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Week 13: Disability Justice Art (Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha)

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  Blog Post Topic: " I Wanna be with you Everywhere (And I Am): Disability Justice Art as Freedom Portal" by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Our final reading was a chapter from a book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “ The Future is Disabled .” Most of the writing was about an art event (by and for disabled people) which the author attended in 2019 New York called “ I Wanna Be With You Everywhere (IWBWYE) .” It was so wonderfully accessible to disabled people that it set a whole new standard for what all of us can expect in Disability Justice. The reading itself was pleasant and flowed well, with relevant examples and explanations to make the author’s points clear. Researching the author after reading was also helpful to see, as I found even more intersectional justice on their website, and I recommend checking it out! ( brownstargirl.org )  Piepzna-Samarasinha’s explanation of the environment at IWBWYE was incredibly helpful in understanding just how magical the world ...
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Week 12: Positive Images (Jan Zita Grover)

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  Blog Post Topic: " Framing the Questions: Positive Imaging and Scarcity in Lesbian Photographs" by Jan Zita Grover Our shortest reading yet was this 6-page article from the magazine, “Stolen Glances, Lesbians Take Photographs,” called “Framing the Questions: Positive Imaging and Scarcity in Lesbian Photographs,” written in 1991. The key points in this writing were about the marginalized lesbian community which was (and still is) severely underrepresented. As I learned in Business Management, representation is a form of power. It’s empowering for us to see ourselves reflected in art, and the way that is portrayed is important, too. As Jan Zita Grover explains in this article, imagery and unseemly representation of these under-represented groups are more heavily scrutinized because there are less (or almost no) opposing examples to contradict and humanize them. Scarcity becomes a problem, Grover wrote, that leads to very few in the community meeting an expectation of their ow...
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Week 11: Indigenous Epistemology (Margaret Kovach)

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  Blog Post Topic: " Epistemology and Research: Centring Tribal Knowledge " by Margaret Kovach This passage from Margaret Kovach’s book, “Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts,” is about tribal epistemology specifically, which is the theory of knowledge regarding interpreting validity of and ways to approach that knowledge. The chapter emphasizes the great contrast between Western and Indigenous methodologies with the thesis clearly stated as, “This chapter is devoted to epistemology, emphasizing the centrality of tribal epistemologies to Indigenous research frameworks.” Kovach’s writing was very interesting to read although lengthy, and I enjoyed learning more about Indigenous culture, especially their learning methods. Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) knowledge is a focus for part of the chapter because Kovach wanted to make a few points within studying Tribal Epistemology. She writes, “The purpose of integrating Nehiyaw epistemology as part of a chapt...
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Week 9: Phenomenology (Amelia Jones)

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  Blog Post Topic: " Meaning, Identity,  Embodiment: The Uses of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology in Art History " by Amelia Jones Amelia Jones: USC Roski School of Art & Design Robert A. Day Professor of Art and Design / Vice Dean of Faculty and Research Photo credit: Harry Gamboa, Jr., 2019 roski.usc.edu/profile/amelia-jones This week we read another writing by Amelia Jones, "Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: The Uses of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology in Art History," in Art and Thought was a tedious and extensive read. There were many long run-on sentences that wound around the same point several times. This reading was written about how you embody your own specific perspective while viewing and experiencing the world, which is called phenomenology when you study this phenomenon more in depth. Jones goes over how Merleau-Ponty was a great influence in her understanding of this phenomena, and wrote, “Merleau-Ponty, I will argue, provides a crucial way of thinking...
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Week 8: Difference (Trinh T. Minh-ha)

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  Blog Post Topic: " Difference: 'A Special Third World Women Issue' " by Trinh T. Minh-ha Trinh T. Minh-ha was asked in the late 80s to write this piece as a part of a special edition magazine on Third-World Women filmmakers. She is an award-winning filmmaker, but her Vietnamese background and identity was commonly emphasized as special when she was considered by the art community. Her writing goes over so many vital topics and I found this reading to be full of our most significant and deeply rooted societal issues. From the very beginning, she outlines that racism, superiority, and oppression are major elements in what she is talking about, and these points become clearer throughout. She covers how differently women are treated when they are not white, and how they are asked to prove and do more for just existing in this way. Duality is a concept Minh-ha goes over multiple times in the way that differences are meant to be both good and bad. The superiority of white...
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Week 7: Authorship (Roland Barthes & Sherrie Levine)

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  Blog Post Topic: " The Death of the Author " by Roland Barthes & " Statement " by Sherrie Levine “The Death of the Author” was our main reading for the week which captured complicated concepts around interpreting an author’s work separate from themself. My foremost understanding of his ideas is that a piece of writing has a voice of its own that can be distinct from the author who wrote it. Although the work can be part of a person’s voice and the author’s perspective can be very involved or helpful, it’s also possible that a piece’s voice can live on within its own life and context which can be different and/or longer lasting than the author. I’m usually not a fan of separating an artist from their work because I think knowing about the author often does tell us crucial information about the piece’s message, but I do also have to agree with Barthes’ writings that it’s possible a powerful or unique voice doesn’t need its author to help it speak, and also that ...
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Week 6: Women in film/visual framing (Laura Mulvey)

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  Blog Post Topic: " Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema " by Laura Mulvey This week we explored the mid-70's writing (shortened version) of Laura Mulvey to follow how women have been a large part of the cinema, but not as characters, exactly. Her main goal was to address the way the female form has been left out of many other analyses. Following this writing wasn't as challenging as I expected, but there were a few new concepts I had to look up like scopophilia (pleasure in looking) and Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis work, and a few refreshers like Freud's models of phallocentric psychoanalysis. Mulvey started by identifying the imbalance in representation and how women are seen as lacking compared to men. Patriarchal values can be seen in the way women are seen as objects in a man's world. Mulvey goes on to describe how the narcissistic viewing pleasure associated with Lacan's "mirror phase" in childhood has shaped films. Self-awareness an...
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