Performing Feminisms: kinds of knowledge, tracing influences Butler & Bechdel

===

===

From You Tube: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home on Broadway [SIV396]
https://youtu.be/A9vD7Nc0L3k
Published on Apr 22, 2015
"4/17/15: Vermont cartoonist Alison Bechdel published her graphic novel Fun Home in 2006. The best-selling book told the tale of the author’s tumultuous childhood in rural Pennsylvania and the complex events that lead to the tragic death of her closeted father.

In 2013, a musical adaptation of Fun Home was mounted at The Public Theater in New York with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori. In March, Fun Home moved to Circle in the Square Theatre and opened to rave reviews on April 19th.

The musical depicts three versions of Alison (small, middle and 43-years-old) and jumps frenetically through time, slowly unfolding her emotionally charged tale. Playing the role of Alison’s little brother is 11-year-old Vermonter Oscar Williams. Oscar got Stuck in Vermont in November of 2014 when he shared his dream of performing on Broadway - which has now come true.

Eva and Seven Days’ cofounder Pamela Polston got temporarily unstuck from Vermont to see the show and meet up with Alison and Oscar on Broadway.

Music: Al Jolson, “I’m Sitting on Top of the World,” Fun Home, Music by Jeanine Tesori, Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron

Note: Alison’s childhood home in Beech Creek, PA which plays such a large role in the book and the musical is now for rent by new owners. Alison and some of the cast stayed there and you can too!"
 
http://funhomebroadway.com/

===

>>>EXPERIENCE SET THREE: INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITIES, ZINES & PERFORMING ACTIVISMS<<<

Tuesday, 27 October – Performing feminisms: investigating kinds of knowledge and tracing some influences of Octavia Butler and Alison Bechdel

Experience Set 3 Resources for Assignment 3 & for this week!

>> ZINES:

• You went to the UMD Zine library last Thursday and watched a video last class.

• Check out the DC Zinefest online: https://dczinefest.wordpress.com 

>> MATRIX OF DOMINATION:

• Read and reread the handout you got last Thusday in section: "The Matrix of Domination" fr Collins. 2002. Black Feminist Thought. Routledge. pp. 224ff. https://books.google.com/books?id=WMGTAgAAQBAJ&q=matrix+of+domination#v=snippet&q=matrix%20of%20domination&f=false

• Check out also: https://mindthegapuk.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/feminism-101-patricia-hill-collins-black-feminist-thought-in-the-matrix-of-domination/

>> BUTLER'S INFLUENCES:

• Check out Octavia's Brood and find essays and stories you want to read. Be ready to say which.
• Explore the Octavia's Brood website: http://octaviasbrood.com  

• Note Butler’s description on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler

• Read about Earthseed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthseed

Note the link there to an interview with Butler, and the video we watched parts of last week. 

>> BECHDEL'S PERFORMANCES:

• Check out the Bechdel book you picked to examine and choose parts to share in your discussion section. Be prepared to say which one it is and why you chose it. 

• Note Bechdel's description on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Bechdel 

• Explore Bechdel's website: http://dykestowatchoutfor.com 

• See the strip archive: for example: DTWOF episode #527: May 13th, 2008 | Strip Archive: http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/dtwof-episode-527

We begin to learn about different kinds of knowledge, esp. the differences between subjected knowledges about the world that locations from oppression require, what we call "epistemic privilege," and the ways in which a very different kind of "social privilege" and power actually make it difficult to know about how the world is really operating.

===


===
From YouTube: Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
https://youtu.be/lZ1B_BEsYuw
Published on Jun 20, 2013
Octavia's Brood, co-edited by Walidah Imarisha & adrienne maree brown, is an anthology of radical science & speculative fiction written by organizers & activists, based in the idea that those working to change the world are sci-fi/speculative thinkers! https://www.facebook.com/octaviasbrood. Contribute today at Indiegogo: http://igg.me/at/OctaviasBrood/x/3210370 or search: Octavia's Brood.


===
>>VIDEO FOLLOWUP: 

THINK-PAIR-SHARE: Check out Octavia's Brood and find essays and stories you want to read. Be ready to say which you chose and why.

===

===
Some different ways to use the term "privilege": which do you already know and use and when?

• "It's a great privilege to be here today": "an advantage or source of pleasure granted to a person."  Perhaps the ordinary use of the word: Good thing, maybe even something to proud of. (From Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege )

• "This is an example of unearned white privilege": "the sociological concept that some groups of people have advantages relative to other groups. The term is commonly used in the context of social inequality, particularly with regards to social class, race, age, sexual orientation, gender, and disability." A current political use of the word: Not good, unethical but also structural: experienced personally and to be opposed politically. (From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(social_inequality)

• "Standpoint theory works out just how epistemic privilege works, how people see more and less of what is really happening out of their struggles and lives" : "some social locations, specifically marginalized locations, are epistemically superior in that they afford hitherto unrecognized epistemic privilege, thereby correcting falsehoods and revealing previously suppressed truths. Thus, as Sandra Harding puts it, "Standpoint theories map how a social and political disadvantage can be turned into an epistemic, scientific and political advantage." [2004; 7-8]" A technical term in feminist theory and philosophy, oddly almost the opposite of the other meanings: A good thing if difficult and possibly a result of suffering, a location of knowing (epistemic) that comes from one's experiences of struggling against inequality, one's own, and sometimes that of others. (From Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/fem-stan/ )

===



===
Hooks 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. South End Press.

Mexican segregation in Texas

Her story here about the small Kentucky town is a now classic statement of what feminists sometimes call "standpoint theory." Here she makes it clear that segregation meant that black people moved across the railroad tracks, and -- correctly -- saw the town on both sides. The town was literally larger to them than it was to the white people who stayed on their side of the railroad tracks, whose reality was thus more narrow and circumscribed. This violates any assumptions that "privilege" or having more or being advantaged means that you "know more" -- usually understood as having been better educated or schooled. But this work on standpoint claims that such education doesn't account for the knowledges about living in the world that are greater among oppressed people: what is sometimes called "subjugated knowledge." [Pic from: http://www.beinglatino.us/uncategorized/the-longoria-affair/ ]

This does not mean, however, that having privilege means having no way to know what subjugated people know. Or that oppressed people are even always aware of what it is that they know in these ways. Standpoint theory says that all of us need to raise our consciousness, to learn more about how to know what we know as oppressed people, and how to acquire knowledge about what we don't know as privileged ones.

===

===

===

===