Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Friday, January 29, 2021
Sunday, January 24, 2021
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic that must be abolished.
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) January 24, 2021
Friday, January 22, 2021
Back to School
As you see, I'm teaching once more at SFAI this Spring. To say the school's circumstances are precarious is an understatement. The story is widely circulating by now, but if you are unaware and interested you can find accounts in the New York Times, the LA Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic.
The Committee to Re-Imagine SFAI recently completed an assessment of every aspect of the school in its present distress. The recommendations of especially the subcommittee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion seem to me to be the foundation for the school going forward into the twenty-first century, if it is to manage that feat at all. I was also really excited to hear visions of the school as a center for work in art and environmental justice.
It's hard to connect such visions to the realities of the day. It's hard to know what is coming next. For now, I've got a job again, teaching a handful of bright beautiful students excited to talk about art practices as testaments to violence and as practices of nonviolent resistance. If only it lasts.
Syllabus for My Spring 2021 Course at SFAI
“Peace in Pieces”: Histories, Theories, and Practices of Violence and Nonviolent Resistance
Instructor: Dale Carrico; e-mail: dcarrico@sfai.edu; ndaleca@gmail.com
When/Where: Thursdays, 1-3.45pm: Online (ONL- CS1)
Course Blog: https://peaceinpiecessfai.blogspot.com/
Rough Basis for Grade: Attendance/Participation, 15%; In-Class Presentation, 15%; Reading Responses, 15%, Midterm Precis/Toulmin, 3-4pp., 15%; Symposium Presentation, 10%; Final Paper, 8-10pp., 30% (subject to contingencies)
Course Description:
The arc of the moral universe is a longing... and it bends
from just us. In this course we will read canonical texts in the theory,
history, and practice of nonviolent resistance and world-making. This course is
provoked and inspired by stories and strategies of reconciliation connected to
traditions of nonviolent politics. But is this "non-violence" simply
an alternative, at hand, or is it instead another fraught artifact we are
making together under duress? We will take seriously and look critically at the
subtle and structural violences that ineradicably shape everyday life. We will also
consider testimonies to violation, in a variety of textual forms, while
simultaneously considering the cultural ideals of persuasion which often
accompany definitions of violence and its limits. We will both take up and take
on the many paradoxes of nonviolent activism and violent order that complicate
the teaching of what passes for peace: The State as site of violence and
alter-violence. Nonviolence, interfaith dialogue, and freethinking. Spontaneity
and training. Democracy as assembly, resistance, occupation, and abolition. Prerequisite:
Critical Studies A (CS-300) Satisfies: Critical Theory B, Critical Studies
Elective, Global Cultures, Liberal Arts elective
Provisional Schedule of Meetings:
Week One | Thursday, January 21 | Introductions
Week Two | Thursday, January 28 | Consent of the Governed
The Declaration of Independence (US)
Howard Zinn, Introduction to Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau, A
Plea for Captain John Brown
Week Three | Thursday, February 4 | Thoreau and Gandhi
Karuna Mantena, The Power of Nonviolence
Logan Rimel, My "Nonviolent" Stance Was Met With Heavily Armed Men
Correspondence of Count Leo Tolstoy with M. K. Gandhi
M. K. Gandhi, The Doctrine of the Sword
M.K. Gandhi, The Meaning and Practice of Ahimsa
Week Four | Thursday, February 11 | Suffragettes
Screen film, "Iron-Jawed Angels," dir. Katja von Garnier
Emily Thornberry, We Owe It To the Suffragettes To Keep Campaigning for Women
Nadine Bloch, 100 Years Later, Lessons from the Sufferin’ Suffragettes
Ken Butigan, Alice Paul's Enduring Legacy of Nonviolent Action
Jane Addams, New Ideals of Peace: Passing of the War Virtues
Week Five | Thursday, February 18 | King
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham City Jail
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Ella J. Baker, Bigger Than A Hamburger
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, A Third Reconstruction
William C. Anderson, A Call for Self Defense in the Face of White Supremacy
Week Six | Thursday, February 25 | War
Arundhati Roy, War Is Peace
Chris Hedges, On War
Gene Sharp, selections from How Non-Violent Struggle Works
Marcie Smith, Gene Sharp: The Cold War Intellectual Whose Ideas Seduced the Left
Week Seven | Thursday, March 4 | Argument
Karl Rogers and Rogerian Synthesis
Be Water: Seven Tactics in Hong Kong’s Democracy Revolution
The Toulmin Schema
William May, Rising to the Occasion of Our Death (handout)
Week Eight | Thursday, March 11 | Fanon and Arendt
Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence
Hannah Arendt, Reflections
On Violence and “Must Eichmann Hang?”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The
Case for Reparations
Week Nine | Thursday, March 18 | Spring Break
Week Ten | Thursday, March 25 | David Cronenberg
Screen film, “A History of Violence,” dir. David Cronenberg
Week Eleven | Thursday, April 1 | Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler, Kindred
Week Twelve | Thursday, April 8 | Abolition
Angela Davis, selections from Are Prisons Obsolete?
Nick Estes, Fighting
For Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context
Week Thirteen | Thursday, April 15 | Slow Violence and Animal Abuse
Rob Nixon, Slow
Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Carol Adams, An Animal Manifesto
Carol Adams, Beastliness and a Politics of Solidarity
Week Fourteen | Thursday, April 22 | Workshopping the Final Paper
Final Paper Workshop
Week Fifteen | Thursday, April 29 | Symposium
Final Project Symposium
Week Sixteen | Thursday, May 6 | Conclusions
Judith Butler, selections from The Force of Nonviolence
Course Objectives:
Survey canonical texts in the history, theory, and practice of nonviolent
resistance: Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, Sharp, Zinn, Davis and abolition
democracy. Consider texts applying and criticizing this canonical history in
contemporary contexts.
Address further questions of structural violence, marginalization,
exploitation, and oppression. Consider the in/adequacy of their address within
the terms of the canon of nonviolence.
Provide a basic toolkit of critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Use
this instruction as an occasion to elaborate but also pressure the traditional
distinction of persuasion from violence.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
As we look forward to the inauguration this week, let’s remember DC is home to 700K residents who are predominately people of color and continue to be disenfranchised. #DCStatehood is long overdue.
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) January 19, 2021
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
Barbara Lee Speaks for Me Daily
Thinking of John and the sacrifices he made to defend our right to vote. In the new Congress, we must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect our free and fair elections. #GoodTrouble. pic.twitter.com/pADohb5SML
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) January 6, 2021