Link to What's New This Week. Issue for Week of September 15, 2003

Dear Habermas Logo and Link to Site Index A Justice Site

Current Issue:
Volume 18, No. 4, Week of September 15, 2003
Jeanne has bad cold; won't be in Tuesday, Sept. 16!!!
Pat will be in for discussions and help.

jeanne's schedule - Susan's Class Page NEW
Pat's schedule - About Us - Class Materials - Open Access
Previous Issue: Volume 18, No. 3, Week of September 8, 2003
Mirror Sites: CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
TOPICS INDEX - SITE MAP - SITE INDEX
KIDS, Etc. - ARCHIVES - Daily Site Additions
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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan, Transcend Art and Peace
Latest Update: September 12, 2003
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takata@uwp.edu

What if you started with stickmen? jeanne

What if you started with stickmen?

Topic of the Week:

Hypotheticals? What if . . .
Friday, September 12, 2003: Now I'm back to the hypotheticals, "What if . . . " The Site Map has moved to its own page, and it's changing as I add new pieces we need.

Katie Williams wrote on Thursdaay and said that all she could do was stickmen. Now, come on. After three weeks of my classes, you didn't know that I would say, "So what if you started with stickmen?" Art is a tool to be loved and explored and shared. No, not Picasso's art. We're not Picasso. But we're not Shakespeare either, and that didn't make us give up poetry.

I started with Katie's brother, because she had written about him. That's him up in the left-hand corner. Quite colorful, I think. He started out as a stickman, but I jsut couldn't leave him alone. He kept changing colors and forms. Actually, Katie, he turned out rather nice. He must be a nice brother.

"What if. . . " is the best approach I know to theory, but I'm learning from my stickmen that it's not such a bad approach to life either.

love and peace, jeanne

Labeling by Numbers and the Trouble with Tests Kati'es commentary that led to thid week's painting.

Saturday, September 13, 2003: Notice the little boxes all around three edges of the painting. That's our circle of aesthetic production in Sociology 328, Agencies. We're going to need to work on circles, folks.

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Announcements:

    Monday, September 15, 2003. Cold Got Worse. I won't be in on Tuesday. Sorry. But it's probably safer to get over it so I don't miss the rest of the week. Pat will be in for discussions and help. See 'ya on Wednesdy, I hope. jeanne

    Friday, September 12, 2003. I promise I will not stay up writing lectures and recognition and recall till 2:30 in the morning. I'm not sure I know what "getting old" means, but in my case, it certainly means I can't pull all nighters anymore. I've already pulled up dozens of your commentaries to add to the site, and an chafing at the bit to get to statistics. But I promise to be reasonable and stop to eat and sleep, and check out an occasional museum. jeanne

    Saturday, September 13, 2003: I am very sorry to announce that I have a sore throat. Very minimal signs of infection. But I'm going to have to cut back a little on this week end's work, so it doesn't interfere with next week. I switched from Coke to herb tea, and aspirin when I can remember it. I spent most of yesterday working on commentaries that you had sent in. Please read them as samples of how I'm determining grades for submissions and discussions. jeanne

    Some of you have asked to start up our review workshop for comps. Please sign up in my office so we can fix a time and a room. jeanne

A Range of Sources on Global Events

Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal -The Weekly Standard - The Nation
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor

Indymedia - Mother Jones - BBC News - New Profile
Progressive Sociologists Network

Mother Jones, left perspective, added this week by request from one of our students. jeanne

Using Academic Language Effectively:

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Search:

Dictionary of Critical Sociology
Maintained by Robert E. Mazur, Associate Professor, Iowa State University, Sociology.

Words of Art: Front Page
Wonderful Fine Arts dictionary at Okanagan University College in Canada.
Will cover many of the terms social theory shares with literary theory.

Today's Word: From the Word.A.Day Site

Social Theory across Disciplines:

Peace and Social Justice

Advanced Theory:

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Lived Experience:

Emancipatory Narratives

Kids, Etc.: Stuff to Share with Others

  • Update for Young People I'll catch up with these when our Fall class stuff is done. jeanne
  • Update on Health
  • Update for Seniors

    Friday, September 19, 2003. The Biggest Guinea Pig:
    Distinctly Big, if Extinct: The 1,500-Pound Rodent By James Gorman, New York Times, Friday, September 19, 2003. Backup.

  • Wednesday, September 17, 2003. Hands: Mano Lapiz.


    MANO. Dibujo a Lápiz. AUTOR: Ricardo Moreno Reyes.

    I was startled to find this drawing on La Loca Aventura de Escribir just after I received Tania Barriga's e-mail about Esperanza and yesterday's announcement from the International Visual Sociology Association about their competition for a photograph on hands. Yes, hands do tell us a lot, don't they?

  • Wednesday, September 17, 2003. Holy Places: Soeurs Sang by Clara Gutsche

    Clara Gutsche, Convent Series, at Mount Saint Vincent's University of Fine Arts in Canada, has done a beautiful photograph of cloistered nuns that recalls classical paintings. To see the image scroll to the bottom of the file and link on the thumbnail of the cloistered nuns. Perhaps because I lived in such a convent as a very young child, the photograph draws me to a kind of peace that permeates such holy places. And now Clara Gutsche photographs this convent as a way of life that is disappearing. There is some good in that. There was much wrong in such sequestered holy places. But there is much wrong elsewhere, also. I regret that we are losing the strong sense of the spiritual as we erase the misery of the past, and I hope that we will find new ways to bring the spiritual in some form back into our lives. This photograph touched me very deeply. jeanne Backup

  • Friday, September 12, 2003. Monsters of the Deep: Deep Under the Sea, Boiling Founts of Life Itself By William J. Broad. New York Times Science Section. Science Times. Tuesday, September 9, 2003. Wonderful pictures and fascinating story of life deep under the ocean.

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Art Shenanigans

Esperanza, Oil on Canvas, by Betsabé Basáñez. 1999. MÉXICO
Esperanza.
Óleo Sobre Tela.
AUTORA: Betsabé Basáñez. 1999. MÉXICO.
"It is absolutely beautiful; it is titled "ESPERANZA", Spanish for HOPE. She used colors that represent life. Take a look at it, Tania Barriga." I agree, Tania. It's beautiful. I had just come donwstairs to put up some Indonesian art, when I got your e-mail. We really are becoming global, aren't we? love and peace, jeanne.


This Is Not A Pipe Wrench
48 " x 96 " acrylic on canvas by Robert Peluce. Backup

The allusion is to Magritte's Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe.

Mask By Robert Peulce at Glass Gallery Fine Art. One of my favorites. Fine classical art work with an incredible sense of humor. I would have called this one Dick Tracy. Backup jeanne

Shirin Neshat, présentée au Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, du 29 septembre 2001 au 13 janvier 2002. Shirin Neshat, présentée au Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, du 29 septembre 2001 au 13 janvier 2002.

The original photo is at Shirin Neshat. I altered the two above to make you more aware of the two faces I saw when I came upon the photo on this site about an Iranian artist, Shirin Neshat. I first saw the face of a hag peering out, and knew that could not be the image as meant. So I stared and stared and finally saw the profile. The profile fits much more reasonably into the scene shot. I found nothing on the exhibitiion site to explain the pouring of the water. But it seems ritualistic. Once having seen the hag, I had trouble to focus on the profile. A typical reaction to multiple perspectives in vision. So I added a third version in which I thickened the profile line. I don't know about you, but I can still see the hag.

We encounter this situation when videos are played in court as evidence, with each of us so sure we can't be deceived by what we see. Knowledge accrues only when we leave ourselves open to other perspectives.

  • Shirin Neshat

    Shirin Neshat, présentée au Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, du 29 septembre 2001 au 13 janvier 2002.

  • Shirin Neshat Includes photos. Good article.

    Visit Shirin Neshat's sites, and read what she is trying to convey about freedom for women in the Arab world she once knew.

  • While playing in my search for more of Shirin Neshat's work, I found two Basquiat's at the Hotel de Caumont in Avignon: Basquiat in the Collection Lambert Link on the fourth image of museum spaces for the Basquiats.

Academic Discourse

  • Monday, September 8, 2003: Consistency:Sample Checkin for Consistency By Tanya Newton, CSUDH.