What's Attention Got To Do With It: On Reading and Reflexivity
Zoom; Feb. 28-Mar. 1
Facilitation Team:
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| Vrinda Chopra | Sonakshi Srivastava |
Abstract: As researchers and writers, within the liberal arts context in the Global South, we are tasked with sense-making, of being attuned to difference and otherness in our teaching and practice. What we heed to, how we heed to, and why we heed to specific bits of the content determine how we comprehend the world around us. Taking cue from scholars like Gopal Guru, Stuart Hall, and David Scott, we will look at how reading and writing can be reflexive tools. The workshop will meander to the margins to understand how note-taking can be a radical act of attunement to difference. More broadly, the workshop attends to the ethos of receptive generosity, especially, as the world increasingly becomes polarised and violent, attempting to add to conversations on not why we should care about difference but how we may do this work recurrently. The intended audiences for the workshop are individuals who work across disciplinary and methodological boundaries and are interested in intersections of reading, reflexivity and modes of attunement. It will culminate in a proposal for a special issue on modes and vocabularies of reading and reflexivity.
What Draft Deliverable will be Presented at the Conference Showcase? The final day deliverable is envisaged as a presentation - group and individual. We will begin by tracking our progress through the Miro Board from Day 1, and with that as our launchpad, look at how ideas get a germinal space to flourish in a collaborative and creative space finally culminating in a proposal for a special issue on reading and reflexivity in the context of liberal arts education the Global South.
Who Should Apply to Participate? The project is open to all. However, preference will be given to scholars, readers, and writers from the Global South, and people who identify as BIPOC.
What Do Participants Need to Prepare? [Note: The facilitation team will email all materials and instructions once all participants have been selected] The participants will be given two to three readings (scholarly essays on reading and reflexivity) that will eventually form the basis of our collaboration and from which conversations around reflexivity, positionality, and attention-paying will emerge.
What Happens After the Conference? The project does not end after the conference. Instead, it inaugurates an ongoing discussion as study/reading sessions and collaborative virtual projects (like setting up a blog space, etc.). Primarily, as facilitators, we will work with the participants to develop commentary articles for our proposed special issue.