Teaching to Transgress

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

It has been a while since I read bell hooks. I first encountered her when I was learning to teach writing as a Master's student. I remember loving her work.

It's only recently that I have been reading the works of the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, and have found that his way of thinking resonates with mine.

When I picked up Teaching to Transgress tonight and began to read, it was easy to slip into hooks's rhythm; she is another writer for whom I have an awesome respect and would love to meet one day. Then I turned a page to discover that her work has been informed by Hanh's.

That explains why she works for me, too. Engaged pedagogy and and engaged Buddhism must fill some kind of need I have.

To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. The learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach  who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students.
 

In chapter one, hooks points out that Thich Nhat Hanh's engaged Buddhism is practice in conjunction with contemplation, which is similar to Paulo Friere's "praxis" or combined action and reflection.

*I personally interpret the words "spiritual" and "soul" in a non-theistic way.

#17: Devil in A Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Most noir starts with a beautiful, mysterious woman walking into a jaded detective’s office. This starts with a white man in 1948 walking into a black bar and hiring Easy Rawlins, a war veteran who recently lost his job and is chafing under the social mores of the time, to find a white woman who recently disappeared on him. The case seems simple enough-find the woman, tell the man where to find her, get his money, and go home-but Easy finds himself getting involved in a series of double crosses and murders, until he has to get to the bottom of things or end up in jail himself.

Easy is an easy character to like, and his world weariness comes with the awareness that many of the problems he faces are caused by the color of his skin. He can take any level of hatred or mistreatment people throw at him, but he can’t take the disrespect he gets by default. In complete honesty, I couldn’t keep track of who killed and/or betrayed who and why, and I’m not even sure they were all revealed. I don’t really care that I couldn’t either. Mosley takes all the conventions of noir and filters them through the lens of someone getting every short stick society has, with amazingly effective results.

'Hogarth's Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth Century English Art' by David Dabydeen

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I came across this book quite randomly, whilst hunting for something totally different in my university library, so it was a bit of a surprise. It is an academic text, so it's a tad on the dry side, but it is really interesting and it ties in very well to one of my longstanding interests, which is the history of race as a social construct.

'Hogarth's Blacks' is really an art history book, primarily examining the ways that Black people were portrayed in 18th century English art, but there's a fair bit of backstory in there as well - the origins of the Black English population, a little bit on how Black people were portrayed in medieval and renaissance art. I was surprised to learn how different it was - before the advent of the slave trade you see Black figures in art being portrayed as kings or queens - figures with their own dignity. One example given is of Balthazar, one of the three magi in the nativity story. In medieval and renaissance art he is normally shown as a regal figure, standing before the Virgin Mary as an equal. With the advent of the slave trade this all changes, and suddenly he is predominantly shown kneeling or in another subservient position.

Another thing I found really really interesting was the very different way in which class and race interacted in the 18th century. In the far far more class conscious world of 18th century England, Dabydeen sees a lot more solidarity between working class Whites and the Black population of England. In contrast to the aristocratic portraits in which Black people appear as servants, or pets, he sees Black people appearing in scenes of working class life, apparently unselfconscious and assimilated.

'Hogarth's Blacks' isn't a novel. It's an art history text book, and I don't know how easily available it is to most people, but if you can get your hands on it, I do recommend it. It's very interesting, very easy to read, and covers an area of history which is often shamefully neglected.