http://www.phennd.org/index.php/forums/ Phennd Resources en Copyright 2007 2007-12-13T13:56:37-04:00 http://www.phennd.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/24/ http://www.phennd.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/24/#When:13:56:37Z <p><b>Bread and Roses: Artistic Expression and Community Action</b> </p> <p> Faculty: Nancy Watterson <br /> email: nwatterson at cabrini dot edu </p> <p> How do words, movements, signs, and expressive traditions transform people, places and events in ways that bring about social change?&nbsp; What are the motivations, methods, politics, and implications of “doing good work”?&nbsp; In what ways does an understanding of such engagement depend on one’s position: as artist, non-profit worker, business person, social justice advocate, community activist?&nbsp; Engaged ethnography begins from such questioning and proceeds through an attitude of mutual respect and reciprocal learning.&nbsp; In this interdisciplinary seminar we will explore current initiatives as well as some long-standing issues surrounding socio-cultural expressions selecting across many forms: literature (fiction and non-fiction), performances, exhibits, Web-sites, on-line journals, grant proposals and ethnographic documentaries.&nbsp; Students will be given an opportunity to do participatory and applied research on local concerns: witnessing, analyzing, and putting words into action (and actions into words).&nbsp; By choosing a local venue in which to become involved—a local arts or cultural organization, a community arts or action group, a neighborhood development (or organizing) initiative, or a local advocacy or social justice movement (to name but a few opportunities), students gain—and share—practical knowledge about how both artists and cultural workers express themselves in ways that impact and empower local community arts, cultural policy, and education programs.&nbsp; Students may, for example, work in programs to learn about how art and community performance can bring people together through location, spirit, and tradition; or they may focus their energy on projects in which people have joined together to address difficult social issues, or observe and document a pressing, community-defined need.&nbsp; Such community meets artistic expression wherever artistic and cultural knowledge are disseminated, both informally and formally—on the streets, through schools, in museums and public programming, just to a name a few powerful venues. </p> 2007-12-13T13:56:37-04:00