Decolonizing mythology (course content)
In place of an overview by me this week, here are students from University College London in 2014, presenting several problems of the #whitecurriculum along with some quick thoughts on solutions.
In the NUS Black Students Campaign National Students Survey, it was found that, ’42 per cent did not believe their curriculum reflected issues of diversity, equality and discrimination.’
In addition, it found that, ’34 per cent stated they felt unable to bring their perspective as a Black [BME] student to lectures and tutor meetings. A running theme through both the survey and focus group data was a frustration that courses were designed and taught by non-Black teachers, and often did not take into account diverse backgrounds and views’.
As a result, the NUS proposed a set of recommendations, including the notion that, ‘institutions must strive to minimise Euro-centric bias in curriculum design, content and delivery and to establish mechanisms to ensure this happens. Universities Scotland has published an excellent example of why and how this can be done in their race equality toolkit, Embedding Race Equality into the Curriculum’ (source).
SCIENCE CASE STUDY
CONTEXT
We met several famous theorists this semester, and those who were central to our thinking as we figured out semiology (via Saussure and Barthes) and then psychoanalysis (Freud), functionalism (Malinowski), and structuralism (Lévi-Strauss) have a few very obvious things in common: they are each male, they are each white, they are each European, they are each academics who held lofty positions in historically established universities, and … they are each now dead.
I am not sure if I will always teach this course as I do (probably not — just as your making evolves so, too, does my course designing), but to date I have borrowed, in my design thinking, the logics of Dr. Soyini Madison who wrote in 1999,
Each one of [the now-dated, white, male theorists] helped me see my way to the edge of many rivers of knowing and not knowing. They go back and forth, so do I. And in their guidance, I laugh and think and I realize. These fathers helped me see the river in the darkness, and they have helped lead me to it. But, they can not make me get in the water. I can not enter the river. I can not get my feet wet. I dare not swim in the river. Can I bear to hear the sounds when water crashes against rock? To swim and to hear I need the mothers. Mothers who pounded bone and chain for their breath and mine. I need the Other fathers who are more ancient and more My own (source).
And thus, my current practice + beliefs are these: I DO still teach you the old white guys. They are good for getting into grad school. They are good for leading us to “rivers of knowing and not knowing” (Ibid.). But most importantly, having borrowed / tried on the understandings of the old white guys, you are each now able to make informed decisions to move BEYOND them.
Think of the old white dudes as a point of departure. You will walk out of this virtual classroom with new awareness of scientific strategies used in the past to interpret myths and rituals. You also better know four oft cited academics. From this “point of departure,” first, it becomes up to you to find the equally or even more important yet overlooked thinkers, “the Mothers” and “the Other fathers,” as Madison called them, and then second, it becomes up to you to do your own SMARTER, better thinking than those who preceded you.
According to Paulo Freire (whose most famous book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is, in my and Chicago rapper Noname’s opinions, a worthy addition to your to-read list if you have not yet read it),
…There is no ultimate answer to any problem, only answers with varying degrees of correspondence to reality. The purpose of education is to learn a process of comprehending that reality, rather than to learn what someone else (an authority ) believes that reality to be. The goal for each individual is the development of what Freire calls conscientizacao, the overt awareness not only of a process of analysis, but also of the liberating, humanizing effects of using such a process to better understand the world (G.A. 1972).
Find the lesser known theories for analyzing our world — for making sense of our world — sure, and I have recommendations about where to start if you want them. But then, afterward: use “the processes of comprehending reality” which you have learned, in school and out, to design your own theories and arrive at your own knowing. In the end, it can be (if you allow it to be so) up to you to make sense of our stories (myths), our dances (rituals), and all else within our worlds, plural. What I hope is that now that you have conversed with the old white guys, you will interpret and know with an eye toward correcting for all the colonial *sense making* of our past and present. Welcome to this, the pen-ultimate, science case study of Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism. Absorb. Interrogate. And enjoy! DP
RESOURCES
The myth of “the west”
- Optional text: Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2016. There is no such thing as a western civilisation. The Guardian / The long read. November 9. Accessed November 20, 2019.
- Optional text: Kennedy, R.F. 2019. On a history of “western civilization,” part 1. Classics at the Intersections / R.F. Kennedy’s blog. April 3. Accessed November 21, 2019.
Decolonizing classical mythology
- Required text: Bond, Sarah. 2017. Why we need to start seeing the classical world in color. Hyperallergic / Essays. June 7. Accessed November 21, 2019,
- Required text: Whitmarsh, Tim. 2018. Black Achilles. Aeon / Newsletter. May 9. Accessed November 21, 2019.
Decolonizing our minds, Take 1
- Required text: Wade, Francis. 2018. Ngûgî wa Thiong’o and the tyranny of language. The New York Review / Daily. August 6. Accessed November 22, 2019.*
FN: While Ngũgĩ (just above) writes most explicitly of the project of educating in and privileging English as colonial practice throughout Africa, we are thinking, this week, about educating in and privileging European theory (and also, perhaps, a particular academic way of speaking and writing about things) in educational institutions everywhere.
It is difficult to argue with Ngũgĩ’s assertions, yet many brilliant minds do debate whether “the fix” to decolonize education and knowledge is to cease to write in English as Ngũgĩ chose to do. Novelist Salman Rushdie argued, for example, that “to conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free” (Rushdie 1991 in Imaginary Homelands).
Likewise, many brilliant minds debate whether “the fix” to decolonize education and knowledge is to cease to study European theory. In the words of scholar Achille Mbembe, “Decolonizing is not about closing the door to European or other traditions. It is about defining clearly what the centre is. And for Ngũgĩ, Africa has to be placed at the centre” (WISER 2015). Please keep this very real debate (do we need the old white guys? Or can we throw the old white guys out to correct for historical bias?) in mind as you read this final article. Where do you stand?
Q&A
OVERVIEW
Rule of thumb: 300–500 words is, imo, a good total length for our Q&As this semester. That said, include what you think matters while avoiding “excess verbiage.” What is more important than length here is that you show your engagement with the required textual + audio visual content (i.e. cite, cite, cite).
Question 1. MCAD hires you to teach the science of “Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism” in 2020. Do you teach the old, white guys? A. Yes; B. No; C. I don’t know. With the content from this week in mind (and citing specific passages from that content if/when you can), please explain your answer. [Or, if you prefer, you can answer the question: Is it important, in a mythology course, to continue to learn the theories that are traditionally taught in European institutions, or should we skip all that? In this instance, as in the above, explain your answer.]
Question 2. Thiang’o wrote Decolonising the Mind in 1986. Let’s say you decide to write an article (or a whole book) on decolonizing our minds in 2020. Where do you begin, and what is your key piece of advice?
Question 3. Based on the readings for this week, please pose your own question. About what do the authors leave you wanting to know more? What, based on the readings, would you like to discuss with the rest of us? (This is a great place to include a citation from this week’s readings.)
Answers 1–3. Please respond to any three questions posed by your peers this week.
ARTS CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY: THEASTER GATES (“A FULL-TIME ARTIST, A FULL-TIME URBAN PLANNER, AND A FULL-TIME PREACHER WITH AN ASPIRATION OF NO LONGER NEEDING ANY OF THOSE TITLES” (Gates ND)).
Many of you will know already Theaster Gates (born b. 1973 in Chicago, IL) who skipped art school and is now one of the most successful artists in the world. He is also, perhaps, the most paid attention to property developer on the southside of Chicago today.
Photo by Laure Joliet for the NYTimes
RESOURCES
- Required text: Text: Wu, Su. 2017. Theaster Gates: ‘I want to believe that there is power in my poverty.’ The Guardian. January, 12. Accessed July 19, 2017.
- Required images: Gates, Theaster. 2017. But To Be A Poor Race. Los Angeles: Regen Projects (gallery). January 14 — February 25. Accessed July 19, 2017.
- Required video: Anon. 2017. Theaster Gates in conversation with Hamza Walker (12 minute abridgement). Los Angeles: Regen Projects (gallery). January 15. Accessed July 19, 2017. (Run time 12:56 mins.)
- Optional text: Zara, Janelle. 2017. One artist’s beautiful visualizations of a dark history. The New York Times. January 13. Accessed July 19, 2017.
Yet again, as you click through the required resources, focus on Gates’ work in relation to myth and/or ritual and/or symbolism. Also, it is not accidental that we are looking at this particular work of art by Gates in a week when we are thinking about decolonizing myth and ritual (and knowledge more generally). Ask yourself, what is Gates able to do in this work, and how do I feel about this? Keeping your resources open so that you can refer back to them, click “Next” when you are ready to discuss.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
OVERVIEW
Reminder: 300 words or fewer; think of my lines of questioning as prompts intended to (loosely) guide your thinking.
COMMENTARY
1) Locate the Myth/Ritual/Sign System
What did myth and/or ritual and/or signification (think “symbolism”) enable Theaster Gates to do? How might these things have empowered or made more effective his art? Similarly: what would happen if you took the myth, ritual, or signs away from Gates’ art? As always, please use direct quotes from the text/video sources, whenever possible, to make your points.
2) Interpret + Judge
How do you respond to Gates’ intentions, practices, and/or outcomes? Are you impressed or unimpressed? And why? Any ethical concerns? Please try to show us with your words and/or images, rather than telling us what you mean.
3) Find Connections
Does anything in this case study remind you of someone or something else? Then post a link or embed or describe whatever it is. And if you are not reminded of anyone or anything, skip this step.
