Spring Quarter Updates

May 12 Update: Fridays, Assignments, & Other Important Stuff

FRIDAY SCHEDULES:

This Friday we meet in our normal classroom, SEM 2, E-3107 at 9am. We will be screening excerpts of the interviews that video project students have filmed this week. Video students: please select a short excerpt (5 minutes is recommended) that we can look at and discuss together. Be prepared to explain who you interviewed and why you chose this person.

EVERYONE SHOULD PLAN TO ATTEND THIS CLASS. Even if you are not making a video this quarter, it’s important that you follow your classmates’ work and participate in the discussion about it.

On Friday, May 21st, class begins at 9am in E-3107 with a self-evaluation workshop. THIS IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ALL STUDENTS. In June you will submit a final self-evaluation to your transcript file–this self-evaluation should be well-written, thoughtful and polished. The workshop should help you strengthen your self-evaluation skills, so we hope you will come.

From 10-1 on May 21st there will be an assisted work session in the
Multi-Media Lab for video students. This is a change from the schedule described in the syllabus, so please make a note of it. Bring video materials with you to review and edit. I will be available to help you, and we are arranging for at least one other staff person to be available as well. You’ll be working independently for most of this period, asking us for help as you need it. We will also cover some aspects of Final Cut Pro that you will need to know in order to finish your project: namely, sound mixing, making titles, rendering, “sharing” (making a DVD) and printing your project back to videotape. Be sure you bring the handouts with you from our first Final Cut session.

ASSIGNMENTS:
As I announced yesterday, I will be gone from May 15th to 19th, so I will miss next Tuesday’s class. It’s going to be a great class, and I’m sorry to miss it! But I am going with a delegation to Cananea, Mexico as part of my own project work with mining communities.

Journals and bibliographies are due this Friday, May 14th. If I a your
primary faculty, please make copies of the new material you’ve written, and give them to me on Friday. Do not give me your entire journal, because I won’t be able to return it to you until May 21st!

Also, video students are expected to turn in logs and scripts on Tuesday, May 18th, while I am in Mexico. Please plan to turn these in to Ted in class, and he will get them to me. I plan to return them with comments by Friday, May 21st. I will talk more in class this Friday about logs and scripts, so you know what’s expected.

PROJECT WORK:
I sent you an email two weeks ago asking that every student who is not working on a video project submit a one-page proposal describing what you are doing and what the end result will be (for example: is it a research paper? Then explain the subject of your research and how you are planning to address it in the paper. Is photography involved? Explain what you are doing, and how it relates to your internship.) We asked you to do this so there would not be any confusion about what you are working on and what you will receive credit for. A few of you have submitted proposals–most have not.

PLEASE SUBMIT THESE PROPOSALS TO YOUR PRIMARY FACULTY IMMEDIATELY. We have given you some leeway to design your final project, but if you are not following the video assignments (which take quite a bit of work and new learning) then we need to understand very clearly what you are doing, and what you intend to produce. We need these proposals by Friday, or before.

Finally: students who have not yet completed their internship contracts on-line, please do so immediately!

Anne

May 4 Update: Media Schedule Changes

Please remember: we meet Friday, May 7, at 9 in the Multi-Media Lab (Library 1404). I am going to teach you video editing, using Final Cut Pro.

What you need to bring for this workshop:

(1) At least one of the videotapes you have recorded. It would be helpful if you have logged some images that you know you want to capture into the computer and work with in editing.

(2) The sound elements you recorded using the flash recorders from the workshop a few weeks ago. Remember: they need to have been recorded using a sampling rate of 48kHz (not 41 or 32 or anything else, or you won’t be able to edit with them). You should be able to store the audio on your flash drive.

In the workshop we will be building the foundations for your editing project and learning how to capture images, organize them, place them in a sequence,and combine sound and image.

For the last part of the workshop we will be discussing interviewing in preparation for your interview assignment–due Friday, May 14th.

The soundscape assignment has been cancelled. A soundscape is a total sound environment that you create with sound elements that you recorded and have layered together in editing. It’s a great assignment, but you wouldn’t be able to work on it until next week, after the editing workshop, and it’s more important that you focus on the interview.

April 22 Update: Schedule Changes

This is a reminder about the changes in scheduling for the next few Fridays.

Tomorrow is Day of Absence/Presence at Evergreen and for reasons we discussed Tuesday in class, we want to honor and participate in this campus-wide effort to address issues of power, privilege and difference on our campus. So our Friday workshop will take place from 8 to 9:30 am in Library 1412. Peter Randlette from Media Services will teach audio recording with flash recorders.

At 9:45am students of color have the option to leave campus for the faculty/staff/students of color retreat.

At 10am, for those of us who remain on campus, there are workshops and lectures scheduled. We would like each of you who remain on campus to select one of these workshops or lectures and attend it. If you did not get a schedule in class on Tuesday, you can find it at this link.  Please register in advance, since enrollments will be limited, and folks from all over the campus will be attending. Information about how to register is listed at the bottom of the schedule.

We are asking you to document the workshop you attend in your journal–write about what you learned, and reflect on it in relationship to your developing understanding of the work of constructing landscapes of sustainability and justice.

Because our class normally ends at 1pm on Friday, we are not requiring you to attend the full day of activities, but we definitely recommend them. Especially for those of you who are interested in immigrant rights, there is an important workshop scheduled from 3 to 5 on how to be an ally to immigrant groups which would be very useful to your work now and in the future, taught by “Bridges, Not Walls” which has been doing valuable work at the Detention Center in Tacoma and in Shelton.

We will not have time at Friday’s workshop to view and discuss your landscape observations–please be sure to bring your tapes with you to the fieldtrip and we will view them together Tuesday night.

Students who are not participating in the video/audio assignments–we’ve had some brief conversations about what you are doing, but I would like a written proposal from you that clarifies the writing–or writing and photography–that will replace the video (and is consistent with the number of credits you are registered for). Let’s make sure we are all on the same page about this!

We are canceling the Friday, April 30th workshop because of the 3-day field trip.  We were scheduled to learn video editing that day. Video editing will be taught on Friday, May 7th instead, and the assignment due on the 30th will now be due on the 7th.

Thanks, everyone,

Anne

Winter Quarter Updates

February 8 Update: SYLLABUS CHANGES –Weeks 6 & 7

Friday, February 12

• 9:30  Cooking crew meet at Organic Farmhouse for tour, then cooking
• 10:30  Rest of program meet at Organic Farmhouse for tour, then food fest
• 12-1 Lunch
• 1-2 Group Seminar: The Working Landscape (pp. 173-305) (Organic Farm)
• 2-3 Oral history sharing
• 3-4 Clean up Crew
• Due: Friday seminar paper

WEEK 7: Urban Communities: Labor and Environment; Immigrant Detentions

Tuesday, February 16

• Lecture: Legacies of Industrial Development (Anne); Homeland Insecurity & Immigrant Detentions (Therese)
• Seminar: Cainkar, “Whose Homeland Security?”; Fischel, “Ruston: Living in the Shadow of Asarco,” (Sullivan deleted); Kardas-Nelson et al., “Bankrupting Health and Home: One Corporation’s Exit from Responsibility” (PDFs on our website)
• No discussion prep due; No film review
• For Seminar you will meet with project group faculty.  Be prepared to discuss how the readings might have lessons that are relevant to your project group work.
• Optional: The Future of Food, Documentary and Discussion with Members of the Flaming Eggplant Café, 6 – 8:30 PM, Seminar II, E-1105

Wednesday, February 17: Workshops

Due: Project Writing Segments: Media Analysis, Historical Analysis; 5-6 Photographs (drafts)

9-11	Peer Review: Project Writing –Group A, E-3109 Visual Work, Audio, Performance—Group B, E-3105
11-1	Peer Review: Project Writing —Group B, E-3109 Visual Work, Audio, Performance–Group A , E-3105

Group A= Centralia Steam Plant, Capitol Lake, Military Resistance, Edible Estates

Group B= Camp Quixote, Muslim Community Outreach, Native American, Public Art

Thurs. February 18

Israeli scholar Neve Gordon speaks on “Prospects For Peace in Israel/Palestine,” Lecture Hall 1, 12:30-2 pm  (recommended)

Friday, February 19

• Tacoma Field Trip is cancelled—Students who have not completed 3 field trips and Integrative field papers have the option of attending Fri. mosque, the Is/Pal panel in Seattle, or doing more research/observation on the Organic Farm
• 9:30-11 Spring quarter preview (for students considering either “Cultural Landscapes” or “Arab & Muslim Women Writers” in Spring)
• 11:30—small group leave for Friday prayer at Lacey mosque via carpool
• Afternoon is free to work on your group projects

Saturday & Sunday: Israel-Palestine conference in Seattle (optional group work)

http://fosna.org/content/press-release-seattle-sabeel-conference-february-19-20-2010

February 3 Update:

As announced in class, the schedule and format for seminars next week has been changed a little.  This message is just to reiterate what we told you in class.  Here is the information that circulated through class as a sign-up sheet today, plus an additional word about the schedule:

Jigsaw Seminar on The Working Landscape

In a “jigsaw seminar,” an assigned reading is partially divided between small groups of students.  Each small team assumes the responsibility of teaching the remainder of the seminar group about the content of its chosen section of the reading.  The Working Landscape will be discussed in a jigsaw seminar format with respect to its three case studies (i.e., the debate over the logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest; the problem of urban sprawl; and the redevelopment of the former site of New York’s World Trade Center).  Students will read (at least) their case study plus all the rest of the book.

More specifically, everyone will read the following:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1, 5, 6, 7
• Postscript

You will also sign up to read and teach (in a small team) one of the following chapters:

• The Northwest Timber War
• Sprawl
• Rebuilding Ground Zero

In anticipation of the jigsaw seminar, each team should meet ahead of time to prepare a concise summary of the case AND your observations about how the author relates this case to the thesis and theoretical framework of the book as a whole.

What You Should Read for Tuesday and Friday Next Week

On Tuesday, February 9, come prepared to discuss the following:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Your team’s case study chapter

On Friday, February 12, come prepared to discuss the book as whole, being sure to read the remaining chapters:

• Chapters 5, 6, 7
• Postscript

IF YOU HAVEN’T SIGNED UP TO REPORT ON A CHAPTER, PLEASE DO THAT WITH YOUR SEMINAR INSTRUCTOR ASAP.

January 28 Update:

Readings for Tuesday, Feb. 2:

• Read VOICES FROM THE WOODS (all).

• In ARAB/AMERICAN:  LANDSCAPE, CULTURE, AND CUISINE IN TWO GREAT DESERTS, everyone read pages 3-36; 99-133. Then pick one of the following chapters depending on your interests:

Chapter 3:  Language mixing

Chapter 4:  Desert seeds and plants

Chapter 5:  Cosmopolitan Plants (aka Weeds!)

Chapter 6:  Arab landscapes, history and political economy; family history

Chapter 7:  Traditional ecological knowledge

Guiding Questions on the Readings

1) In these two readings, consider the diverse landscapes of the Desert and the Woods, and people’s connection to place.
2) Nabhan writes, that “one out of every three people is from a family of political or economic refugees” (68).  Consider the role of migration in these narratives. How/why do people, plants, animals, foods, languages migrate?
3) In the forward to “Voices From the Woods” Agueda Marin-Hernandez writes that effective policy policies must “begin with the people.” What are you learning about how peoples’ oral history narratives and stories can provide a foundation for democratic knowledge and policy-making?
4) What examples of hybridity & multicenteredness—cultural mixing, language, labor—do you find in these narratives?
5) Consider how protecting biological diversity and cultural diversity are linked in these narratives, especially through traditional ecological knowledge or the learned ecological knowledge of migrant workers. What are the implications for environmental and labor justice?
6) What values and practices of sustainability emerge in these narratives? What implications does this present for a conception of sustainability that is culturally and class-inclusive?
7) What possibilities for Convivencia (living together) and solidarity exist in these narratives?

Fall Quarter Updates

Oct. 15 Update: We just added an optional reading related to the Columbia River/Yakima Valley field trip. It is “Salmon and Contamination in the Columbia River” and it can be found in Short Readings (”Protected Class Readings”) on this web site. This will be of great interest to many of you, particularly those in Group 1.

Oct. 23 Update: As announced on the last morning of the recent field trip, we will be meeting briefly in our regular classroom at 9:30 on Tuesday, Oct. 27, for a few quick announcements and paper exchanges. Then, we will go to the Longhouse for the presentation by Luis Rodriguez. (Volunteers to help set up chairs in the Longhouse should go directly to the Longhouse at 9:30 or even earlier if possible.) We also announced that the field note summaries are now due on Wednesday, Oct. 28, rather than Tuesday, as stated in the syllabus.

Oct. 24 Update: The syllabus says that you are to read through page 116 in Privilege, Power, and Difference for Tuesday, Oct. 27 (along with two readings by Luis Rodriguez that are posted on our program web page). That page number refers to the end of chapter 8 in the first edition but we hope that you are reading the second edition, in which chapter 8 ends on page 124. We would like to clarify the assignment by saying that we would like everyone to have read through chapter 8 by Tuesday.

Oct. 26 Update: Groups 1 & 3 final synthesis papers (including drafts and group comments) are due Friday, Nov. 6, rather than Wednesday, Nov. 4, as stated in the syllabus. Please turn these papers into your seminar leader upon arrival for the Friday field trip. Please remember to staple them and to put all of this material in something like a large envelope or folder that will keep it all together.

Nov. 8 Update: During the Nisqually field trip, we announced a change to the Tuesday reading assignment (Tom Copeland, The Centralia Tragedy: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies), as follows:

• For Tuesday; read pp. ix through 102
• For Friday: read pp. 103-end.

Nov. 11 Update:

The following event On Water Rights in the Palestinian Territories is highly recommended.  We encourage you to attend, as we will be addressing water issues, as well as the Israel-Palestine conflict in more depth winter quarter.

Susan Koppleman, a member of the Palestinian-led collective LifeSource, will be presenting a workshop for Evergreen students on Wednesday, November 18th from 1-3 PM in Sem II room A1105.  Koppelman is based in Ramallah, in the West Bank, where she has been living for more than 3 years.  She is joining us as part of an annual tour organizing for Palestinian water justice in North America.

Her presentation will address current social and environmental issues of the water crisis, include the film “Gaza is Floating” by LifeSource, and show examples of what both Palestinian and North American communities are doing to address the problem.  Following the presentation, Susan will help students generate ideas on how they can begin acting locally and will give them tools that they can use to make significant change.

In the workshop, Susan will address such questions as “What are the UN and international NGOs doing to uphold Palestinians’ human right to water?  What can we do?” and “Why is the boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel a good non-violent strategy to force Israel to respect Palestinians’ human rights and follow international law?”

For further information on the water crisis, you can visit www.lifsource.ps <http://www.lifsource.ps>  <http://www.lifsource.ps/>   For information on the current environmental constraints of the situation http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=596&ArticleID=6303&l=en&t=long <http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=596&amp;ArticleID=6303&amp;l=en&amp;t=long>  <http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=596&amp;ArticleID=6303&amp;l=en&amp;t=long>

Nov. 20 Updates:

The due date for the response paper on Dying to Live, by Joseph Nevins has been changed to Friday, Dec. 4.

Winter quarter books are the following (a little extra reading is also in store, in addition to these texts):

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, Sandy Tolan (978-0-552-15514-4).

Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq, Riverbend (978-0-714-53130-4).

Arab/American: Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great Deserts, Gary Paul Nabhan (978-0-816-52659-8).

Cochabamba!: Water War in Bolivia Oscar Olivera (978-0-896-08702-6).

Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, Lucy R. Lippard (978-1-565-84248-9).

Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, Coll Thrush (978-0-295-98812-2).

The Working Landscape: Founding, Preservation, and the Politics of Place, Peter F. Cannavo (978-0-262-53292-1).

To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil, Angus Wright and Wendy Wolford (978-0-935-02890-4).

We will be giving you more information about next quarter in class after the Thanksgiving break.