PART ONE
Once this quarter, you are expected to find and share an “artifact” or short article relevant to our course and to critical approaches to difference, power, and social justice. Artifacts/articles are due on MONDAY of your assigned week by 11:59 PM.
The artifact or article you contribute should enrich and expand the thinking we are doing together this quarter. For instance, you might choose an artifact or article that takes an intersectional approach to a contemporary issue or problem, or you might choose an article that complicates and furthers your understanding of keywords/concepts relevant to our course, such as settler colonialism, race, racial domination, gender, sexuality, class, ability/disability, age, xenophobia, migration, borders, whiteness, etc. You might also choose important topics that aren’t directly addressed in our course texts.
Some possible artifacts include images/photographs, short videos, songs or other audio selections, works of visual art, poems, cartoons, memes, or other media drawn from popular culture.
You are not expected to be an expert on the artifact youve chosen, and the artifact/article you share does not need to be something you endorse or support. Instead, you will simply share approximately 3-5 substantive sentences about why you made the choice that you did. In other words, HOW is your article or artifact relevant to our focus on questions of diversity, power, difference, and social justice?
Your classmates will be asked to respond to the artifact/article you share, and we should all be able to read/view each artifact post in about 5-8 minutes. So, videos longer than about 5-6 minutes or very long articles will not work well for this assignment.
On your assigned week, your article or artifact must be posted here by MONDAY at 11:59 PM. Please feel free to share your artifact or article with me in advance if you have questions or concerns.
Example Artifact Post
“Diversity is so IN,” comedy sketch:
Diversity Is So IN | CH Shorts (Links to an external site.)
Diversity Is So IN | CH Shorts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=65&v=5dLeI2JInf0&feature=emb_logo
This short comedy sketch uses sarcasm and parody to critique some of the ways that “diversity talk” circulates in institutions. It seems to point out some of the misuses and problematic definitions of “Diversity,” including the commodification of diversity. This connects to Ellen Berrey’s argument about how “diversity” becomes a way not to talk about race–that is, “diversity talk” seems to actually detract from real efforts to address racialized inequality and systemic racism. It might also connect to Jodi Melamed’s discussion of how corporations use “rainbow washing” to market and sell themselves as diverse without making any substantive changes that impact people’s lives and life chances.
Example Article Post
Nina Lakhani and Jonathan Watts, “Environmental justice means racial justice, say activists,” Guardian UK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/environmental-justice-means-racial-justice-say-activists (Links to an external site.)
This article usefully links racial justice to climate justice. Drawing on the work of a range of activists, the article takes an intersectional approach to environmental catastrophe, vulnerability to disease, and systemic racism, arguing that tackling any of these issues requires tackling all of them. As one scientist and activist says, “To the white people who care about maintaining a habitable planet, I need you to be actively anti-racist. I need you to understand that our inequality crisis is intertwined with the climate crisis. If we dont work on both, we will succeed at neither.”
