*or one if you are running short of time
Our third book brings us much
closer geographically. My original thought was to read just
the Juárez book in this series. That's why I chose this book. But, what
I think these four books give us, is a witness and reminder to violences
especially against children and women throughout the world. Even at Texas Tech,
I am reminded of the levels of violence and safety here. During night courses,
when a class will end at 9 pm, women in the class walk together or strategize
about how to get safely to their cars parked somewhere on campus. With all of
the freedoms we enjoy in the US, there are levels of violence against
particular classes of people--women being just one--that we can ignore but they
are there. I’m thinking of all of the rape culture scenarios and actions
that are taking place across US university campuses.
At a Texas Tech University's
Women's Studies annual conference a few years ago, I had the privilege to
preview a film titled Girl Rising. It parallels what we have been
reading about. The documentary narrates the stories of nine young women from
throughout the world. These girls/women face constant violence. You can google
the tile to get more info. It's a disturbing/hopeful film. The film states that
to teach young girls is one way our of the violence. Statistics hold that
education does help; can help. There is hope.
What can happen when we side on
the side of peace? What is possible that is never possible with violence?
Also, notice what happens when we
read about "things" that are of real importance in terms of people's
lives. In fictions and films, there can be happy endings--maybe they are even
necessary--because in real lives, reality often verges on the realm of fiction
itself. So much of it seems/reads as unbelievable. We learn where to tell our
own truths--and often it is rarely in schools or in public art.
I have always used difficult
reads/books in the research class when I teach. By difficult I mean books that
address real issues. I've used HANDS by Janet Zandy; that book is about
how workers are dispensible. Zandy writes about a woman losing her arms from
the elbows down in an essay called "How much are two hands worth?"
Zandy writes that we can learn important things from workers and their lived
lives. Working class is a way of knowing life.
In Trauma and Recovery by
Judith Herman, Herman documents the histoires of violence against women, war
vets and domestic abuse survivors. She counters with a recovery possibility
for some--not all. Felstiner's To paint her
life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi era documents the life of a female
painter who would have committed suicide early in her life, as her grandmother
and mother did, but chooses to make art and live only to have to face the
force of Hitler's fascist regime. In bell
hooks' Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, hooks writes about art from
the perspectives of African American lives and voices--realities that are
rarely addressed in middle class white European histories.
Joanna Kadi's Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker is
also about what it means to grow up working class in a middle class world. And Guy
Brett's Through Our Own Eyes: popular Art and Modern History documents
genocides across the globe through art. For example, Brett write about
victims from Hiroshima, non-artists who made art to document what radiation and
war did to their towns. It is simply breathtaking and heartbreaking. All
of these texts have many things in common--talking about real issues--art
connected to real lives; people bearing witness to their lives.
I hope you can at times divorce
yourself from the content that is truly wrenching to look at the methods and
media the artists are using to write and tell the stories. This current book,
our third in the series, hits very close to home. And it is as raw as the first
two. You can google more about the maquiladora zone in Juárez. Look at the stitchings, the photos and other media the
artists used to document atrocities and the contrasts to their lives--and maybe
think about why do these artists do this? Why them?
I'm reminded of an extended quote
that I had on the backside of my business card for years. It's from a book
where the author had to take a side job teaching poetry to senior citizens. He
wrote that he didn't think they could write. This took place near New York and
many of those seniors had endured the holocaust. Their poetry was riveting and demanded not only attention but respect. He that
art is possible anywhere at any time.
"All our lives, the things
we are interested in--sex and self-knowledge and work and death--are made
shameful for us. At every stage of our lives, we are taught not to be what
we are, and we end up by not allowing ourselves to be concerned in the things
which most concern us. We live stupid lives, we live with blinders on, and we
die the way we have lived--in ignorance of what is happening to us. In schools
and on jobs we are screened from the knowledge of our lives. In old age homes and
terminal wards, we are screens from the knowledge of our death."
(Marc Kaminsky, 1974, What's Inside You It Shines Out Of You, p. 21)
Keep in mind global hope rather
than hopelessness. Keep in mind our connections to the rest of the world and
its people. How do people survive? How do people mourn? How do people live? How
do people succeed? These are questions for sociologists, educationists,
artists, activists, historians, government officials--for us all. What does it
mean to speak a truth? Where does one speak it? What can truths do? What have
they failed to do?
Some posts/comments from last week:
Gail posted about how would she respond to refugee situations? How would we? Do we? All four of these geographies have appeared in news as events: some, over and over. Katharine posted about creating a set of her own holy cards-with text on the back-holy card size--at the very least create one or two--YES. Kim posted about scrapbooks. I say, yes art and artful. Gail's stories of ancestor migrations, sad, but hopeful. Crossing Borders has been heavily theorized across almost every discipline: sociology, literatures, arts, women' studies, etc. Sometimes similar, yet all so different and haunting and beautiful. Sarah and others posted about how difficult to read. Kim, best wishes as you recover. Lorena posted about what moves us to act (could that be the beginning of a project or lessons?).
Some posts/comments from last week:
Gail posted about how would she respond to refugee situations? How would we? Do we? All four of these geographies have appeared in news as events: some, over and over. Katharine posted about creating a set of her own holy cards-with text on the back-holy card size--at the very least create one or two--YES. Kim posted about scrapbooks. I say, yes art and artful. Gail's stories of ancestor migrations, sad, but hopeful. Crossing Borders has been heavily theorized across almost every discipline: sociology, literatures, arts, women' studies, etc. Sometimes similar, yet all so different and haunting and beautiful. Sarah and others posted about how difficult to read. Kim, best wishes as you recover. Lorena posted about what moves us to act (could that be the beginning of a project or lessons?).
