Class Minutes 2-19-10

*Kurt and Layson read their This I Believe essays. Everyone has now read.

*William Wells Brown neighborhood association meeting on Thursday: A couple is having a “Block Party”/ Wedding Party/ Reception that Saturday of Labor Day weekend @ Duncan Park. Transy students are invited to help, the entire community is invited.

*Tonight, Friday Feb. 19 is the 3^rd mandatory community event: It is the opening of Zoe Strecker’s exhibit in the Morlan Gallery—Kurt and Kremena will be arriving around 5 pm.

*Next Wednesday, we will be traveling to Louisville:

-Layson and Austyn will be the drivers: Amanda, Montgomery, and Kathleen will be riding with Layson. KateLynn, Casey, and Paul will be riding with Austyn.

-Meet at Back Lobby at 5:30pm!!!

-Leave for Louisville at 5:45pm!!!

-Meet at UofL art building, near the Speed Art Museum. We may have to park at Speed

-On the drive, we need to decide who will read their This I Believe essay, and other topics to be discussed with the UofL class.

-The class we will be meeting with is similar to ours: They do artwork throughout the community.

-We will be explaining to each other what our respective classes do: Talk about our class and quilt projects. Talk about This I Believe essay project—share an essay and invite them to write their own. Share a story with the class (a way to prep for our Storytelling Projects).

-We will be meeting with this class for an hour, and we will also be seeing Kurts exhibit in Louisville.

*Homework for Next Wednesday and Friday:

-For Weds: Put all T.I.B essays in a word document. Rank them in your preferred order and list 3 criteria for choosing as you did. Send these to K & K.

-For Weds: Please bring a handwritten T.I.B essay (choose any of your own) to be part of the flyers to let the community know about the essay project. Casey will be taking these.

-For Fri: T.I.B. essays, and come to class prepared to discuss our individual tasks, and let everyone know how we’re doing with this.

**Final Discussion of The Known World:

“Slavery pollutes everyone who participates in it

and warps their concepts of justice and humanity”

-An emotionally charged ending: the class expressed a great deal of frustration, a lot of anger particularly about what happened to Augustus.

-Inherent Evil: where does it come from and where does “evil” (however we define it) exist in comparison to established norms? Is evil deviation from those norms or something else?

*We may use the term evil because we are discussing fictional characters (evil as a fictional concept?). We are presented biased and incomplete information about these characters, so it becomes difficult to develop a complete understanding of who they are, their motives, etc. The author sets up this bias and miss context, and in this missing context, bad seems to outweigh good.

*Is evil determined by what others see, how we’re socialized, or the choices we makes? How are these things connected?

*Does this discussion of evil and morality distance us from the actual story being told?—It makes it difficult to imaging living in the world inhabited by these characters.

-Laws suggest you can maim a slave, but if s/he is still able to work, no crime was committed

*Skiffington and his killing of Mildred vs. his position to always side with the law: Is there a contradiction here?

*Law vs. justice: Both favor people in positions of power and both are stacked against slaves and freed blacks. White people in positions of power (and even poor white people in the instance of Harvey and Augustus) can extract law and justice by almost any means they wish, whereas the law discriminates against black people ultimately prohibiting them from pursuing justice for their selves. Example: Skiffington vs. Mildred- Though Mildred pulls a gun on Skiffington, he knows he has the upper hand because she is a slave and a woman and will be greatly punished if she even hurts him. Still, he chooses to kill her—acting potentially out of frustration (not likely an act of fear) and certainly demonstrating his power.

*Doe Jaime, Priscilla, and Alice represent justice? They escape slavery, and ultimately create something beautiful out of their experiences.

-What is the role of God in slavery? How do so many people remain so faithful in the face of everything happening around them (especially in regard to slaves). The role of religion/Christianity: The overall message may appeal to their real lives (hard work/labor will be rewarded later), especially when couples with the loss of original religions/traditions

*But why embrace the white people’s religion, the oppressor’s religions? The message is nice/comforting, but the reality is quite different.

*Christianity is a religion for the oppressed, especially when one considers the context of Biblical stories

*Old Testament vs. New Testament: both written in a context of oppression, stories about slavery and overcoming it. So white would white oppressors celebrate this religion and use it as justification for their actions… The analogy of the story of Job.

-Does anyone in the novel have control—over their own lives, over others? Alice may be the best example of someone in control. She has constructed a façade/act that allows her some semblance of control and “freedom.”

*Is anyone able to truly be physically and psychologically free: Celeste is psychologically free—she embraces kindness and love and strives to live these things—but she is still physically a slave. Alice is able to wonder and eventually achieves her own physical freedom, but this comes at the cost of years of being trapped within her own mind, her own constructed reality—any deviation from that reality may have stifled her physical freedom.

Class minutes 2-24-10

*Amanda talked about the quilt project (will added info from Austyn and Kurt) and showed her completed quilt top—talked about working in conjunction with Americorps and the Build-a-Bed Foundation, the process of quilt making, the quilting bees, and how the quilts will be on display for a day in Marty’s N. Limestone store.

*Austyn explained the This I Believe essay projects, and Amanda read her 1^st essay.

*Paul talked about the oral history projects and how they related to building community and preserving unique histories of our communitites.

-Kathleen shared some stories about Spalding’s Bakery that her group may be using:

* One lady said that it was annoying to live so close to the bakery because all the cars lined up to get doughnuts in the morning would block her driveway. Another person said that no matter how many shootings occurred in the area, people from the “nice part of town” would still come to the bakery because the doughnuts were so good.

*The Louisville Class

-collaborativeprojects2010.blogspot.com

-UofL students can take studio courses up to 3 times, some students have taken this class twice already.

-Students Jimmy and Lucy started by talking about past projects of the class (some of which were inspired by an earlier photography class some of the students had taken)

*Volunteered at St. Joseph’s Children’s Home/Hospital: The children were taught photography. One project involved children taking pictures with toy cameras—the pictures were then combined to make a bigger picture. Another project where the children were able to dress up as superheros. The pictures were put on display in a gallery and the children were invited to see the exhibit showcasing their photos.

*Some photos of children included a Basketball Playing Banana, as well as the variety of unique superheros.

-At one time, the class had a grant and the money was spent on bus shelters and printing. A lot of the students donate supplies, go to goodwill, contribute personally, etc.

-We looked at images on their blog

-Impactproject.org: Will be sponsoring a project similar to the film “Born into Brothels.” Children will be giving cameras and taught how to take meaningful pictures, a 4 week project.

-The Walnut St. Then and Now Project: Photos from archives juxtaposed with “now” photos

*A poor inner city area (similar to our N. Limestone neighborhood). The students are working to revitalize the area and bring positive attention back to it. Get students to go to an “intimidating” part of town. A project to “create dialogue” via interaction with people in the neighborhood.

-Lexi’s Music Project: “The Sight of Sound.”

*Art and sound installations: included a mock Tesla coil, 4000+ paper airplanes in a corridor where movement through the corridor triggered certain sounds

*Dial-a-Screamer Project: will work with human, mountain top removal, and other organizations (may eventually work with soundscapes) to broadcast messages throughout the city.

*Q&A:

-Q: What is the value of collaborating? A: Learn to relinquish control and listen to others; helps you learn about yourself and others—Learn empathy, new perspectives

-Q: Why retake the class? A: It’s enjoyable; good practice for future goals of the students (Lucy) The class changes with each new group of students; not necessarily the same class twice.

-Q: How are we received in the N. Limestone community? A: It seems like the community has been responsive, maybe because it has been seen as Transy reaching out to the neighborhoods, trying to be a better neighbor. An attempt to integrate neighborhoods, trying to build connections between Transy and the north side.

*The Louisville class gives us an assignment: Create “art” for an unexpected spot in the N. Limestone neighborhood/community. We have a week from Friday, and we must document it to be posted on the blogs.

*We give the Louisville class an assignment: Write a This I Believe essay to be read in their class, and submitted on our blog. Due a week from Friday.

Class minutes 2-10

We began by discussing the question I (Amanda) posed in regard to Fern Elston and her disapproval in regard to her family moving north and passing as white people. We examined the complexity of her character by discussing contradictions in her personality—how she seemed offended that her family would abandon their black identities/heritage in exchange for (possibly) a better life, while she herself was a slave owner and preferred to teach lighter skinned black children. Eventually, it was brought up that Fern may have resented her families being able to pass because she would never be able to because of the man she loved—a man whose skin was too dark to pass.

This consideration of being limited by love, or not being able to fully express love for those we care for was reflected again in Robbins’ relationship with Philomena, and Winnifred and the Sheriff’s relationship with Minerva. Both these instances depict a white person (or white people) who are restricted by overarching social structures from truly loving/embracing those who mean the most to them. Robbins ultimately treats Philomena as a slave and exercises his dominance over her by physically abusing her. Winnifred and the Sheriff claim Minerva is not their slave, but still delegate chores and “servant” work to her. Ultimately when Minerva runs away, they go about finding her in such a way that a master would go about seeking a runaway slave.

Austyn brought up the idea of social structure vs. human nature. In so many instances throughout the novel, we see a variety of people acting in a variety of manners, so we are left to ponder what is fueling these actions. Obviously these people are a product of their era and environments, but through Archie’s and Kurt’s explanations, it seems these attitudes and behaviors were (and to some degree are still) present throughout the country. At some point, this condition that limits our ability to sympathize with certain characters was described as a psychological malady where people can only achieve what they are taught (and ultimately forced) to be. This functions as an explanation of “The Known World.” This world of hypocrisy and fear is the only thing many of the characters no. Symbolically, this hypocrisy—being torn between a white father and a black father—is one reason Henry does not quite make it to manhood. He dies before he is able to become a complete human because he is torn between two known worlds, that of master and that of slave, and he may only be able to occupy one.

Archie brought up an interesting discussion of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, in which he told us the story of how Benjamin Franklin—whether in France, where Jefferson and Hemmings behaved more comfortably as husband and wife, or in the United States—always treated Sally Hemmings the same, as if she were a woman deserving of equal treatment and consideration, no matter her skin color. Jefferson, on the other hand, talked to Hemmings and treated her as a slave when in the United States in spite of any difference in their relationship while in France. It would seem that Franklin’s attitude, and what may be called compassion given the period of time, was uncommon. It is not something we see in The Known World.