It’s been a hot week, leaving early and shivering by the bus stop, before the sun comes up, and the heats arrives, the last blasts of the summer. Waking up today, there’s been rain overnight, and the temperature looks like it is going to drop over the weekend. We’re headed to Hershey, PA for a soccer tournament, leaving this afternoon.
It’s been a week of prospects, and opportunities, setting up a few things for next semester and even looking further to the summer, which looks like it will be very busy indeed. It was nice to sit with a few of my colleagues, sip ideas over coffee, and put our heads together on a few potential collaborations.
At the weekend, after meeting my creative friend Kim at the Artists’ Market, she gave me her weekend edition of the New York Times. It’s been ages since I sat a read a newspaper, almost cover to cover, sitting on the sofa, sipping a coffee. Pure bliss.
I know…I’m looking a bit unshaven and grissly, but I’m actually very happy. I’d even been for a bike ride that morning too, amazing day.
I’m super tired, and looking forward to an afternoon nap before driving. The weather seems to have settled now, just a few drops of rain, the sun is even coming out. There’s that earthy smell coming in through the window, the leaves that are dropping from the trees, it’s a bit misty and there’s due in the grass.
Teaching & Learning
We had a good week, everyone is working hard on projects.
We enjoyed a wonderful talk from a guest speaker, Adrian Jones, who is an artist, technologist, and archivist, creating important, sensitive work. Adrian is currently building an AR app that captures aspects of change, and attempts to preserve memory, through storytelling. He is drawing from personal history, using images from the Teenie Harris Archive, searching through architectural and census records, to show us how much neighborhoods, in particular that of East Liberty, Pittsburgh, have changed. I learned that when we use this word gentrification, but really it is euphemistic, it is a land grab, the erasure of people, the removal of community.
Adrian shows us how building and development projects have changed neighborhoods so as to be unrecognizable. He shows how culture has been lost, how history has been whitewashed. As someone new to America, I’m still learning about policies such as redlining, which is still happening today. There are different ways too that communities are affected, as buildings, apartment complexes are being torn down; parks, green areas, and local services such as shops, schools and community centers are closing too. New developments, from businesses, to luxury condos, are often locked, often patrolled by security. Where once, you could walk through alleyways and side streets, these are now exclusive zones, private spaces.
This process is happening across the states, and in the UK too, where public is becoming private, where communities are being broken up, where the local economy excludes those that that lived their entire lives in that place. It is unsustainable, there are empty offices and warehouse spaces, with For Rent signs on them, there are businesses that flattened previous buildings, built new shops, and a few years later moved on, or simply went out of business. The creation and segregation of spaces in our cities is an important social justice issue, we must our protect communities, we must do more to tackle inequality.
Life Lessons
Here’s a short play.
Sometimes people email me to ask, “Please could I observe your lesson next week and send me your lesson plan, syllabus, and worksheets?”
…and I think, “No…”
I find it hard to respond to these requests. No warning, little introduction, or even the courtesy of dropping by when the room is open. You'd find me more amenable if you were less direct. You might see it as being efficient, but to me, it feels like there's a lack of empathy. Some might think I'm out of line, believing the request is innocent, and for that, I’m sorry.
It’s similar when students reach out to people outside the university for project work, like requesting an interview or writing about an organization. Sometimes the replies they get are:
“No, thank you, I’d rather not.”
“I told them it was for my project...”
“...It’s okay. People can say no.”
I need to better at saying no, I’m also aware that I’m speaking from a position of great privilege, many people don’t get to use that word, or otherwise have to deal with the issues that saying no might inevitably lead to.
That’s okay... I’m not sorry.
Lost and Found
Part of the pleasure of writing a new course, is that you get to do some research, hone in on some of the big questions that are being asked in a particular field, refresh your knowledge, and discover some wonderful new things.
One of my best students (I know they read this…and I mean it), recommended a brilliant episode of Mind Hustle, looking at the difference in conditions between US and Norwegian Prisons, which are stark in terms of the difference in emphasis on rehabilitation. As a counterpoint, you should watch 13th, a documentary about the mass incarceration of African Americans in the US prison system. Warning, it’s a tough watch.
Although most of the films we’re going to watch next semester are found on Kanopy, I came across True Story which is a channel dedicated to documentary filmmaking which currently has a 50% offer for the first month. It seems up to date, there are a few titles that are still playing at festivals, and there’s a huge selection to choose from.
Our new course will be 82.265 Whispers & Echoes: Third Cinema: People, Language and Culture in Documentary Storytelling. I know that it has two titles, but I wanted something a little more poetic to start with, so there you go. You can have a sneak peak at the course proposal, that I’ll keep up for a week or so, before we start properly working through it. I’ll be teaching with my wonderful colleague in Hispanic Studies, that I’m so excited to collaborate, we’ve been talking about a course for some time now, and just can’t wait to get started.
I’ll tell you more later…
Thank you
Okay, have a few more items to pack before we leave, and a few emails to answer. I even have clothes in the tumble dryer, honestly Friday is when I can get myself together.
I’ve had a good week, I think. Lots of early mornings. Pittsburgh looks great as you cross the bridge into downtown. The busses have tweaked their routes though, so it’s not as convenient as it was, but I still get there.
okay, have a good week, see you soon.