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• The Practice of Public Scholarship

The Practice of Public Scholarship (419-0-1)

Instructors

Steven William Thrasher

Meeting Info

Frances Searle Building 1483: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This intensive seminar will explore the role of the public intellectual in (mostly American) society, and it will include both theoretical readings and practical skills building. Seminar participants will engage in three projects: weekly communal readings and responses to a common intellectual's scholarly and public-facing work (including media appearances); individual student presentations on a public intellectual; and, a term paper or multi-media project on an historical or contemporary public intellectual (from any country), in which the student will map out and conduct a literature review of their life and work. Collectively, the seminar will study how there are many kinds of intellectuals, many kinds of publics, and many ways to practice public scholarship. It will also consider how intellectuals do not simply impart knowledge publicly; rather, the practice of public scholarship happens when a dialogue between scholars and publics produces new knowledge. Intellectuals the seminar will read together may include James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Edward Said, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, M. Gessen, Ilan Pappé, Greg Tate, Noam Chomsky, Stuart Hall, Audre Lorde, Milton Friedman and Angela Davis. Students will give presentations on one of the following: Marc Lamont Hill, Brittany Cooper, Aymar Jean Christian, Melissa Harris Perry, Naomi Klein, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Paul Krugman, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Victor Ray, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Noura Erakat, Mohammed El-Kurd, Dean Spade, or Nick Estes. Guest speakers (and Dr. Thrasher) will share practical skills gleaned from their usage of various mediums to practice public scholarship, including television, radio, podcasts, op-eds, debate, and social media. Keywords: intellectual history, epistemology, co-constitutive, publics, identity, Black Studies, Native Studies, feminism, Frankfurt school, queer theory, media studies, LGBTQ+ studies.