Notes from the 2015-2016 Reading Group
Links to the notes from the 2015-2016 Reading Group can be found in the drop-down menu, or at the following links:
- Session 1 (Everyday Utopias)
- Session 2 (World Music)
- Session 3 (Black Panthers)
- Session 4 (Consumption)
- Session 5 (Industrial Utopias)
- Session 6 (Nature, Labor, and Science)
2015-2016 Reading Group Schedule and Reading List
Fall schedule
1. Wednesday, September 30, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall)
Davina Cooper, Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces (2013), focusing on chapters 1-2 (introduction and conceptual attitude), 4-5 (public nudism and a feminist women’s and trans bathhouse), and the conclusion. We try to limit the reading to 100-150 pages each session.
2. Wednesday, October 28, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall)
Philip V. Bohlman, World Music: A Very Short Introduction (2002) + selected articles
3. Wednesday, December 9, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall) -- Topic: Black Panthers as Utopian Practice. Readings: Ward Churchill, "'To Disrupt, Discredit, Destroy': The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party"; JoNina M. Abron, "The Legacy of the Black Panther Party." The Black Scholar 17, no. 6 (1986); David Hilliard (ed.), The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008); Huey P. Newton, "Let Us Hold High the Banner of Intercommunalism and the Invincible Thoughts of Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense and Supreme Commander of the BPP" (18 Nov 1970); Robyn Ceanne Spencer, "Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle: Revolutionary Black Womenhood and the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, California." Journal of Woman's History 20, no. 1 (2008)
Spring Schedule
4. Wednesday, January 27, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, Chapter II “Of restraints upon the important from foreign countries of such goods as can be produced at home"; Seth Rockman, "The unfree origins of American capitalism." The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions (2006): 335-361; Neil McKendrick, et al., The Birth of a Consumer Society (1982), ch. 1; Jan de Vries, “Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe,” in John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds. Consumption and the World of Goods (1993), 85-132; Benjamin Franklin, "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (1782)
5. Wednesday, March 30, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
Ebenezer Howard, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Original Edition with Commentary by Peter Hall, Dennis Hardy & Colin Ward (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 1-75; Kathryn Oberdeck, “Archives of the Unbuilt Environment: Documents and Discourses of Imagined Space in 20th Century Kohler, Wisconsin” in A. Burton, ed. Archive Stories: Evidence, Experience, History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 251-271; Articles on Kohler (“For More Beautiful Homes” from Kohlre of Kohler News, May 1924; “Conditions in Model Town Not As Rosy” The New Deal, Aug 3, 1934; “Kohler Village: Model or Myth?” from “The Kohler Worker’s Story," UAW-CIO, September, 1955)
6. Wednesday, April 20, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
McKenzie Wark, Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (London: Verso, 2015), Preface and Chapter 1 (Alexander Bogdanov: Workings of the World) of Part I (Labor and Nature), pp. xi-xxii and 1-61; Zoe Todd, “Relationships,” Cultural Anthropology website (January 21, 2016), available here.
1. Wednesday, September 30, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall)
Davina Cooper, Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces (2013), focusing on chapters 1-2 (introduction and conceptual attitude), 4-5 (public nudism and a feminist women’s and trans bathhouse), and the conclusion. We try to limit the reading to 100-150 pages each session.
2. Wednesday, October 28, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall)
Philip V. Bohlman, World Music: A Very Short Introduction (2002) + selected articles
3. Wednesday, December 9, 3:30-5:00pm (329 Gregory Hall) -- Topic: Black Panthers as Utopian Practice. Readings: Ward Churchill, "'To Disrupt, Discredit, Destroy': The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party"; JoNina M. Abron, "The Legacy of the Black Panther Party." The Black Scholar 17, no. 6 (1986); David Hilliard (ed.), The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008); Huey P. Newton, "Let Us Hold High the Banner of Intercommunalism and the Invincible Thoughts of Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense and Supreme Commander of the BPP" (18 Nov 1970); Robyn Ceanne Spencer, "Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle: Revolutionary Black Womenhood and the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, California." Journal of Woman's History 20, no. 1 (2008)
Spring Schedule
4. Wednesday, January 27, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, Chapter II “Of restraints upon the important from foreign countries of such goods as can be produced at home"; Seth Rockman, "The unfree origins of American capitalism." The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions (2006): 335-361; Neil McKendrick, et al., The Birth of a Consumer Society (1982), ch. 1; Jan de Vries, “Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe,” in John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds. Consumption and the World of Goods (1993), 85-132; Benjamin Franklin, "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (1782)
5. Wednesday, March 30, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
Ebenezer Howard, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Original Edition with Commentary by Peter Hall, Dennis Hardy & Colin Ward (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 1-75; Kathryn Oberdeck, “Archives of the Unbuilt Environment: Documents and Discourses of Imagined Space in 20th Century Kohler, Wisconsin” in A. Burton, ed. Archive Stories: Evidence, Experience, History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 251-271; Articles on Kohler (“For More Beautiful Homes” from Kohlre of Kohler News, May 1924; “Conditions in Model Town Not As Rosy” The New Deal, Aug 3, 1934; “Kohler Village: Model or Myth?” from “The Kohler Worker’s Story," UAW-CIO, September, 1955)
6. Wednesday, April 20, 3:30-5:00pm (325 Gregory Hall)
McKenzie Wark, Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (London: Verso, 2015), Preface and Chapter 1 (Alexander Bogdanov: Workings of the World) of Part I (Labor and Nature), pp. xi-xxii and 1-61; Zoe Todd, “Relationships,” Cultural Anthropology website (January 21, 2016), available here.