Spring 2010

WGS 393 • THEORY IN ACTION

Course Description

Who am I and what is my work in the world? What do I most want to learn? This semester, we will explore these fundamental questions, so often shoved to the back of our minds by the demands of graduate school. This class will be very different from the usual graduate seminar. A commitment to process, as well as to the class itself as an intellectual, political and affective community, is the major requirement. To be successful in this class, students must plan to attend every class meeting, complete all assignments on time, and show up ready to be honest, think hard, and speak from their deepest truths.

Through a series of listening, writing and performance workshops, students will develop a community engagement project that connects their reasons for being in the academy with their deepest values. Class assignments include planning a "Classroom as Community" Event in which the class visits the site of your project to encounter the theory and practice, the teaching and learning, that happens there. The semester will culminate in a "Theory in Action Community Symposium" at the Center for African and African-American Studies at UT. There will be an exhibition of our projects in at the Center that day as well as a public performance/conference about our work during which community members involved or affected by these projects will be invited to speak.

back