Readings. We discussed the first two sections of Robin Ridington’s book Little Bit Know Something. Next week we will discuss the second half of the book. Please come to class prepared to discuss.
Annotations. Your weekly reading annotations are due as always. Remember that this is different than the “anthropocene diary” (which you don’t hand in but which you are usually asked to read aloud in class). For details of what this looks like go to the ‘assignments‘ tab.
Anthropocene Diary. This week I ask that when you write in your anthropocene diary you describe a personal experience. This could be ‘simple’ experience of watching a honey bee collect pollen or an experience of watching a shuttle launch on TV. The experience doesn’t need to be recent (though in some ways there are richer possibilities for description if you describe it while it is ‘fresh.’ As always you’re meant to lean your attention to the ‘anthropocene’ in some way. The third section of Ridington’s book is about experience and we’ll be discussing this in class so you should take inspiration for your diary from Ridington (ie. read the section before writing the diary entry). It is important that you write a new diary entry (rather than using old ones). When you’re writing, I want you to think carefully about how you describe things. This is no simple task, so take it seriously. Unlike a conventional diary, you should expect to write multiple drafts of this diary entry for better results. This time I want you to keep your writing between 250 and 400 words.
Multispecies Salon.
We are invited to go to Princeton on October 8th (in lieu of our class) to participate in the Multispecies Salon (special topic “Pets as Flexible Persons”). For anyone who wants to stay overnight we can provide camping. If you need a ride it will happen (either with me or with someone else … we can coordinate this). Most importantly, though, let me know if you can make it. If we don’t have three people or more, I don’t think we can justify it.
Here are the details.
October 8, Thursday: The Multispecies Salon presents, Pets as Flexible Persons, featuring a discussion with Peter Singer (Princeton University) and Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University) and with Shir Dafna (Ben-Gurion University) as a virtual guest.
Lunch & discussion: 12:30pm-2:00pm, Guyot 100.
Critical Making Projects.
Please email me (before next class) a one-page document summarizing what you plan to do for your critical making project. This should include:
->Summary of the project
->Skills plan: what you need to learn to complete the project.
->How you’ll learn what you need
->Personal deadlines for completion of various components
->Initial thoughts on how this will connect to thinking about the anthropocene.
