WEBVTT

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PROFESSOR: This idea
of social practice

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is one that a lot of
theorists and critics

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have talked about
and tried to frame.

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I think of social
practice as an engagement

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in art-making within a more
recent contemporary moment,

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although there are historical
antecedents perhaps

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many decades prior to now.

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We might think, in, relatively
speaking, last 30 to 50 years,

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some of these pieces
start to come together.

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But one person
who I've looked at

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to help theorize this
notion of social practice

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is educator and
artist Pablo Helguera.

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Helguera says--
unlike social work

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that aims for
betterment of humanity,

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defending human dignity,
and strengthening

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human relationships, a socially
engaged artist may subscribe

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to those same values but
make work that ironizes,

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problematizes, and even
enhances the tensions

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around those subjects in
order to provoke reflection.

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So it's that end
part of the phrase--

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to provoke reflection-- that
I bring into the classroom

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or that I try to center some of
my work around this idea of--

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what might we do to
provoke reflection,

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not only in other people,
but also in myself?

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Perhaps the work becomes a
provocation in that sense.

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And why would we
want to do that?

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Well, Helguera says we
want to do that perhaps

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to discover something
in the process.

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These artists, he
considers them--

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renames them-- free
agents, if you will.

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They insert themselves
into the most unexpected

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social environments.

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And they do so in
ways that break away

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from disciplinary
boundaries, hoping

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to discover something
new in the process.

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So the idea of inserting
oneself into an unexpected place

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or to perform a certain behavior
or certain interaction when

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it's not expected,
we would do that

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hoping to discover
something in the process.

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So these two terms--

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socially engaged art
and social practice--

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are connected.

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Helguera prefers
socially engaged art

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because it still has
that word art in it.

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He shortens it to be SEA.

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But this idea of social
practice is a wider range,

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is a term that seems to be a
bit more widely encompassing

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of the range of practices that
might fit those definitions.

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So to go on, just a couple
of more bits from Helguera.

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Again, there are other folks
like Claire Bishop and Grant

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Kester and other folks
who theorize and talk

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about socially engaged art.

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But I find Helguera's
approach quite useful.

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So he talks about
socially engaged art

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or social practice
as a multi-layered

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and a participatory engagement.

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He says that there
are these structures--

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multiple structures
or multiple layers--

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among which are
nominal participation,

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directed participation,
creative participation,

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and collaborative.

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So there might be multiple
ways to participate or engage

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the public or other individuals
within this practice.

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Helguera also talks about the
idea of how these practices are

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linked to other disciplines.

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Specifically, we find
tension between art practice

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and sociology, or
social practice.

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But that trying to make sense
of those tensions and say it's

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more art, it's like 85% this, or
16% of this something-- that's

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not what he's talking about.

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He says we want to stay
in that unresolved space.

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It comes at us perhaps
through a sense

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of art practices and
disciplinary considerations.

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But that we want to remain
in that unresolved space.

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We want it to be a bit messy.

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So here's a bit of a
longer one, and then we'll

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move beyond some
of the theorizing.

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Helguera says social
interaction occupies

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a central and inextricable
part of any socially engaged

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artwork.

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You've got to have the
social interaction.

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Just doing something and
then hang it up and not

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having other people
become participants at one

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of those layers is not enough.

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Although one might
argue that any artwork

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is a socially engaged practice.

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Once you put, let's say,
a painting or a sculpture

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out to be seen, at least
one person is seeing it.

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It's already an engaged
in a social relationship.

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But Helguera goes further.

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He says socially engaged art
is a hybrid, multidisciplinary

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activity that exists somewhere
between art and non-art.

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And what has to happen is,
you have to have actual--

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and not hypothetical,
not imagined--

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social action.

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You actually have to
engage with other people.

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So last week outside in
front of the building,

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we created ceramic
water filters.

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We mixed clay and
sawdust, and we

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had several people stop by
to see what we were up to,

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get their hands dirty.

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We brought that mixture of
clay and sawdust back upstairs.

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And we made ceramic
water filters.

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And these water filters will
render contaminated water

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with microbes and pathogens,
it will render it potable.

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And so this practice of
performing the construction

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and the production of
ceramic water filters

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fits within Helguera's notion
of socially engaged art.

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So I'm telling you that is
kind of a back step to what we

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did last week, but also to
give you a specific example.

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But then I want to give
you some other examples.

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And some of the examples
that I want to share with you

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push this idea of
telling stories that

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might not be told otherwise.

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I was in a course.

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I was teaching a course a few
years ago to undergraduate art

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education students.

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We're trying to make sense
of-- what is it that art does?

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Why are we teaching art?

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What is the central
importance, or what

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seems to be at the core?

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Not that there might
be a singular core.

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But there could
be multiple cores.

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And one of the students
said, you know what?

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I think art allows us to tell
stories that we would not

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be able to tell otherwise.

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In some ways, we might
not be able to tell them,

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or we probably shouldn't tell
them otherwise as completely

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through art practice.

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And so I kind of
latch onto that.

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But I'd like to add
the difficult stories.

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The work that I try
to do is interested

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in those difficult stories that
might not be told otherwise.

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Not that they're
not told, but they

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wouldn't be told
in the same ways

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that socially engaged
art would do that.

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So as I think
about this approach

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to telling difficult stories, I
think of the word double-take--

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when you see something and
then you have to look again.

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This is a double-take, right?

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You see it once, but it
caused you to stop and take

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a second look.

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We might think of
research in the same way.

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We can search.

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But when we research,
we search again.

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It's to look again, to
do this double-take.

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I also appreciate the
idea of making trouble.

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Not only the idea of
troubling something

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through the making of objects
or the making of experiences

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or making of social actions,
but the making of trouble

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in the idea of troubling
things that others

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have made, whether they be
objects or social constructs

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or ideologies.

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So it's this idea of trouble
making and making trouble

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that I like to play with.

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And there's still images from
one of the Marx Brothers films

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where Harpo and Groucho,
essentially the mirror breaks,

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and they're
mirroring each other.

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So there's all this
double-take going on.

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They're looking
and looking again.

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And so you have this idea
of visuality happening,

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the perspective of the viewer.

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But it's through this
social interaction.

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And there a number of
iterations of that Marx Brothers

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mirror scene that
play out in cartoons,

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that play out in other stories.

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So other ways that I've made
trouble in the past was--

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and to think about
what we're seeing

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and how we're seeing it--

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was to take a look at February.

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Quite often, I have been
invited to give talks

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at schools or at
other institutions.

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And they like to bring
me in in February.

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I guess it's because February
is the month of Valentine's Day,

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and they know that I'm a
very passionate person.

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But if they look more
closely at my work,

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they say I deal with
some difficult issues,

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and not the least of which
is the construct of racism.

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And that's also the month where
you have Black History Month.

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And so I'm pretty sure
that's why they bring me in.

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So if we look at February
a bit differently,

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if we engage with
that month, not only

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is it the month where we--

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let's look at a specific
group of others,

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which suggests there is another
construct against which we are

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situating African-Americans.

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But also the idea
of February being

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the month for Valentine's
Day, is it's shortest month

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of the year.

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And the shortest
month of the year

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is the year we say-- go tell
other people how much you

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love them.

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I mean, you would think a
month with 31 days would

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be a better choice for that.

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Or maybe all year
long we should think

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in more passionate
and considerate ways.

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So this is the work I
did a number of years

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ago that revolved around
those two concepts.

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I also am interested in
this idea of disruption.

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I mentioned this
briefly last week.

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And I think disruption
happens in a number of ways--

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pushing back, questioning.

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I'm interested in questioning
answers rather than answering

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questions.

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One of the ways I've done that
is, I've looked at barber shops

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as pedagogical spaces,
as curriculum spaces.

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What can we learn
in a barber shop?

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And I wrote an article
about Pat's Barber Shop

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in Norfolk, Virginia.

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And I tried to make
the case that what

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happens in a barbershop is a
hyper-textual, multi-layered,

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multifaceted, learner-centered
space of inquiry.

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That you might go in
trying to get a haircut,

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but you come out
with an education.

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And this happens in all
sorts of service locations--

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hair salons and other places
where conversation becomes

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essential to those locations.

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I've also written about
digital technology.

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When my wife and I
learned we were expecting

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our birth of our daughter,
I started to think-- well,

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that's fantastic.

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And I thought--
oh, my goodness I'm

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going to be someone's parent.

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And, oh, I need to
think this through now.

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This is a big deal.

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So I started writing
myself a series of emails

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to explain to our unborn
child who I thought I was

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and what I was working through.

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And so that series
of emails became

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an article, or a chapter, an
email from a digital daddy.

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And I was trying to
make sense of how

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her future existence and
identity would be mediated

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through digital technology.

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But what came through in
the process of that was her

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multi-ethnic identity and the
ways that I imagined camera

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technology,
surveillance technology,

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being scrutinized at airports--

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among other approaches--
would render her body

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the object of examination.

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I want to shift now to tell
you a story about Henry Brown.

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I'm not sure if you're familiar
with the Henry Brown who

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I think about quite often.

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Henry Brown lived in
Virginia outside of Richmond

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in Henrico County.

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And there's Henry in the middle.

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He's inside this
box, and there's

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some people outside the box.

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So I guess they're
thinking outside the box.

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And the story of Henry
Brown was told by himself.

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He narrated this
story of himself.

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And there are many
versions, or at least it

00:12:00.660 --> 00:12:03.096
was published in a number
of different contexts,

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in a number of
different formats.

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And so Henry Brown earned
the name Henry Box Brown.

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He was in that box for a reason.

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I'm going to let you know
why in just a second.

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I brought-- I didn't
bring them in.

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We have obtained a
couple of pallets.

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And I put the wooden
pallets on the floor here.

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So you have these two
wooden pallets on the floor.

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And I want to read you a story.

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It's not a story that I wrote.

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Henry wrote it.

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But it's been retold and
is retold by Ellen Levine.

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And the story is "Henry's
Freedom Box: A True Story

00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:43.800
from the Underground Railroad."

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The reason that I'm reading
this to you on these pallets--

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what you see are two
pallets and this book

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that I put on a sidewalk in
the middle of campus last year.

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And I let it sit there
for 10 minutes or so.

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And then I sat on the pallets,
and I read this story the way

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I'm going to read it to you.

00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:07.020
And people walked by.

00:13:07.020 --> 00:13:12.610
Some of them stopped and
listened, and others did not.

00:13:12.610 --> 00:13:15.430
Henry's Freedom Box--

00:13:15.430 --> 00:13:18.670
Henry Brown wasn't
sure how old he was.

00:13:18.670 --> 00:13:21.940
Henry was a slave, and
slaves weren't allowed

00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.060
to know their birthdays.

00:13:24.060 --> 00:13:28.110
Henry and his brothers and
sisters worked in the big house

00:13:28.110 --> 00:13:29.610
where the master lived.

00:13:29.610 --> 00:13:33.180
Henry's master had been good
to Henry and his family.

00:13:33.180 --> 00:13:36.720
But Henry's mother knew
things could change.

00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:40.870
Do you see those leaves
blowing in the wind?

00:13:40.870 --> 00:13:43.780
They're from the trees
like the slave children

00:13:43.780 --> 00:13:46.390
are torn from their families.

00:13:46.390 --> 00:13:49.580
One morning, the master called
for Henry and his mother.

00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:51.850
They climbed the wide staircase.

00:13:51.850 --> 00:13:56.050
The master lay in the bed with
only his head above the quilt.

00:13:56.050 --> 00:13:57.530
He was very ill.

00:13:57.530 --> 00:13:59.560
He beckoned them to come closer.

00:13:59.560 --> 00:14:01.780
Some slaves were
freed by their owners.

00:14:01.780 --> 00:14:03.340
Henry's heart beat fast.

00:14:03.340 --> 00:14:06.670
Maybe the master
would set him free.

00:14:06.670 --> 00:14:10.530
But the master said,
you're a good worker Henry.

00:14:10.530 --> 00:14:13.070
I'm giving you to my son.

00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:16.820
You must obey him
and never tell a lie.

00:14:16.820 --> 00:14:20.960
I will mail myself to a place
where there are no slaves,

00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:22.220
he said.

00:14:22.220 --> 00:14:25.200
Henry, are you all
right in there?

00:14:25.200 --> 00:14:26.960
All right, he answered.

00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:28.430
The cover was pried open.

00:14:28.430 --> 00:14:30.140
Henry stretched and stood up.

00:14:30.140 --> 00:14:32.090
Four men smiled at him.

00:14:32.090 --> 00:14:34.130
Welcome to Philadelphia.

00:14:34.130 --> 00:14:36.290
At last, Henry had a birthday--

00:14:36.290 --> 00:14:41.660
March 30, 1849, his
first day of freedom.

00:14:41.660 --> 00:14:45.140
And from that day on, he
also had a middle name.

00:14:45.140 --> 00:14:47.930
Everyone called him
Henry Box Brown.

00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:52.780
So this is the
story of Henry Box

00:14:52.780 --> 00:14:57.280
Brown as told in a children's
book by Ellen Levine.

00:14:57.280 --> 00:14:59.065
And it was illustrated
by Kadir Nelson.

00:14:59.065 --> 00:15:00.440
Why did I read
that story to you?

00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:02.920
Well, I wanted you to hear
the story of Henry Box Brown

00:15:02.920 --> 00:15:05.470
not the way that he told
it, but the way that it

00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:07.450
was retold for children.

00:15:07.450 --> 00:15:09.082
That's a children's book.

00:15:09.082 --> 00:15:10.540
It's meant to be
a children's book.

00:15:10.540 --> 00:15:12.867
It's meant for children
to hear that story.

00:15:12.867 --> 00:15:14.950
And it's a story that I've
read as a bedtime story

00:15:14.950 --> 00:15:16.620
to our daughter.

00:15:16.620 --> 00:15:19.900
There are different versions
of Henry's Freedom Box,

00:15:19.900 --> 00:15:23.280
different children's versions
and different adult versions

00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:25.470
of telling this story.

00:15:25.470 --> 00:15:27.640
There are art approaches too.

00:15:27.640 --> 00:15:31.370
There's a monument to Henry
Brown in Richmond, Virginia.

00:15:31.370 --> 00:15:34.420
And this is a sculpture
made out of metal.

00:15:34.420 --> 00:15:38.194
The same dimensions as
that box that Henry was in.

00:15:38.194 --> 00:15:39.610
And etched in the
ground, it says,

00:15:39.610 --> 00:15:41.680
"In a wooden crate
similar to this one,

00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:44.020
Henry Brown, a Richmond
tobacco worker,

00:15:44.020 --> 00:15:47.740
made the journey from
slavery to freedom in 1849."

00:15:47.740 --> 00:15:50.650
And that box is interesting
because the lid is off,

00:15:50.650 --> 00:15:55.220
as you saw in that previous
image, but one side is open.

00:15:55.220 --> 00:15:59.790
And it's open with a silhouette
of a man crouched down.

00:15:59.790 --> 00:16:04.440
Now, Henry Brown was 5'8.

00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:05.910
I'm 5'8.

00:16:05.910 --> 00:16:08.070
And I was compelled to
get inside that box.

00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:09.890
And this idea of--

00:16:09.890 --> 00:16:12.060
from Henry, thinking
outside of the box

00:16:12.060 --> 00:16:14.130
meant literally to
think inside the box

00:16:14.130 --> 00:16:19.170
and to put himself into a
situation that was disrupting

00:16:19.170 --> 00:16:20.490
the current practices.

00:16:20.490 --> 00:16:24.870
But he was at a point at which
he was willing to try anything.

00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:28.440
Now, this story of Henry
Brown can be retold

00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.450
and can be recreated
and be reproduced.

00:16:30.450 --> 00:16:32.930
And there are some folks who--

00:16:32.930 --> 00:16:35.010
you know, I make
these connections.

00:16:35.010 --> 00:16:36.660
The image on the
left is actually

00:16:36.660 --> 00:16:38.790
someone who is trying
to get themselves out

00:16:38.790 --> 00:16:41.340
of this particular
situation putting themselves

00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:45.240
inside a suitcase and
mailing oneself out

00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:46.500
of a horrible situation.

00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:48.270
The image on the
right is actually

00:16:48.270 --> 00:16:52.860
a white student in black face
as a Halloween costume going

00:16:52.860 --> 00:16:54.450
as Henry Box Brown.

00:16:54.450 --> 00:16:57.180
Now, both of these
images relate directly

00:16:57.180 --> 00:17:00.280
to the Henry Box Brown story
for me, but in different ways.

00:17:00.280 --> 00:17:02.370
They can be unpacked--
no pun intended--

00:17:02.370 --> 00:17:07.020
to deal with various
levels of class,

00:17:07.020 --> 00:17:09.060
of identity, of
social situation,

00:17:09.060 --> 00:17:13.599
of systems of oppression,
and expectations.

00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:15.359
This idea of reading
in public places--

00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:19.020
just like I did with the Henry
Brown work last year and also

00:17:19.020 --> 00:17:20.280
here--

00:17:20.280 --> 00:17:23.849
I think is an important
piece to consider.

00:17:23.849 --> 00:17:26.069
And the way in which we
read to children, I think,

00:17:26.069 --> 00:17:26.859
is important.

00:17:26.859 --> 00:17:27.900
Words are very important.

00:17:27.900 --> 00:17:28.900
Words are powerful.

00:17:28.900 --> 00:17:31.680
There are games that we
play through social media

00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:33.420
in public spaces like
Words with Friends.

00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:35.310
I play this game quite often.

00:17:35.310 --> 00:17:37.910
But there are some words
that are unacceptable.

00:17:37.910 --> 00:17:38.830
You think-- what?

00:17:38.830 --> 00:17:39.650
There are some words
that aren't-- well,

00:17:39.650 --> 00:17:41.630
if you misspell it, it's
probably unacceptable.

00:17:41.630 --> 00:17:46.131
Negro is an unacceptable
term in Words with Friends.

00:17:46.131 --> 00:17:46.630
Really?

00:17:46.630 --> 00:17:48.130
Because that's a
term I think people

00:17:48.130 --> 00:17:51.940
need to deal with and
address and unpack.

00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:55.710
Asian is also an unacceptable
term in Words with Friends.

00:17:55.710 --> 00:17:59.850
Now, I find these two examples
interesting for the kind

00:17:59.850 --> 00:18:03.780
of work that I'm doing.

00:18:03.780 --> 00:18:07.980
But there are some other
words that are acceptable.

00:18:07.980 --> 00:18:12.890
And really big words matter.

00:18:12.890 --> 00:18:16.070
And just like
socially engaged art

00:18:16.070 --> 00:18:17.960
that moves away from
the materiality and more

00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:20.660
to the conceptual
and the experiential,

00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:25.400
moving from specific labels to
larger concepts and constructs

00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:28.200
seems to be of more value to
Words with Friends as well.

00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:34.740
For example, "conceptualizing"
can earn you 1,469 points.

00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:35.760
That's a lot of points.

00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:37.649
So maybe there's something
in conceptualizing

00:18:37.649 --> 00:18:38.440
that we need to do.

00:18:38.440 --> 00:18:42.560
So how do we conceptualize
telling difficult stories?

00:18:42.560 --> 00:18:44.280
Another children's
book, Goodnight Moon,

00:18:44.280 --> 00:18:45.613
you might be familiar with this.

00:18:45.613 --> 00:18:47.780
Goodnight, moon.

00:18:47.780 --> 00:18:49.410
Goodnight, cow
jumping over the moon.

00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:50.910
There's this
interesting repetition.

00:18:50.910 --> 00:18:55.400
Well, Larry Wilmore created
a version of Goodnight Moon.

00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:57.650
He called it Goodnight Slavery.

00:18:57.650 --> 00:19:03.440
Larry Wilmore was a talk show
spin-off from The Jon Stewart

00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:05.240
Show.

00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:09.710
And so this show
with Larry Wilmore,

00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:13.730
he decided that one
of the skits that he

00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:17.840
did was to create
a children's book

00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:25.070
called Goodnight Slavery
inspired by the Texas

00:19:25.070 --> 00:19:28.430
legislature and the
Texas Education board

00:19:28.430 --> 00:19:29.570
changing the curriculum.

00:19:29.570 --> 00:19:31.700
And changing certain
terms, moving

00:19:31.700 --> 00:19:35.210
the term the
transatlantic slave trade

00:19:35.210 --> 00:19:40.340
and renaming it the
transatlantic triangular trade.

00:19:40.340 --> 00:19:44.780
And so he has this entire
piece where he pulls apart

00:19:44.780 --> 00:19:50.080
that movement, the essentially
whitewashing of history.

00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:52.960
And so what you see there
are lines from the book.

00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:55.330
"In a big red state,
there was a textbook

00:19:55.330 --> 00:19:59.680
in a debate and too many knaves
in one big cave and a book

00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.920
that is shut and a past
full of smut and a cranky

00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:05.500
conservative with a
stick up his butt.

00:20:05.500 --> 00:20:06.970
Good night, slavery.

00:20:06.970 --> 00:20:08.530
Good night, bravery.

00:20:08.530 --> 00:20:10.690
Good night to things
we find unsavory."

00:20:10.690 --> 00:20:12.160
Well, what are
some of the things

00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:13.450
that they might find unsavory?

00:20:13.450 --> 00:20:14.960
Well, I'll get to
that in a second.

00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:19.170
But this book Goodnight Moon
has been told in different ways.

00:20:19.170 --> 00:20:26.260
It's a fixture within
children's book culture

00:20:26.260 --> 00:20:29.080
that gets repurposed
and reimagined.

00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:31.990
Some of the ways that
Wilmore understands

00:20:31.990 --> 00:20:32.950
what is being erased--

00:20:32.950 --> 00:20:40.780
Goodnight KKK, Goodnight to the
decimation of indigenous people

00:20:40.780 --> 00:20:42.820
on this continent.

00:20:42.820 --> 00:20:46.180
So these are all the things
that the Texas curriculum was

00:20:46.180 --> 00:20:51.550
erasing or modifying or
eliminating or renaming to make

00:20:51.550 --> 00:20:55.800
them seem less unsavory.

00:20:55.800 --> 00:20:58.600
And in one more skit,
he reads this book

00:20:58.600 --> 00:21:01.030
to a classroom of
kindergarten children.

00:21:01.030 --> 00:21:02.500
And their reactions
are wonderful.

00:21:02.500 --> 00:21:05.500
But it's also-- you can
tell it's kind of coached

00:21:05.500 --> 00:21:07.790
for the skit.

00:21:07.790 --> 00:21:10.310
Reading public places--
different than reading

00:21:10.310 --> 00:21:11.030
in public places.

00:21:11.030 --> 00:21:12.890
We could also read
public places.

00:21:12.890 --> 00:21:15.230
For example, in the summer--

00:21:15.230 --> 00:21:16.550
for the past three summers--

00:21:16.550 --> 00:21:20.690
I've had the opportunity
to teach at Vermont

00:21:20.690 --> 00:21:22.160
College of Fine Arts.

00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:24.230
And one of the
courses that I teach

00:21:24.230 --> 00:21:27.830
looks at participatory
inquiry in the public sphere.

00:21:27.830 --> 00:21:30.290
One of the assignments
is for us to go

00:21:30.290 --> 00:21:32.690
to the State House, the
State Capitol, which

00:21:32.690 --> 00:21:36.160
is just a mile and a half,
two miles away from campus.

00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:39.320
And it's the smallest state
capitol in the country.

00:21:39.320 --> 00:21:40.820
It's very accessible.

00:21:40.820 --> 00:21:43.420
We sign up for a guided tour.

00:21:43.420 --> 00:21:49.110
And before the tour, I give
each student a little figurine

00:21:49.110 --> 00:21:52.860
that I bought at the toy
store, these little busts of US

00:21:52.860 --> 00:21:54.940
presidents.

00:21:54.940 --> 00:21:57.550
And I ask the students
to go on the tour,

00:21:57.550 --> 00:21:58.810
to be polite on the tour.

00:21:58.810 --> 00:22:04.300
But I would like you to read the
state capitol in conversation

00:22:04.300 --> 00:22:06.820
with the tiny president.

00:22:06.820 --> 00:22:10.120
So on our walk down, in our
mile and a half walk down,

00:22:10.120 --> 00:22:11.620
they're on their
phones, and they're

00:22:11.620 --> 00:22:16.090
googling Theodore Roosevelt
or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham

00:22:16.090 --> 00:22:17.590
Lincoln.

00:22:17.590 --> 00:22:23.300
And then they take
cell phone shots.

00:22:23.300 --> 00:22:25.750
There's a close-up
of tiny George,

00:22:25.750 --> 00:22:27.430
and in the back is big George.

00:22:29.947 --> 00:22:32.280
Or please keep off, and they
put one of the presidents--

00:22:32.280 --> 00:22:34.170
I think that's Buchanan--
inside the cannon.

00:22:36.800 --> 00:22:39.530
Or they end up
reading other people.

00:22:39.530 --> 00:22:42.589
And it's with this tiny
president, this tiny object,

00:22:42.589 --> 00:22:44.380
that they're able to
construct stories that

00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:45.505
couldn't be told otherwise.

00:22:45.505 --> 00:22:48.240
Putting that situation,
that context, history,

00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:51.340
and related information
that they have either

00:22:51.340 --> 00:22:52.870
brought to that
space or that they

00:22:52.870 --> 00:22:54.550
learn on the tour
in conversation

00:22:54.550 --> 00:22:57.330
with what they know
about that president.