read by this wednesday?

Yes! Have it read by wednesday! We meet at 8pmish! I am pretty sure anyway…

No, you don’t have to have it read by Wednesday. I’m still giving folks who haven’t gotten on board yet a chance. Tomorrows meeting will just be some very general stuff about the book club, and definition of some key terms. Sorry, I need to make this stuff more clear on the front page.

Sorry, I get excited…

So, we attempted to define some key terms at our last meeting (4/29/08). These are terms that hooks uses throughout our reading, so we wanted to make sure everyone was familiar/comfortable with them. Several of the terms gave us “trouble,” due to their expansive and/or nuanced meanings, and some great discussions followed. Let’s continue the discussion here. Here are our terms:

• Pedagogy
• Praxis
• Patriarchy
• Xenophobia
• Heterosexism
• Imperialism
• Conservativism
• Capitalism
• Dominance
• Hegemony
• Nationalism
• Globalism
• Neoliberalism

I didn’t get a chance to copy down our definitions that were put up on the board, so I would appreciate it if someone who took down good notes could help fill in the gaps, so to speak. It would provide a good jumping off point to our discussion.

I’d also like to open this up to everyone, not just the folks who attended yesterday night. Let’s get some definitions!

I’m not sure if we could call the notes that I took “good”, but, I feel like I did write quite a bit. Here is what I have. Stuff in parenthesis will be my own thoughts in addition to the actual notes:

pedagogy:education and teaching
Praxis: Practice (of theory) (“of theory” actually WAS put into parenthesis on the board. Casey proposed that the two are related, which got me thinking a lot about the question: is it possible to have a practice-what we DO today and tomorow-without a theory?
Patriarchy: System of dominance based on gender, where males dominate ( an important thing happened here: we started to use a word, “dominance”, that seems inadquete. )
Xenophobia: fear of Foreigners
Heterosexism: System of dominance based on sexual orientation, where heterosexuals dominate
Imperialism: Western nations imposing…(Here is where we broke into a pretty convuluted discussion about what imperialism is)
Dominance: imposed will
conservativism: support of “traditional values”

….okay so maybe i didn’t take that great of notes….was just jotting down what we had on teh board and random thoughts.

I want to argue once again, however, that, these are more than just words that we can look up in a dictionary. I argue that these terms are terms that, if we are serious about being critical thinkers, we will never be able to define pefectly at particular historical moment…they are terms that in fact change their meanings as historical contexts change, and as they relate to other terms. I think it’s important to discuss them but I think that we’d be fooling ourselves if we think we can totally understand them before trying to “move forward” with the piece. These are terms whose meanings we should be constantly interrogating. The moment that we stop interrogating their meanings is the moment we stop being critical thinkers. That’s just my two cents , anyway!

Either way i’m going to try to find some fun stuff about these terms today to share with the group.

I definitely agree. It’s impossible to pinpoint a comprehensive definition for each of these terms, especially something short enough to fit on a blackboard. I had originally intended last night’s discussion to be an introduction to some vocabulary that might have been unfamiliar to some folks. Instead, we got into some very abstract, almost philosophical discussions about their meanings. Not bad, but not a task we could reasonably expect to “complete” in 45 minutes.

I’d like to hear what other people have to say about this. I guess I’m torn. On the one hand, I agree with Angelo that it’s impossible to define words like these in a vacuum. On the other hand, I think people who have never been exposed to a concept like “patriarchy” (even if they’ve felt the effects of it their entire lives) might not get the most out of the reading until they have a working definition that they can comfortably apply. When hooks uses terms like, “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal values (verbatim from the text),” and doesn’t qualify any of those individual words, I think she assumes we all know what she’s talking about. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. So I guess I don’t know how to proceed.

I thought last night’s conversation was good. We certainly didn’t land on any one definition we could all agree on, but it got us to seriously think about some of the terminology we use, the meanings of which we often take for granted. It’s easy to casually toss around words like “dominance” or “conservativism” (for example) without fully comprehending what those words mean to different people, in different historical contexts, etc.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling now. Between Angelo and me, we now have four cents :D

In the context of these texts, I wonder if we can find hooks’ definitions/discussions? Doesn’t she go through some in other books? I can look through my few books, maybe she has stuff on the internets. What do we think?

I could try to dig around a little bit when I get a chance. It’s only fair to let the author speak for herself. Good idea! I’ll start searching soon. :D

I have been carrying around this little yellow book from the CMU library called “theory for education” that I had originally taken out as the result of a keyword search for “bell hooks.” In it is a two or three page synthesis of what the editors of the volume consider to be her major theories. It’s not in her own word, but I wonder if it might be helpful anyway. I’ll bring it to the next club and/or try to share it with folks over the week.

I know this is sort of last minute, but I’d like to do this outside tonight. We should still meet in Powers 204, but I would suggest we relocate to the great outdoors!

hye taylor i lost my copy of chapters 2 and 3. is there any way you could post those up?

Sure. Does anyone mind if I post these as a .tif file? It’s much easier for me.

Hey, I’m having trouble downloading/printing off the .tif file—it’s only showing one page…is this a personal problem on my end?

Probably not. .tif is a ridiculous format that only sadists still bother with. Apologies to any trouble this has caused. I’ll try to put them up in .pdf in the future.

could you post chapter 3 when you get a chance taylor?

Sure. Chapter three won’t be discussed until next week. We had another hiccup with location problems. You’re still on pace. :D

May 31, we will discuss Ward Churchill’s Pacifism as Pathology. The article has been posted above.

This one is so good!:)

Thanks to everyone who attended the last meeting. We had a good discussion.

June 7, we will discuss Action Will Be Taken by Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti. The article has been posted above.

We also have the retreat this weekend. The book club will go on as scheduled, although it might start a little later than usual.

What are some of the other essays on the list?

None determined at the moment. Bror was going to send me some links, and there have been a few other suggestions circulating. People should feel free to post suggestions in this thread.

I have many articles as well, I will try to post them on the share a link thing… I also have several books with lots of articles in them, like Igniting a Revolution; Terrorists or Freedom Fighters; The meaning of difference; etc.

I also have TONS of articles. Since there are several people who do have material, I’ll wait for my return before contributing.

This Sunday, we will be discussing Work. I will have print copies available at this week’s organizational assembly.

Just wondering if you could post this weeks piece, if there is one that is.

Sorry about that. Crabgrass had been down for so long, we stopped using it for awhile. New pieces will be posted regularly like before.

Revised:

This weekend we will be reading “It’s not ‘them’ – it’s us!”

Just had a request, I will be in town tuesday july 14th & 15th before the amc, and was wondering if that weeks reading discussion could be on one of those days. I would really like to take part in one before I leave, since I will be away once again for a few weeks after the amc. What do people think?

I will bring that up at the meeting tonight.

This week: Drifting Through the Knowledge Machine