Cookbook: Part 3

In the interest of continuing from my last “cookbook,” I wanted to look and reflect on the specific goals this class wishes its participants to meet (from the syllabus). My writing here is quite informal, but hopefully makes both some meaningful connections and serves to showcase just how much my classmates and I learned.

*5/3/19* Our campus is in turmoil, and it is nothing new nor is it confined to our campus. I have found that most people wish to deny harm is happening rather than dealing with it. While I wish to retain the original hopeful spirit of this post, I acknowledge that there may be those who do not feel that this class met its goals, or that this class does not matter because the entire campus was not involved. However, I wish to push back on those claims because I do feel like this course taught me useful skills and information. Additionally, the fact that these events and reactions, and non-reactions, to them have hurt us means that we care about and recognize something is wrong. I believe caring is the first step, because if no one cared then these events will continue without prejudice.  I feel that this class has helped to prepare me to care, to make a difference in the future, and I cannot believe that nothing will change because of our knowledge, empathy, and perhaps our newfound activism.

•Acquire knowledge about Prince’s life, influences, processes, and work;

Check. I am sure there are many more qualified people to write Prince’s biography, but I do feel that my classmates and I could do a pretty decent job of it (edited by Dr. McCoy of course). It was especially unique and a great learning experience to have Prince serve as an artist-in-residence at SUNY Geneseo and to be able to hear him speak again in early April at his “Kitchen Talk” lecture. It was incredibly valuable to be able to watch Prince at work and to collaborate in his community-driven art project.

Additionally, though I was not able to go to Kim Vaz-Deville’s lecture, my classmates and I discussed it during the following class period and I could tell how much they had gotten from hearing her speak about baby-doll culture and why it is of interest to her.

•Ask questions of the artist’s work in context of multiple disciplinary perspectives;

Check. Simply in my last couple blog posts I have explored Prince’s work through the lens of geography, history, theology, English, and art criticism. In my reflective paper, I will be exploring other disciplines in which I have come to question Prince’s art through. Based on just a couple of my classmates posts, we have also looked at Prince’s work through lens of physics (Claire), music (Brian & Cindy), sustainability (all), math (Devin), and dance (Brooke & Sarah-Anne).

•Apply those questions to build the foundation for a collaborative book on Prince’s work;

I think check? Dr. McCoy has mentioned that she wishes to collaborate with the class to write a book, presumably,  on the experience of the course and what we learned. I feel that many of my classmates will be more than willing to help Dr. McCoy in this endeavor (also, see above regarding my comment about the class being able to write Prince’s biography)

•Demonstrate the ability to solve problems both individually and collaboratively;

The collaborative blog post was a doozy. I was very scared at first that my group was not going to get it done and that it would be awful. I think Dr. McCoy and the supporting professors each gave us unique tools to be able to problem solve on our own and also as a group. In fact, the more my group worked on our collaborative blog post, the easier it became to sort through our ideas and write something meaningful and complete. At the end of that process, I was glad to have been able to work with a group of my classmates to create what I think is a great blog post.

I cannot necessarily speak to my classmates’ individual abilities to problem solve that may have been enhanced by this course, but I believe that mine has been so enhanced. An example of this stems from my feeling of disconnect with the course and its materials towards the beginning of the semester. Believe it or not, simply figuring out that I needed to be thinkING on the materials throughout my daily life and actively trying to make connections was something I feel I problem solved my way through.

•Contribute to conversations about art and justice throughout Geneseo’s departments, divisions, and offices, and perhaps beyond Geneseo’s campus

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I think that I am going to leave this class and SUNY Geneseo overall with a greater understanding of art and justice because of this course. I feel incredibly privileged that I have been able to be a part of this.

•Reflect upon any changes in disciplinary perspectives.

See entirety of “The Art of Steve Prince” blog category and our end of the semester reflective papers. The papers in my small group seem to be going really well. It has been interesting to hear what word or phrase has stood out to people throughout this course. I was also initially surprised that none of the ideas for reflective papers have really been overlapping, but then I remembered how much this class has covered and the immense range of reactions and take-aways that my classmates and I have had respectively. I am hopeful that my time spent reflecting will yield cohesive thoughts and evidence of thinkING and learning.

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