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Hello all,
Thank you so much for the opportunity to share some thoughts about the current
pandemic.
In a recent op-ed that I wrote with one of my advisors, Anna Watkins Fisher, we
contextualize our pandemic and the under preparedness of the US federal
government to provide crucial medical supplies in a quick history of lean
production ("Nothing to Spare
<https://medium.com/@annawfisher/nothing-to-spare-187944835bcb?sk=e35bed1e74f3a583d7350327b0676603>”).
In this piece, we note that both essential employees and those most likely to
lose their jobs at the moment are disproportionately women, people of color,
immigrants, and young people.
The reason I bring this up is because it has been particularly difficult for
many of my students from already marginalized communities to adjust to our
current situation. The University of Michigan is a predominantly white and
incredibly affluent university, and this is reflected in our student body. My
students of color and students from less affluent families frequently express
difficulty adjusting to and navigating life on campus during an average
semester, i.e. one that a pandemic has not disrupted.
I currently teach a large survey course on “digital culture” and have 75
students. Like Elizabeth at U of Toronto, we have had to quickly transition
from in person classes to an online format, and this transition is not working.
The university’s decision to take our classes online, rather than simply cancel
classes and grade students on what they were able to complete before the
pandemic, is quickly demonstrating problems with the way the university treats
it students. Making this transition is dangerous for it assumes a uniformity of
our student body that simply does not reflect reality and the challenges that
many of our students face.
What I have been witnessing in communications with my students is exactly what
Melinda described last week, a contagion of anxiety and fear. But, this
contagion does not seem at all evenly distributed, even amongst the 75 students
enrolled in the sections of the course that I teach. How are we to expect
students to complete work from a phone? What if they lack a computer or device
altogether? What if they simply cannot concentrate? What can we do about
students who have had to take on more responsibilities in their homes? (One of
my students is very concerned because their parents are considered essential
employees and this student must provide child care for their younger
siblings).
Luckily, our university, like many others, have made all grades credit/no
credit or pass/fail for the semester. While the administration refuses to
simply stop the semester, the team of instructors that I work with to teach our
“digital culture” course have decided to simply provide full credit for all
completed assignments, excuse several others, and offer students with access
issues other ways to complete coursework (through phone calls, hand written
assignments that they can photograph or mail to us, etc.). Maybe this is all we
can do...
I hope you and your loved ones are doing as well as possible given our current
crisis.
With care,
Cengiz Salman
PhD Candidate
University of Michigan
Department of American Culture
Digital Studies
Pronouns: He/him/his
> On Apr 9, 2020, at 12:46 PM, Renate Ferro <rfe...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Many thanks to our special guests Christina McPhee and Melinda Rackham. Also
> to William Bain, Simon, Aviva Rahmani, Brett Stalbaum, Cengiz Salman, Gary
> Hall and of course my two fellow moderators Tim Murray and Junting Huang for
> posting this past week. The tone this week has been introspective yet also
> critical of the political, social, and cultural conditions so many of us are
> facing globally. We welcome our next set of invited guests Jonathan Basile,
> Sorelle Henricus, Gloria Kim, Cengiz Salman, Paul Vanouse, and Elizabeth
> Wijiaya. We invite you all to share your thoughts about your own work and
> experiences from where you are writing this week. Looking forward to hearing
> from all of you and again please be well and stay safe.
>
> Also, just to throw this out Christina McPhee had a great idea. If any of
> you are making COVID inspired work or work that is generated from our current
> situation please feel free to post links within the empyre text but also to
> post on our FACEBOOK page.
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/empyrelistserv/
>
> Best to you all,
> Renate Ferro
>
> Week 2: Biographies
> Jonathan Basile is a Ph.D. Candidate in Emory University’s Comparative
> Literature program and the creator of an online universal library,
> libraryofbabel.info. His first book, Tar for Mortar: “The Library of Babel”
> and the Dream of Totality, has been published by punctum books and translated
> into Portuguese. His academic writing on biodeconstruction and on irony has
> been published in the Oxford Literary Review, Critical Inquiry, Derrida
> Today, Variaciones Borges, Environmental Philosophy, Postmodern Culture, CR:
> The New Centennial Review and is forthcoming in Angelaki. His para-academic
> writing has been published in The Paris Review Daily, Public Books, Berfrois,
> Guernica, and minor literature[s]. This work can be accessed at
> jonathanbasile.info.
>
> Sorelle Henricus works in the areas of critical theory, modern and
> contemporary literature and visual arts, and aesthetics and politics
> especially as it pertains to science and technology in culture. Her doctoral
> work traced the significance of the parallels between deconstruction and
> molecular biology, particularly converging around the concept of the gene as
> being constructed as primarily an artefact of data.
>
> Gloria Kim is Assistant Professor of Media and Culture at the University of
> California-Riverside. She works in the areas of the environmental humanites,
> science and technology studies, and media and visual culture. She is
> currently writing a book manuscript titled "The Microbial Resolve: Vision,
> Mediation, and Security," in which she explores modes of mediation, forms of
> kinship, means of capital, and senses of life and living surfacing amid
> efforts to manage emerging viruses. In a second project, Gloria examines
> discourses of the microbiome bridging insight from critical data studies,
> social theory, affect, security studies, material culture, and the
> anthropocene.
>
> Cengiz Salman (he/him) is a PhD candidate in the Department of American
> Culture (Digital Studies) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His
> dissertation research broadly focuses on the relationship between digital
> media, algorithms, unemployment, and racial capitalism. He holds a
> Master of Arts degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago
> (2013), and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology with a specialization
> in Muslim Studies from Michigan State University (2011). Salman is a
> recipient of a Fulbright IIE Award, which he used to conduct research on
> urban transformation projects in Turkey from 2011-2012.
>
> Paul Vanouse is an artist and professor of Art at the University at Buffalo,
> NY, where he is the founding director of the Coalesce Center for Biological
> Art. Interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his (bio-media) art
> practice, which uses molecular biology techniques to challenge “genome hype”
> and to explore critical issues surrounding contemporary biotechnologies.
> Vanouse’s projects have been funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Creative
> Capital Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council
> on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the
> Arts, Sun Microsystems, and the National Science Foundation. His bio-media
> and interactive cinema projects have been exhibited in over 25 countries and
> widely across the US. His scent-based bioartwork, Labor, was awarded a Golden
> Nica at Prix Ars Electronica, 2019. He has an MFA from Carnegie Mellon
> University.
>
>
> Elizabeth Wijaya is Assistant Professor of East Asian Cinema in the
> Department of Visual Studies and Cinema Studies Institute at the University
> of Toronto. She is co-founder of the Singapore-based film production company,
> E&W Films. She is working on her book manuscript on the visible and invisible
> worlds of trans-Chinese cinema.
>
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Associate Professor
> Director of Undergraduate Studies
> Department of Art
> Tjaden Hall 306
> rfe...@cornell.edu
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
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> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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