CHID Focus groups are usually run by an undergraduate student (advised by a UW faculty member or CHID instructor who will not attend the classes), or occasionally a graduate student or community member. They are a labor of love on the part of the person leading them and should also be a labor of love for the people participating in them. Focus Groups are worth 2-credits and are graded on a credit/no credit basis. Student-facilitators DO NOT give out grades! Grading is done through the CHID Program academic advisor and the faculty mentor.
Participation is key—these are discussion oriented classes and ALL students registered must be active members of the learning environment. This means that when you come to class you MUST be prepared to discuss the material presented. Please do not enroll in a focus group if you are looking for an easy 2-credit class. If you do, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. The workload is often heavier than in other 2-credit classes and active participation is a requirement!
NOTE: For the most recent information on focus group, please contact the CHID advisor at chid@uw.edu.
CHID 496C Till Death Do Us Part: Navigating Relationships and Sexuality around Conflicting Ideals
Facilitator: Jixia Ao (aojixia@uw.edu)
Description:
This class will explore the various ways people organize their sexual and romantic relationships. What are the current relationship norms, and why? How do we commodify and transact love and sex? We'll look at the dominant relationship models and ideals in the United States right now, as well as models that reject those norms, such as polyamory and sex work/prostitution.
CHID 496D Heroes & Monsters: Understanding Live-Action Role-Playing Games
Facilitator: Edmond Chang (changed@uw.edu)
Description:
IN AUGUST 1979, James Dallas Egbert III disappeared from Michigan State University. His disappearance, his characterization as a science fiction and fantasy fan and player of Dungeons & Dragons, and the subsequent investigation by Texas private investigator William C. Dear spawned newspaper speculations, made-for-TV movies, and urban legends of university students playing live-action role-playing games in the steam tunnels of their school--they became cautionary tales often ending in tragedy, loss, or death.
It is this sensationalist and paranoid attitude toward fantasy and science fiction, toward role-playing games like D&D, especially toward live-action RPGs that this focus group will take up and analyze as problematic. Though the Egbert case eventually revealed no causal connection between his disappearance, attempted suicide, and D&D, prejudice and the demonization of fantasy and RPGs became firmly fixed as a cultural logic about the real, the normal, the acceptable, and the responsible.
IN RESPONSE, Ursula K. Le Guin's 1979 essay "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" argued, "For fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy...They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom." How might we understand live-action RPGS or LARPs as more than just a misanthrope's escape? What are the possibilities of LARPs?
OUR FOCUS GROUP, as part of a continuing series on RPGs generated by the Critical Gaming Project at UW, will attempt to broadly historicize and contextualize live-action role-playing games in the US and will focus on the critical question of why this particular kind of gaming and fantasy is of cultural value. We will look at the cultural treatment of gaming, including news and apocryphal tales, documentary films like Darkon (2006) and Monster Camp (2007), and scholarship. Most importantly, the focus group will engage in actual live-action game play from basic mechanics to character creation to role-playing to adventuring. The course will meet once a week for 2 hours to engage guided discussion and observation, reflective writing, and play.
THE GAME SYSTEM we will play is Archaea, an independent, high-fantasy live action role-playing and wargaming system developed by Edmond Y. Chang.
Queer 101 is a heavily discussion based class centered around topics such as race, health, norms, access, history, bodies, and religion and how they intersect and interact with gender and sexuality. Assignments will include brief reading responses and a final creative project. For more information, please email uwqueer101@gmail.com.
CHID 496H: A Cultural Center for the Disability and Deaf Communities: Creating a Vision
Facilitator: Ann Luetzow (luetzowa@uw.edu)
Since confirming a physical location at the end of last school year, students have begun to plan for the opening of a cultural space that will serve the disability and Deaf communities on campus. We envision this CHID focus group as an academic space to discuss the social, philosophical and political motivations behind the Center and an opportunity to channel students’ ideas and energy into advancing this project. Our goals are to form an advisory board (consisting of students, faculty, and staff), write a mission statement and vision for the Center, as well as discuss what we want the Center to do and how we want it to function. We will invite students to discuss previous work around this initiative, as well as individuals on campus who are connected to the project and will participate in the advisory board to provide students with the context of this initiative. During class sessions, we will have discussions addressing themes including select topics in Disability and Deaf Studies, student activism, and intersections of academia and the Cultural Center
CHID 496J: Pseudosci 101: Scientific Imagination and Insanity Topic Description:
Facilitator: Brian Ellegood (ellegb@uw.edu)
This focus group will be aimed at examining in great detail not just pseudoscience, but conceptual beliefs held inside the scientific community and outside of it. Some questions which will be posed in this class are, what is pseudoscience? How do we determine the threshold between science and pseudoscience? How do we know when something has sufficient evidence to be considered scientific, more importantly what do we do with findings when they don't fit typical scientific norms? Most importantly we want to ask these questions while at the same time attempting to determine what makes an idea truly imaginative rather than insane or unfounded?
This class will have weekly readings sent out in the form of links to book articles as well as PDF's to give a framework for weekly discussions.
Additionally we will look critically at media portrayal of Pseudoscience and analyze how it is digested by mass culture.
CHID 496K: Focusing Groups: A Focus Group Focus Group
Facilitator: Blake Barnett (barnetbe@gmail.com)
This is a focus group for former focus group leaders to pause and reflect on the process of peer facilitation in focus groups. It will be a time to critically engage the structure of focus groups. This includes addressing structural questions like "who are focus groups for," in addition to more practical questions like "how can we make focus groups more supportive." Each week we will address a different topic related to the focus group process with the ultimate goal of creating proposals and feedback for the CHID community to help make focus groups more effective for everyone.
I have some specific topics in mind to help facilitate this process like looking at how CHID can get feedback from participants about focus groups, should focus groups resemble lectures or seminars, are two-credits an appropriate amount for focus groups, etc. However, I want this space to be based around peer facilitation and I hope to develop topics with other people so we can generate new ideas and touch on topics I may not have thought of.
Accordingly, if you would like to dedicate more time to the focus group and receive more credit to compensate you there will be an opportunity to do so. Please contact me at barnetbe@gmail.com to find out how.
Although the target audience is past focus group leaders, I believe that people who are thinking about leading focus groups could also learn and benefit from this conversation and are welcome. Additionally, people who have participated in Focus Groups and feel passionately about peer facilitation are welcome to attend.
I hope you will join me in constructively engaging the idea of focus groups and peer pedagogy in this focus group focus group.
CHID 496M: Video Games: Close Playing and Critical Reviews
Facilitator: Solon Scott (solons@uw.edu)
As video games have continued to evolve into so many different areas of life and culture, it is now our time as students to generate content that reflects more than just what we are told by online game journalists with five star rating systems and snappy one-liners. Instead, we as students are in a special position to create content that challenges the games that are created today, as well as how we understand them as critical gamers.
This focus group, as part of a continuing series on video games generated by the Critical Gaming Project at UW, will discuss and perform close playing. Like close reading, close playing requires careful and critical attention to how the game is played (or not played), to what kind of game it is, to what the game looks like or sounds like, to what the game world is like, to what choices are offered (or not offered) to the player, to what the goals of the game are, to how the game interacts with and addresses the player, to how the game fits into the real world. To engage these concepts, we will be playing an assortment of games with a range of different styles while reading and discussing reviews, critiques, and other written and visual articles on a range of topics from women as a part of the gaming community to how user-generated content and mods affect media.
This focus group is for anyone who would enjoy engaging in an in depth discussion about why people enjoy playing video games and what parts make them so enjoyable. It is a small group, so we are looking for anyone from any range of experiences who would like to add to the conversation.
CHID 496N The Malady of Music: Exploring the Link Between Madness & Creativity
Facilitator: Anne Holden (afholden@uw.edu)
Why are humans influenced to make, play, or listen to the music they do? How is mental illness (including manic depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.) regarded in society, and how has it affected musicians and their music? In what ways does public knowledge of an artist’s mental illness change the relationship the listener has with the music? What roles do substance abuse, medication, religious beliefs, and fame play in music and mental illness? How has institutionalization influenced different musicians?
Is music therapy a useful form of treatment?
This focus group will explore these ideas by learning the stories and listening to the music of many people that have been regarded to have a mental illness. Musicians that will be focused on include: Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Ian Curtis, Daniel Johnston, Brian Wilson, Charlie Parker… and many more.
CHID 496O: Occupation and Decolonization: Navigating Liberation in the Age of Neoliberalism
Facilitator: Cody Lestelle (cslestelle@gmail.com)
This focus group seeks to work toward a greater understanding of the Occupy movement. The methodology to be used in this focus group will involve positioning the group of us studying this phenomena as actors in relation to it.
CHID 496Q "From Scratch: The 2/20 Project"
Facilitator: Dylan Ward (anexclamationpoint@gmail.com)
This class will focus on the theory and practice of creating devised theater.
Using Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints technique as a model, participants will first examine the theory behind compositional work in theater, music, and dance, and then will examine practices to create this work. The final two weeks of the quarter will be devoted to creating a 20 minute piece of theater from scratch, without a budget, and from completely found materials. The class will meet for five 90 minute sessions during the quarter before rehearsing nightly for three hours during week 10 and finals week.
Participants will be expected to read on their own and complete research towards composing a piece of theater. A basic 8-step process will be outlined for creating the work, but the specific techniques used and schedule of events will be determined by the group during the 5th meeting. Readings will include Antonin Artaud, Berthold Brecht, Anne Bogart, John Cage, Delueze and Guattari, Konstantin Stanislavski, and Miguel Rodrigo Zapata.
Meeting Dates (Fridays - 430-6pm): Mar. 30th, Apr. 13th, 27th, May 11th, 25th
Rehearsal/Performance Dates: (MTWThFS – 530-9pm) May 28th- June 9th
CHID 496R: "What is the Right Livelihood in the Age of Neoliberalism"
Facilitator: Cody Lestelle (cslestelle@gmail.com)
Did going to college make it more difficult for you to find something you can honestly consider ethical employment? This focus group is practically oriented to coming up with ethical ways of maintaining our subsistence.
Autumn Quarter 2011
CHID 496B: Close Listening – Concept of the Modern Concept Album
SLN 11999
Facilitator Jacob Breier - jakeb1990@att.net
The course will deal with the capacity for music, specifically in the packaged form of the modern concept album, to deal cohesively with different sorts of themes, problems, etc. Potential course questions would include:
What ways can/does music uniquely grapple with themes/narratives? How does the concept album compare to other musically oriented methods of organizing and presenting themes, narratives and ideas? How does it compare to non-musical methods, e.g. prose, poetry, academic/analytical/critical writing, graphic novels, movies, television, video games etc.? What sorts of themes does music address well, and what sorts are better addressed otherwise? How do other art forms accompany music in the context of the concept album, and how important a role do/can/should these supplementary or complimentary art forms play with regards to the entire package? How does the concept album fare in the increasingly connected and free-market world of the internet?
CHID 496C: Racialization of Sport
SLN 12000
This class will discuss the process of racialization of sports in America, from a historical standpoint and from a modern perspective. The course will develop intersections of race and sports in a way that examines the strong presence of white supremacy in sport, from
childhood interactions up to the professional athletes that we idolize.
Topics of discussion will include racialization through media, language and through imagery created to maintain oppressive and exploitative conceptualizations in the world of sports.
CHID 496F: Sexual Identity in the Age of the Cyborg
SLN 12003
The human/machine dichotomy has long defined our culture’s epistemological and ontological narratives, determining what we code as natural or constructed, influencing how we situate and behave in, relate and interact to, the world. The flesh-metal hybrid cyborg directly blurs and breaches this
very boundary. This focus group will look at cyb/org dualism in relation to
sexual classifications of male/female, hetero/homo, cis/trans to examine “how worlds are made and unmade in order to foster certain forms of life”
(Haraway 1994). The cyborg, both systematic and affected, both product and disruption of binary conception, is a springboard for gender performances that both sustain and subversively disrupt notions of sexuality.
Prospective topics of discussion are the seminal works of Donna Haraway, Kate Hayles, Sandy Stone; science fiction with feminist and LGBTQ themes; ruminations of fembots, androids, gynoids, sex toys.
CHID 496G: Queer 101 – Reframing LGBT/Queer Narratives
SLN 12004
Queer 101 is a 2 credit discussion style class focusing on the analysis of Queer/LGBTQ histories, narratives about queerness and gender, and analysis of intersecting forms of oppression. The class will be taught from a liberatory perspective and will encourage critical analysis and understanding of the intersections of queerness, race, class, gender, ability, age, and other social identities.
Students can expect to do periodic readings for homework and a creative final project. Active participation in discussions and engagement with course material is required to receive credit.
CHID 496H: Theory and Practice: A Study with Wendy Brown
SLN 12005
Theory Into Practice: A Study with Wendy Brown Topic Description: This group will look at the idea of agency in a neoliberal society through the work of Wendy Brown. It will interrogate different forms of activism from legal reform to criticism. In November the focus group will have the opportunity to work with Professor Brown when she comes to visit the University. A good example of her writing style and the issues we will address is the article "Democracy and Bad Dreams," which can be accessed via Project Muse.
Spring Quarter 2011
CHID 496A: The study of International Horror Films
This is a course that will discuss how to watch foreign horror. Horror will be defined as a movie that exposes the darker side of the ID, or identity complex, and not just defined through the type of monster or amount of gore. Through that, students will learn to extract the cultural signifiers by learning to pinpoint the points of fear through standard cinematic techniques.This will be a new way to read a genre in movies that has, up until recently been considered a film genre without merit besides being a spectacle. Over the course of nine weeks, five movies would be watched in an in-depth analysis, and then one paper would occur at the end of the quarter on a specific country of choice comparing one of the films watched with one other and a reference to a third.
CHID 496C: The UW Food Coop: Visioning a Student-Powered Food System
The UWSFC began last year with a mission to bring nutritious, locally sourced and sustainable food to campus while empowering students in the process.
Throughout the course of the year we have gathered an enormous amount of student passion and have focused it towards finding a cafe space on campus.
As this vision comes to fruition, we hope that a CHID focus group will create an academic space for discussing the social, economic and political motivations for this project and bring new ideas and energy into our progress toward student-directed food options. An important component of this class will be the contribution of service hours to the Coop; this will include participation in Coop organizing through various committees, food preparation and networking and outreach. The study of cooperative organizing and the issues at play in the University food system, in combination with enactment and community building through student service, will provide a holistic perspective on food justice at the UW.
The course will include:
1-2 hours per week of class discussion addressing themes such as sustainable agriculture, cooperative and sustainable business models, food and student activism, animal rights, organizing at the UW, and the intersections of education and the Coop project.
CHID 496D: Heroes & Monsters: Understanding Live Action Role-Playing
As part of a continuing series on RPGs generated by the Critical Gaming Project at UW, will attempt to broadly historicize and contextualize live-action role-playing games in the US and will focus on the critical question of why this particular kind of gaming and fantasy is of cultural value. We will look at the cultural treatment of gaming, including news and apocryphal tales, films like 1982s Mazes and Monsters and more recently 2007 Monster Camp, and scholarship. Most importantly, the focus group will engage in actual live-action game play from basic mechanics to character creation to role-playing to adventuring. The course will meet once a week for 2 hours to engage guided discussion and observation, reflective writing, and play.
THE GAME SYSTEM we will play is Archaea, an independent, high-fantasy role-playing game by Edmond Y. Chang.
CHID 496E: Youth in Urban Space
Have you ever wondered how the space you live in has shaped you as a human or how you have shaped that space? In this group, we will explore the experiences of youth in urban space. We will look at different communities, organizations, and movements that are youth-led or youth-inspired. We will also share our ideas of how space, specifically urban space, facilitates those relationships. Through journaling, storytelling, guest speakers, and some field trips. This group will paint the picture of what it’s like for youth in urban space.
CHID 496F: Black Rapunzel & the Ivory Tower: African American Women in Higher Education
African American women are an underrepresented, overlooked group in the discussion of higher education, and their success and ability to graduate from an institution weighs on much more than intellect. In this focus group we will be discussing issues around race, gender and class in regards to educational achievement, opportunity and success. Some of the topics we will be discussing are stereotype threat, affirmative action, admissions policies, HBCUs vs. PWIs, racial identity and positive representation in schools. Some of the scholars we will be reviewing are bell hooks, Claude Steele, James Banks and Beverley Daniel Tatum. This focus group aims to highlight the struggles and successes of Black women in college settings so that their stories can be shared with young Black women interested in pursuing a higher education. This class is open to all students, while the focus will be on short stories of Black women’s experiences in higher education. We will be dialoguing, writing and doing some lite reading.
*The syllabus is done and guest speakers are to be announced
CHID 496G: Scientific Literacy: Weekly Discussions On Science in the News
The goal of this focus group is the pursuit of scientific literacy through weekly discussions about scientific articles taken from various news sources such as the New York Times. Each week will correspond with one or two topic, with focus group members bringing in and discussing an article related to that topic.
CHID 496H: I've learned something today: South Park, Politics and Satire
In our society, politically charged topics are often publicly spoken about in a reserved, politically correct fashion in order to avoid offending anybody. The television show South Park takes the opposite approach and discusses societal and political issues in a satirical and often offensive manner. This class will explore the effectiveness of this approach in opening up spaces for frank and honest discussions about sensitive issues.
CHID 496I: Folkus Group! American folk music, Russian folk of the 20th century, & Celtic music
I love folk music and want to learn more about it. Those who join my quest for musical knowledge will enjoy the many variations and developments of contemporary American folk music, Russian folk music of the 20th century, and Celtic music of the 19th century (here the term 'Celtic'
refers to Irish and Scottish folk, as well as the music created by immigrants in America from both nations during that time). Within these three categories, we will collectively investigate different instrumental arrangements, the instruments themselves and their individual origins, and apply cultural and historical context to the music in order to better situate our inquiry. Students will be required to attend at least two of the three days at the 40th annual NW Folklife Festival in Seattle Center May 27th to May 30th. We will also have occasional visits from local folk musicians.
Researching this topic will be a collaborative effort; I will just be leading the discussion. Students will pick from a list of topics provided in class, so they will learn about specific music and time periods that interest them.
CHID 496J: Marginalization, Mutants, and the PTB: Critical Joss Whedon Theory
Beyond vampires and high school drama, the works of Joss Whedon provide a socially salient site ripe for exploration in the realm of marginalized bodies, corporal theories, everyday philosophical dilemmas, and the socio-cultural construction of bodies and their relationships. Utilizing a relatively accessible body of work, such as Joss Whedon's ("Buffy","Angel", "Firefly", "Dollhouse", etc.), to explore loaded topics like racial and gendered oppression, sexuality/love/attraction, forgiveness and vengeance, provides not only a new and novel means of reconsidering common interdisciplinary issues, it also elicits a more consistent critical examination of popular media and culture.
Through employing Joss Whedon's characters, stories, and realities, this focus group will examine what it means to be "different"; what creates and sustains power and agency; and the development of identity amidst (and
despite) the rigid walls of binary paradigmatic thought.
CHID 496K: Queer 101
This is a discussion style class focusing on the analysis of Queer/ LGBTQ histories, contemporary issues and experiences. The class will be taught from a liberatory perspective and will encourage critical analysis and understanding of the intersections of queerness, race, class, gender, ability, age, and other social identities.
CHID 496L: The Uncanny in Film, Fiction, and Technology
What do haunted houses, zombies, and robots have in common? They are all examples of the uncanny. But what does “the uncanny”
mean? What distinguishes it from something that is simply scary or strange?
We will unpack the term’s etymology and with this theoretical framework, we will have the basis for exploring the uncanny in different media. In literature and pop psychology, tropes such as the doppelgänger are important in order to understand how the uncanny is evoked. Even when we know we are reading a work of fiction, we still easily fall prey to the author’s deception. Experiences of déjà vu also fall under this category. How might the phrase an “uncanny resemblance” actually be redundant? In robotics, the uncanny valley signifies the point at which we feel repulsion and distrust toward an object that is too human-like for comfort. Is there something in our biology that makes us hard-wired to fear things that are on the threshold of familiarity, but somehow deformed or unnatural? Science fiction and horror films, such as Blade Runner and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, can offer insight into these questions. By submerging ourselves in these experiences of the uncanny, we will ultimately be forced to contemplate our own being in new and unfamiliar ways.
CHID 496M: Kripping Culture: Disability Identity and Representation in Contemporary Media
This focus group will explore representations of disability in contemporary media, including blogs, facebook, youtube, film, and television. We will investigate media narratives of varying disability experiences including body image, race, class, gender, disability culture, and sexuality. The focus group will analyze varying disability portrayals in two different ways:
beginning with an analysis of media produced mostly outside the disability community (largely mainstream media). We will then continue our explorations through analysis of media produced by people with disabilities. Students will think critically about how a disability culture or community is being formed through the use of media by people with disabilities. To welcome students with varying understandings of disability, we will start the quarter with a brief introduction to disability studies, social model of disability, and a basic introduction to media studies before delving into a more in-depth analysis of the intersections between media and disability.
CHID 496N: Ground-Level Economic Control
This focus group will recognize forms of direct and collective action that aim to recover community-centered economic and socio-political control over the means of living. What does self-determination mean when it is lived out on a daily basis from the standpoint of a participant? Topics will range from global land repossession, squatting, and rent strikes; to fights for power in the workplace that move beneath or outside of hierarchical unions; to the establishment of co-operatives and participatory methods in the creation of responsive and humane economies.
We will: 1) maintain conversation with regional organizations, and 2) brainstorm the outline of a program for financial literacy.
Winter Quarter 2011
CHID 496 A: THE PLANETS: A LOOK AT THE SOLAR SYSTEM THROUGH GUSTAV HOLST’S MUSIC AND MODERN ASTRONOMICAL DATA
Peer Facilitator: Ryan Evans
rmarslander@gmail.com This focus group will explore the planets of our solar system through the lens of British composer Gustav Holst’s seven movement orchestral suite, The Planets Op. 32. We will explore early astronomers and models of thinking about the planets as well as comparing them to current astronomy and the data collected from modern space probes and explorer robots. It will be done through a truly CHID method of combining disciplines including history of science, astronomy, music and philosophy.
CHID 496 B: HOW CAN WE ETHICALLY ENGAGE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE?
Peer Facilitator: Melanie Robinson robmelan@uw.edu
How can undergraduates participate in the human rights movement? What are the consequences of doing international volunteer work? How can human rights be realized at a local level? Could doing research for social justice organizations resolve these issues? How can this be done ethically? We’ll discuss these questions with the goal of imagining a structure for a research-based class.
CHID 496 C: PERN: DEEPER THAN DRAGONS
Peer Facilitator: Eliot Hemingway elhcorb@uw.edu
This focus group is a collective exploration of ideas of science, culture, identity, and more through Anne McCaffery’s Pern novels.
CHID 496 D: CHALLENGING FORTH: METHODS OF CRITICAL PLAY, AN INTRODUCTION TO GAME STUDIES
Peer Facilitator: Eliot Hemingway elhcorb@uw.edu
An introduction to game studies focused on ideas of play, representations, and the nature of technology itself. Assigned material includes digital games and assignments include game play, readings, and critical synthesis.
CHID 496E: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON DISABILITY
Peer Facilitator: Rasanna rhosze@uw.edu
This focus group will examine the social, environmental and political factors surrounding disability from a multinational perspective. Students will select a location of their choice and research regional and cultural outlooks on disability, as well as historical and contemporary policies and law pertaining to disability. We will begin the quarter with a brief introduction to disability studies to prepare students to interpret and contextualize their findings within the disability studies framework.
CHID 496F: CLOSE PLAYING, OR, BIOSHOCK AS PRACTICUM
Peer Facilitators: Timothy Welsh twelsh@uw.edu & Edmond Chang changed@uw.edu
As part of a continuing series on video games generated by the Critical Gaming Project at UW, will discuss, develop, and do close playing. Like close reading, close playing requires careful and critical attention to how the game is played (or not played), to what kind of game it is, to what the game looks like or sounds like, to what the game world is like, to what choices are offered (or not offered) to the player, to what the goals of the game are, to how the game interacts with and addresses the player, to how the game fits into the real world, and so on. To engage all of this, we will take 2K's critically-acclaimed first-person shooter Bioshock (Xbox360, PS3, PC) as our central gamic text (though other supplemental games will be included as needed).
CHID 496G: SERIOUS RESEARCH MODE: CRITICAL APPROACHES TO BUFFY (& STUFF)
Peer Facilitators: Jane Lee jlee33@u.washington.edu and Ed Chang changed@uw.edu
When Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer television debuted in 1997, no one could have foreseen the cult following, the spinoffs, the cultural phenomenon, and the critical and scholarly interest it would inspire. Now, over a decade later, “Buffy Studies” is an established field that draws on a range of disciplines and perspectives. Our focus group will take up some of these critical approaches including film and genre studies, Victorian studies, feminism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and queer theory. Our goal is to address the critical question “Why Buffy?” and how might Buffy help us think about the recent resurgence of vampire culture, about the role of monsters, and about cultural anxieties over the body, the self, and the Other. Overall, we hope to explore in general the value of examining pop culture.
CHID 496H: QUEER 101: ANALYSIS OF QUEER/LGBTQ HISTORIES
Facilitator: Jennifer Self qcenter@uw.edu
Queer 101 will focus on the analysis of Queer/ LGBTQ histories, contemporary issues and experiences. The class will be taught from a liberatory perspective and will encourage critical analysis and understanding of the intersections of queerness, race, class, gender, ability, age, and other social identities.
CHID 496K: RE-IMAGINING JUSTICE: ALTERNATIVES TO THE POLICE
Peer Facilitator: Cody Lestelle cslestelle@uw.edu
This course is initiated by the Antechamber Collective. We will utilize this space to critically examine the “Police” and consider how best to transition to more democratically accountable modes of community safety.
CHID 496L: ANTICOLONIAL FEMINISM
Peer Facilitator: Chris Schultz schulc@uw.edu
Come explore the writings of radical women of color who shed light on defiance in the face of first world colonialism, the exclusion of women and trans people’s perspectives in race movements, the invisibility of women of color in the feminist movement, and the need for transformative approaches to violence against queer identities and communities of color.
CHID 496 M: PLAY MATTERS
Peer Facilitator: Amanda Chan amandc@uw.edu
All boards games have something to offer by way of academic examination. The choices that designers and artists make reveal something about the sociopolitical environment in which they create games. The games that players choose to play send a message about their background and opinions. Our focus group will use these assumptions as a jumping off point into deeper discussions.
We will play a variety of board games alongside matched readings what game and text can illuminate about each other that might otherwise remain hidden. What can “At the Gates of Loyang” tell us about Baudrillardian Simualcra and Simulation? What statements does “Small World” make about conquest, colonialism and civilizations?
This group will meet once a week for 2 hours to engage in discussion and reflective play. Throughout the quarter, we will focus on the mechanics and aesthetics of each game, supplementing the discussion with weekly readings.
CHID 496O: SELF – CARE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE: HOW DO WE PREVENT BURN OUT
Peer Facilitator: Christy Forrester csforrester@yahoo.com
Self-Care IS Social Justice‖ explores the notion of self-care as a form of social justice, an idea that emerged through the collaboration of three very different people from very different fields. We all know that working toward and for social justice involve intense fatigue, and often leads to self-destructive practices in the name of ―the cause.‖ And while we all know the personal pitfalls of overextending ourselves or working too hard with too little reward, this pain is usually individuated and rarely enters into conversation about ―the movement‖ in general. In our workshop we want to interrupt this cycle of how we speak about personal exhaustion and burnout. We believe that when we expand exhaustion discourse, and move it from the personal realm into the political; we then can begin a real conversation about sustainable social justice work. Reimagining where personal exhaustion ends and political work begins can best happen, we feel, in collaboration and community. The three workshop facilitators have found energy; support and joy in our interdisciplinary collaboration with each other, and our workshop will highlight this work as an example of self-care on both an individual personal level as well as how this must be thought of as social justice.
Creating a Focus Group
Focus Groups, Winter 2011
CHID 496 A
Title: THE PLANETS: A LOOK AT THE SOLAR SYSTEM THROUGH GUSTAV HOLST’S MUSIC AND MODERN ASTRONOMICAL DATA
Peer Facilitator: Ryan Evans rmarslander@gmail.com
This focus group will explore the planets of our solar system through the lens of British composer Gustav Holst’s seven movement orchestral suite, The Planets Op. 32. We will explore early astronomers and models of thinking about the planets as well as comparing them to current astronomy and the data collected from modern space probes and explorer robots. It will be done through a truly CHID method of combining disciplines including history of science, astronomy, music and philosophy.
CHID 496 B
Title: HOW CAN WE ETHICALLY ENGAGE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE?
Peer Facilitator: Melanie Robinson robmelan@uw.edu
How can undergraduates participate in the human rights movement? What are the consequences of doing international volunteer work? How can human rights be realized at a local level? Could doing research for social justice organizations resolve these issues? How can this be done ethically? We’ll discuss these questions with the goal of imagining a structure for a research-based class.
CHID 496 C
Title: PERN: DEEPER THAN DRAGONS
Peer Facilitator: Eliot Hemingway elhcorb@uw.edu
This focus group is a collective exploration of ideas of science, culture, identity, and more through Anne McCaffery’s Pern novels.
CHID 496 D
Title: CHALLENGING FORTH: METHODS OF CRITICAL PLAY, AN INTRODUCTION TO GAME STUDIES
Peer Facilitator: Eliot Hemingway elhcorb@uw.edu
An introduction to game studies focused on ideas of play, representations, and the nature of technology itself. Assigned material includes digital games and assignments include game play, readings, and critical synthesis.
CHID 496E
Title: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON DISABILITY
Peer Facilitator: Rasanna rhosze@uw.edu
This focus group will examine the social, environmental and political factors surrounding disability from a multinational perspective. Students will select a location of their choice and research regional and cultural outlooks on disability, as well as historical and contemporary policies and law pertaining to disability. We will begin the quarter with a brief introduction to disability studies to prepare students to interpret and contextualize their findings within the disability studies framework.
CHID 496F
Title: CLOSE PLAYING, OR, BIOSHOCK AS PRACTICUM
Peer Facilitators: Timothy Welsh twelsh@uw.edu & Edmond Chang changed@uw.edu
As part of a continuing series on video games generated by the Critical Gaming Project at UW, will discuss, develop, and do close playing. Like close reading, close playing requires careful and critical attention to how the game is played (or not played), to what kind of game it is, to what the game looks like or sounds like, to what the game world is like, to what choices are offered (or not offered) to the player, to what the goals of the game are, to how the game interacts with and addresses the player, to how the game fits into the real world, and so on. To engage all of this, we will take 2K's critically-acclaimed first-person shooter Bioshock (Xbox360, PS3, PC) as our central gamic text (though other supplemental games will be included as needed).
CHID 496G
Title: SERIOUS RESEARCH MODE: CRITICAL APPROACHES TO BUFFY (& STUFF)
Peer Facilitators: Jane Lee jlee33@u.washington.edu and Ed Chang changed@uw.edu
When Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer television debuted in 1997, no one could have foreseen the cult following, the spinoffs, the cultural phenomenon, and the critical and scholarly interest it would inspire. Now, over a decade later, “Buffy Studies” is an established field that draws on a range of disciplines and perspectives. Our focus group will take up some of these critical approaches including film and genre studies, Victorian studies, feminism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and queer theory. Our goal is to address the critical question “Why Buffy?” and how might Buffy help us think about the recent resurgence of vampire culture, about the role of monsters, and about cultural anxieties over the body, the self, and the Other. Overall, we hope to explore in general the value of examining pop culture.
CHID 496H
Title: QUEER 101: ANALYSIS OF QUEER/LGBTQ HISTORIES
Facilitator: Jennifer Self qcenter@uw.edu
Queer 101 will focus on the analysis of Queer/ LGBTQ histories, contemporary issues and experiences. The class will be taught from a liberatory perspective and will encourage critical analysis and understanding of the intersections of queerness, race, class, gender, ability, age, and other social identities.
CHID 496K
Title: RE-IMAGINING JUSTICE: ALTERNATIVES TO THE POLICE
Peer Facilitator: Cody Lestelle cslestelle@uw.edu
This course is initiated by the Antechamber Collective. We will utilize this space to critically examine the “Police” and consider how best to transition to more democratically accountable modes of community safety.
CHID 496L
Title: ANTICOLONIAL FEMINISM
Peer Facilitator: Chris Schultz schulc@uw.edu
Come explore the writings of radical women of color who shed light on defiance in the face of first world colonialism, the exclusion of women and trans people’s perspectives in race movements, the invisibility of women of color in the feminist movement, and the need for transformative approaches to violence against queer identities and communities of color.
CHID 496 M
Title: PLAY MATTERS
Peer Facilitator: Amanda Chan amandc@uw.edu
All boards games have something to offer by way of academic examination. The choices that designers and artists make reveal something about the sociopolitical environment in which they create games. The games that players choose to play send a message about their background and opinions. Our focus group will use these assumptions as a jumping off point into deeper discussions.
We will play a variety of board games alongside matched readings what game and text can illuminate about each other that might otherwise remain hidden. What can “At the Gates of Loyang” tell us about Baudrillardian Simualcra and Simulation? What statements does “Small World” make about conquest, colonialism and civilizations?
This group will meet once a week for 2 hours to engage in discussion and reflective play. Throughout the quarter, we will focus on the mechanics and aesthetics of each game, supplementing the discussion with weekly readings.
CHID 496O
Title: SELF – CARE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE: HOW DO WE PREVENT BURN OUT
Peer Facilitator: Christy Forrester csforrester@yahoo.com
Self-Care IS Social Justice‖ explores the notion of self-care as a form of social justice, an idea that emerged through the collaboration of three very different people from very different fields. We all know that working toward and for social justice involve intense fatigue, and often leads to self-destructive practices in the name of ―the cause.‖ And while we all know the personal pitfalls of overextending ourselves or working too hard with too little reward, this pain is usually individuated and rarely enters into conversation about ―the movement‖ in general. In our workshop we want to interrupt this cycle of how we speak about personal exhaustion and burnout. We believe that when we expand exhaustion discourse, and move it from the personal realm into the political; we then can begin a real conversation about sustainable social justice work. Reimagining where personal exhaustion ends and political work begins can best happen, we feel, in collaboration and community. The three workshop facilitators have found energy; support and joy in our interdisciplinary collaboration with each other, and our workshop will highlight this work as an example of self-care on both an individual personal level as well as how this must be thought of as social justice.