I have a number of responses from "anonymous"...if you think that this may be you, please let me know.

see  above

Hello all: Clarification on blog responses

Some of you pointed out that there are only seven opportunities to respond to blog posts; that's true, however, for the initial blog question you were supposed to either answer two of the questions, or, answer one question and respond to one of your classmate’s posts, which brings the total to eight responses. If you've already done this, then, once you finish the most recent blog question--you are done with blog responses altogether. If you have not done this, please go back and take care of it. Sorry for any confusion.

Final blog question: Response due April 28th, by 11:59PM

Final blog question:

Due: April 28^th, by 11:59 PM.

Scale: 6 possible points (abridged scale below)

6 points = well-written, highly reflective/analytical account of the ways that race was manifested/performed

3 points = somewhat reflective, not particularly well-written
1 point = argument is overly simplistic, e.g., race is good or bad, poorly written

Minimum word count: 300 words (give or take)

Thinking back to the Gates, Jr., article, Race as the trope of the world, please write a short essay regarding the overarching racialized dynamics you witnessed within OMI. For example, you can discuss/analyze the racial spatialization of a given classroom, specifically, or the entire school site, more generally. Or, you may want to discuss the ways in which race informed your subjective tutoring experiences or, perhaps, how you race witnessed in the ways that other tutors or teachers interacted with particular students. Or, you may want to discuss/analyze the ways in which students acted out racialized stereotypes or, instead, purposefully resisted racialized stereotypes in their comportment and behavior. This assignment is meant to be reflective; so, please discuss what it is that you felt vis-à-vis what you observed.

Friendly Reminders regarding the remainder of the semester

1. Remember that next week we will not meet in section; instead, you all will be making your end of the year presentations on Tuesday and Thursday.
2. You are responsible for 8 blog entries and 10 fieldnotes, respectively, by the end of this semester. If you failed to contribute to earlier blog entries, please do so ASAP.
3. Your final blog entry, which will be somewhat more substantial than previous ones, will be posted Sunday, April 24th. Your response is due April 28th, by 11:59 pm.
4. Case studies are due by 11:59 PM on May 9th.

I need the groups for the reflection projects

Hello all,
   Please email me (or post to the blog) with your groups for the reflection project no later than Tuesday. Thanks in advance.

Office hours for the remainder of the semester

Hello all,
    From now until the end of the semester, I will hold office hours inside VLSB, near little Yali's on both Wednesdays, from 10:30-2:00, and Thursdays, from 11:00-12:30, respectively. If you show up and, for whatever reason, cannot locate me--please give me a call (or text) alerting me to your presence (415.786.8787). Lastly, if you'd like to me, but neither of these times work with your schedule, please email or cal me so that we set up an alternative meeting time.

For section this Thursday

Hello all,
   For section this upcoming Thursday, we will cover the readings and construct concept maps, like we've always done, albeit, sans prompts provided by yours truly. So, please read over each of the assigned readings for the week; however, because we will have assigned groups (below) you need focus on only one reading.

For Appadurai

AJISAKA, JAMIE TATSUKO

AMAKAWA, NAOMI CATHERINE
BABINA, POLINA
BONTE, ALEXANDER HARMON
BORJA, WESLEY DEAN
CLAROS, MAINOR ALBERTO

Hull & Stornaiuolo

JACOBS, KEVIN MICHAEL
KADAKIA, RIMA M
LAVOIE, ANAIS R
LEE, JEONG SEON
LIN, YVONNE SHIRLEY
MARQUEZ, JACLYN ASHLEY

Stein

MENDOZA, JENNIFER DENISE
NEVINS, JESSICA LYNN
SANDOVAL, CYNTHIA VIRGINIA
SEGURADO RODEZNO, ADRIANA MARIA
SINGH, NAVNEET KAUR

Stornaiuolo, Hull, and Nelson

WAYLAND, JEFFREY
WILLIAMS, CIARA JUANITA
WU, JOANNA SARAH
YUAN, YANG WEI WILLIAM
ZARATE, LILIANA

URGENT: Field notes

Hello all,

There are quite a few of you that are significantly behind on field notes. If you fall into this category, it would behoove you to begin making them up right away. I am not willing to be inundated with field notes over the last two to three weeks of class. Please get them in; otherwise, I will begin to dock points for field notes that are decidedly (more than one month) late.

IMPORTANT: From Adam....

Please also tell your students to bring whatever they have to work on their case studies. We may just talk about topics, but we may also do some coding.

Questions for this week: Boal; Katz; and, Newkirk

Augusto Boal, in the excerpt from The Theater of the Oppressed, while clearly invoking Freire is also making a particularly Marxist argument. Consequently, I am pasting (below) excerpts from a paper I wrote, many moons ago, on Marx's conception of commodity fetishism. These excerpts will, hopefully, give you all a better, albeit terse, handle on an (orthodox) Marxist critique of Capitalism.

         A commodity is a man-made object of utility, which in its simplest form is encountered as a use-value, i.e., it fulfills a human need. This form, however, must be changed in order for a useful thing to become a commodity. Marx gives the example of a table, a table as a table in its “tableness” is a useful article; once this very same table becomes a commodity, i.e., a product intended for an anonymous other, it is stripped of the identity that its former designation as simply a useful article, afforded it. Its usability, or use-value, is no longer important; rather, it is the ability of the table to be exchanged for something else (once it is encountered as a commodity), for some other commodity that becomes paramount.  

       This, for Marx, is the fetishism of commodities. In this transmutation, the table’s former use-value is usurped by its exchangeability in the marketplace; thus, transforming the table to an exchange-value. The table now stands as merely a value, capable, even intended to be traded, bartered, or sold, i.e., a commodity. In this transaction, the commodity-form finds its value relative to all other commodities. This transmogrification is peculiar to Marx because he asserts that, in the final instance, the only "thing" that can produce value is congealed human labor. More specifically, he argues that a commodity that requires 6 hours of congealed human labor to produce is three times more valuable than a commodity that requires only 2 hours to produce.

        Though this theory seems immanently plausible, capitalism relies on another formula altogether.

Capitalism relies on an inorganic universal equivalent: gold. For capitalists, gold becomes the expression of all abstract homogenous human labor in general, by overshadowing the real equivalent behind any monetary exchange: human labor. This usurpation by money ,as the equivalent-form, opens the door for the exploitation of wage-workers by the capitalist. Money as the universal equivalent is granted autonomy to exert its seemingly unlimited, supernatural power over the worker because of its ability, in a capitalist society, to control marketplace relations.  

       What is more, according to Marx, capitalism, primarily because of the investiture of power imbued the universal equivalent, transmogrifies the proletariat (i.e., the working class) in much the same way that it does the use-value of the aforementioned table.

          Precisely because the goal of a capitalist society is the accumulation of capital, i.e., to establish surplus-value as the source of all incomes, save wages to the wage workers; this accumulation is possibly only through the exploitation of the proletariat. Workers, unlike wealthy capitalists, are without the means to produce a commodity for sale in the market place; therefore, they must, instead, sell their ability to work as a commodity, i.e., their bodies. The ability to work/produce is purchased for an agreed upon wage by the capitalist; this commodity is called labor-power. When the agreed upon wage falls short of the value produced by,  the labor that it was used to purchase, the result is a profit which is created from surplus-value. 

(For example, a laborer is paid $5 an hour for 10 hours to create a commodity that will fetch $70 in the market, the $20 difference, in Marx's theorization, constitutes the surplus value.)

 

There will be section this Thursday.

Adam has graciously agreed to oversee section this Thursday. It will take place in our usual room, VLSB 2060, at the regular time (12:40).