A blog for SUNY Geneseo students and faculty interested in American Studies
The concept of flow, as described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, is “the state of total involvement in an activity that requires complete concentration”. When experiencing flow, an individual: becomes completely absorbed in an activity, does the activity out of interest, receives a sense of joy, and has feelings of accomplishment. In his research study on the concept of flow, Csikszentmihaly writes that:
“People are happy not because of what they do, but because of how they do it”.
The trees bloom with green and the wind carries through Sturges Hall. I am sitting where the benches are in between the Gazebo and Sturges Hall. I put down my book as one of my friends enters the room. They were wearing a grey long-sleeve shirt and black pants. That outfit felt all too similar to the clothes of the past summer. Just as I go to speak, my friend stops me. They look at the horizon; it seemed like the edge of the horizon was gobbling up the sun.
“Kazon, I’m transferring.” They said plainly.
I look at them and then back at my book; this time at the book cover. I scan over the cover, the title of the book: Between the World and Me. I look up at my friend and I let out a sigh.
“I see, I wish you could have been the first to say that.” And the conversation went on from there.
The sun had fallen below the horizon and I wave my friend a good night as they walk off to Monroe Hall. I turn away and walk into the entrance into Sturges Hall. The closest entrance. To my left is an art installation. It was by my friend and it was about retention rates for SUNY Geneseo students. The retention rates for students of color, particularly black students.
Continue reading “GENES『E』O: The Myriad of Navigating Geneseo’s Binaries [7]”
“How shall man measure Progress where the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure, — is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?” ~ W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
At the behest of Professor Lytton Smith we rove around Welles 216 like pinballs, attempting to consciously consider the space and our mosey about it in the context of the concept of line. We circle around one another, around desks, a few circle around the desk at the front (The back? The north? The whiteboard-side? In any sense, it is an area generally designated as the professor’s space when class is in session), some change direction, and someone exits the room and strolls down the hallway and back. In both this session and another that Professor Smith leads later in the semester, he focuses us on line (in line!). Lines in poems, lines in maps, lines in prints, in paintings, in drawings, lines in code, lines in roads, lines in paths. It was fascinating (at least to me) to dive deep into the spatial connotations that the concept of lines brought to these many various contexts. Continue reading “Lost in Space, Episode 2: The One About Progress or What’s in a Line (On a Line? Is It Even a Line?)?”
History has always been one of those subjects that I didn’t like, and only recently have I started to question why this is. Is it that I don’t care about history, or do I just not like the way that it has been taught? I find it highly unlikely that I don’t care about history because it is something that permeates every subject of learning. History is just things that happened in the past, and all the knowledge we have today is built off of those things, so why is it that I haven’t enjoyed the subject itself?
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.
I don’t plan on this blog post being very long or interesting. I just desire, and probably need, a space to reflect on my overall experience with this course. A couple of blog posts ago I detailed how I have been having trouble putting the ingredients together all semester long. In her comments on that post, Dr. McCoy politely inquired why I didn’t ask for help sooner and referenced Mary Rutigliano’s epigraph from the syllabus. Little did she know that I was working on a whole blog post attempting to address this matter that was based on Mary’s quote.
During one class this semester, we were given directions to ask each other about a term or a concept on which we would like some clarification. Within my small group, I asked about the term “both/and” since I feel like I hear it in class all the time, but it is said in so many different contexts that I hadn’t been able to pin down the meaning. Claire Corbeaux and Brittney Bennett helped me get some clarification on this term, telling me that it is generally used to describe something that can be labeled as either/or as well as both. While this definition initially seemed a bit too similar to the word itself, I used it to venture a guess that almost anything can be seen as a both/and because almost anything can be seen in any context. Continue reading “Combining Communities”
Hi! I am back again with another blog post! I’ll admit, I have been putting off writing my last few posts but it was only for the sole reason that I was out of ideas on what I could write about. I usually pick the topics I wish to explore in my posts beforehand and then at some point actually write said posts. The problem? I ran out of topics. But naturally, all writers block comes to an end. And now I have come to explain to you why this is not the end. Or at least not for me. As I have begun to write my final reflection about the INTD 288 course two things have come to my attention. One is that I really loved taking this class even though I usually felt more confused than anything. Two, I realized how this class introduced me to so many topics that I wish to explore more in the future. My second realization I feel is more important because as a student in the INTD 288 course, I am always pushed to dig deeper to find more knowledge and understanding of any given topic. Continue reading “This is NOT the End”
A few months ago, our class had the pleasure of visiting Dr. Cynthia Hawkins-Owen in the Bertha V.B. Lederer Gallery where she was able to give us a more comprehensive description and deeper understanding of everything that goes into running a gallery. I would venture that quite a few of us, including myself, were surprised at how much Dr. Hawkins-Owen does on a daily basis to bring together new and exciting exhibits!
In addition to teaching college classes, I believe Dr. Hawkins-Owen said that her job entails five primary responsibilities (each with a vast subset of other tasks), just a few of which are administration, curation, and maintaining the permanent collection. Getting out announcements, making and distributing posters, maintaining public relations, and keeping up with the online representations of the gallery and everything to do with it are all part of her administrative duties. In terms of curating, Dr. Hawkins-Owen must look for unique art and artists whose work she would like to display, she must communicate with the artists to gauge which of their pieces they actually want to show, attend meetings with the artists, their representatives, and others, help move art to and from the Gallery, go through each piece and record any damage or lack thereof, install each piece and take them down at the end of the exhibit, etc. The list goes on! I was simply shocked listening to Dr. Hawkins-Owen speak of the work she does, because so little of it is visible to us, the viewers, when we attend a gallery opening or go to admire these works. Continue reading “The Permanent Collection”
This semester, one of our required course texts was W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk. In the text, we were introduced to the term “double consciousness,” although perhaps some of us were already familiar with the term. However, for those who might not be familiarized with the concept, the term “double consciousness” works as a tool to express the complexities of the black experience. It delves into the assertion that as a person of color, one will always have a multi-faceted identity due to the injustices penetrated in the United States. Du Bois’ best describes this as the following:
“The sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face (Du Bois).” Continue reading “W.E.B Du Bois, Double Consciousness, Double Standards”