[Next week, a
new semester begins; so this week, I’ll preview five classes and other aspects
of that semester, this time through the lens of teaching and working in the age
of Trump. Leading up to a special weekend post on book talks and plans!]
A request for suggestions
and nominations for my newest ALFA course.
The presidential
election hadn’t happened yet when I proposed my Spring 2017 Adult
Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) course, on Inspiring Contemporary
Voices, but somehow I had a feeling that we would need to find and celebrate
such inspiring voices in 2017. Much of the time in my work, as in my
most recent book and my long-simmering idea
for a Hall of American Inspiration, I look to the past, to literature and
history, texts and figures, from across America’s many centuries of
post-contact existence, for models of inspiration that we can apply in our
present moment. But it’s just as important, any time but doubly so in dark
times, to find and celebrate the inspiring figures and voices that are part of
our own moment and society, to read and hear their words and learn about their
identities and careers and consider what we might learn from these contemporaries.
I’ve got lots of
ideas for folks and texts I might feature in the course’s five meetings: Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie and her TED
talks on perspectives and feminism; Ta-Nehisi
Coates and his public
scholarly journalism and personal
narrative on race, history, and the challenges
and possibilities of our own moment; Miyoko
Hikiji and her memoir
and political and social activism around the topic of gender,
sex, and the military; and José
Antonio Vargas and his journalism, documentary
filmmaking, and web
projects dedicated to issues of immigration, ethnicity, and defining America.
Any and all of those four figures would give us lots to read, watch, talk
about, contextualize, and learn from across our course’s five mid-March to
April meetings to be sure.
But that’s still
a couple months away, and so even more than usual I’d really, really appreciate
any and all suggestions for figures and/or texts that could help introduce us
to inspiring contemporary voices. Obviously it’d be important that these folks
have texts of some kind—written, multimedia, podcasts, you name it—so that we
can have ways to access them collectively, but that’s really my only
requirement. This is a class where I’d love the chance to be introduced myself
to some new voices, as well as to introduce them to the ALFA students, and that’s
gonna depend on getting suggestions and nominations from others. So you know
what to do—add such suggestions and nominations in comments, or email me with them directly, if
you would. Help me and us find inspiration when we need it most!
Last preview
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Suggestions
or nominations for this course? Other spring plans you’d highlight or share?
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