Situationist ludic (derive & detournement) of Los Angeles, 2009
Dear All,
Welcome to our course. Experiments in Text is a loose umbrella term I use for various and related, well, experiments in text, where each set of experiments has a particular focus—-these are the courses that cover avant-garde movements in text arts, cultural theory, and ideology. These are, in a sense, shorter versions (in terms of focus) of the programs I often teach here, programs that are primarily creative writing and literary/cultural theory oriented, where “creative writing” is not taken as a given, a term defined ahead of time. Though my courses and programs are, essentially, “graduate level,” in that the material we’ll cover and interact with will be quite contemporary, often difficult, I do not expect anyone to have a background in either text arts or in the philosophy of education. We’ll take things in slowly, and we’ll work together to get through the material, and, most importantly, have productive fun. In other words, don’t worry about how much background you have; especially in this course, Radical Poetry, Pedagogy, & Politics, we’ll be teaching each other.
In this course we’ll focus on the relationship between avant-garde poetry (and some prose) and recent experiments in radical education/learning. What poetry and prose, you ask? And what experiments? In future posts, and, of course, in and out of class, we’ll dig as deeply as we can in the time we have in order to allow these terms–”education” and “poetry” and “politics”–to translate in and through each other. Of course, definitions are not what we’re after. What we would like to do is apply a willing suspension of disbelief, and try to wipe clean what we take ourselves to know: try to reinvent these terms as completely as possible through discussion, collaboration, radical re-narration, but also through writing (is poetry, or creative writing a kind of thinking?), while acknowledging, but further, taking into deep consideration, that we are constrained by our contexts, most obviously, the institution that is The Evergreen State College. For now, I want to welcome you, and to give you a sense of what the course will look like, especially the next couple of weeks.
Where/When:
Except for one of the days you will be teaching one another, as well as 2 public readings by guests I’m bringing in (Weeks 4 & 9), we will always be meeting in Sem II Building, E3109. Classes are on Wednesdays 6-8pm and Saturdays 4-6pm. You will meet once per week outside those times when you begin teaching. Details below, under Draft Schedule.
Readings for 1st Day of Class (Week 1, Wednesday)
There are three texts I would like you to have read for the first day of class. We have little time to do some background readings, so we’re getting started right away. The readings are short but difficult. They are:
1) Paulo Freire, Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, here (http://www.marxists.org/subject/education/freire/pedagogy/ch02.htm)
2) Rodrigo Toscano, “Strikes & Orgies” and “Exchanges 2009″ here (http://www.wheelhouse.com/press/TOSCANO.pdf)
3) Amardo Rodriquez, “Searching for Paulo Freire,” critical look at race, Freire, & radical education here. http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue6_2/rodriguez.html
*Keep in mind that “CPT” means “Collapsible Poetics Theater” in the Toscano. And both of the short Toscano pieces are one on top of the other–one pdf file. So scroll down and read both short pieces.
*What do these readings have to do with each other? For instance: replace “theater” with “course” or “class” and what happens here?
*Take home work for after Weds, due the following Saturday: read again Toscano’s “Exchanges” and think about how you would perform this piece, especially in light of the lecture you will have just attended/participated in on Wednesday.
Readings, General
All readings will be available either online or via handout, or both. All readings will be short, most, however, fairly difficult. All readings will be due by Wednesday, beginning of lecture. Make sure that you give yourself time to read and think through the work we’ll look at during that week’s lecture, and take notes. That way we’ll be able to have a rich discussion every Wednesday.
I will from time to time suggest supplementary (non-required) readings. One such recommendation is to check in on my other blog, my “public” blog, which will serve as a supplement to this course. Here it is. http://davidwolach.blogspot.com/
Draft Schedule
Roughly the first half of this course will be devoted to straightforward Wednesday lectures and Saturday seminars. Seminars will often be workshops in which you will work in small groups on a) developing your group’s class, and b) developing your own creative-critical writing portfolio. The second half (again, roughly) of this course will be devoted to your teaching. That is, after having formed groups and worked on developing a pedagogical model / organizational politics for a “creative writing class,” you’ll spend 3 1/2 weeks taking each other’s courses–teaching one day, taking your peers’ course another. We’ll discuss details of this schedule on Saturday, Week 1, including beginning the process of constructing your teaching schedules. Remember, as this course is 4 credits, work you’ll do during the quarter will be equivelant to 4 credits. So, though there will not be many ground rules for how you construct your class, you will have to keep workloads and expectations to a 4 credit model. Again, we’ll discuss this in more detail later, and a fleshed out schedule/syllabus will form here on the blog in the coming days and weeks.
*In addition to attending your courses and/or meeting you in groups, I will meet with you once individually to discuss your writing–prose, poetry, essay, notes, whatnot.
PRESS Events
As co-sponsor of the literary-politics-arts series, PRESS, Experiments in Text: Radical P’s will be bringing to campus four artists during the quarter, and helping organize other artist talks, performances, etc. David Buuck was the first in the series, & hopefully you got a chance to attend his performance back in October. Here are the artists we are sponsoring this quarter, as part of the Evergreen-Slightly West-& affiliated programs PRESS Series:
*Poet-activists Jules Boykoff & Kaia Sand will read and discuss guerilla poetry and public space during week 4.
*Philadelphia poet and activist CA Conrad will read and do a workshop with us during week 9.
*Artist & active participant in Nonsite Collective, author of the forth. Armies of Compassion (Palm Press), Eleni Stecopolous (date TBA)
Other artists will be coming here as well, & though not sponsored by our course (thus not a required part of the course), please feel free (and excited!) to attend these events. Lydia Davis will be here later in the spring, & Charles Bernstein will be here on Monday–info coming soon on that.
For more on these wonderful artists, google them! Or visit my public blog! Or, wait for info to be put up here on the course blog. We’ll be discussing works by Conrad, Boykoff, and Sand, soon enough.
Covenant
As in all my courses and programs, but especially here, where we will be relying on one another so heavily, we must be respectful towards one another. But more so, we should be interested in one another as persons, interested in what we don’t know or can’t understand. And we need be empathic, work hard know one another intimately, to be cognizant at all times of each other’s otherness, to explore that otherness in ways that forefronts our humanity. I don’t believe in covenants all that much. For very large groups, I do. As a union organizer years ago I worked with many, many people to put in place contracts that would guarantee rights on the job. As a comparatively small group, I don’t expect that we’ll need a binding, written contract to keep us in check. I believe we can treat each other as human beings without a covenant, reveling in each other’s differences as opposed to undermining each other via those differences, not tolerating difference, but coming to know what it consists of, and going beyond tolerance, towards the domain of empathy. If all of you would like to draw up a covenant, you’re welcome to do so, and in that case, I’m happy to help. Otherwise, let this serve as our covenant, and let’s work together as a living, breathing, organism–an interdependent collective.
Portfolios/Expectations
Your written evaluations will be based on 1) your attendance/immersion in lectures, discussions, guest readings, and seminars/workshops; 2) your participation in, construction of, and carrying out your teaching; 3) your participation in and work for your peers’ courses (your peers’ evaluation of your work); and 4) your creative-critical writing generated during the quarter.
I’m very much looking forward to working with you, and, of course, getting to know each of you. See you Wednesday.
In Solidarity,
David
wolachd@evergreen.edu