Kirkland Project News Spring 2001

uring the Fall and early Spring semester, the Kirkland Project sponsored a series of events that concentrated on the arts of the American South. This diverse region has a rich and complex history; however, for much of Hamilton's student population of mostly Northerners, the South represents a largely unknown and mysterious territory, one replete with stereotypical images gleaned from Gone With the Wind, Hee Haw, and faded black and white news footage from the 50s and 60s. The effect of these stereotypes is that students often reduce the South's complexity to simple dichotomies of black and white, rich and poor. In addition, students may understand gender roles and issues of sexuality within the South to be static and inviolate. Our programming explored the ways that the South is, and always has been, a site of remarkable political diversity, resistance, and struggle for progressive ideals, particularly through the creative arts of the South.

Text Box: The series began with an opening panel that included provocative remarks by Hamilton College faculty members Mark Cryer, Gillian Gane, and, Katie Kodat (their talks are posted on the Kirkland Project web site). Visiting artists included Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble (Appalachian clogging; co-sponsored with the departments of music and theatre and dance at Hamilton), Sharon Bridgforth (African-American lesbian poet/playwright), Sheila Kay Adams (Appalachian ballad singer, storyteller, and banjo player), Hazel Dickens (old-time country and bluegrass singer from West Virginia), Dorothy Allison (working class/lesbian novelist, essayist, poet and activist), Carolyn L. Mazloomi (fiber artist and expert on African-American quilt-making), Eddie Bushyhead (Cherokee musician and activist), and John O'Neal (African-American storyteller and activist). The Kirkland Project worked with the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton in co-sponsoring the Adams and Dickens concert as well as a quilt exhibition, "Quilts of Color: Three Generations of Quilters in an Afro-Texan Family," that was mounted at the art center. The series also included talks by other Hamilton College faculty: Lydia Hamessley, Bonnie Urciuoli, and Jay Vest.

In addition to their major performance, each visiting artist attended several classes and met with students and faculty in workshops, meals, and informal gatherings. Our dual focus on the arts and on the South meant that all the events drew audiences from across a broad spectrum of the Hamilton College community as well as the local Utica/Clinton community. Our goal for the Southern Accents series was to raise questions about the degree to which creative expression in the South has participated in the struggle for social justice within that region. Through the work of these artists, we interrogated the political and cultural work, both covert and overt, that Southerners have produced and continue to create, through their art.

his spring’s Kirkland Project artist-in-residence was playwright and actor John O’Neal. Since 1963, O'Neal has been a leading advocate of the view that "politics" and "art" are complementary not opposing terms. As a student in the early 1960’s, O’Neal was affiliated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Upon graduation from college, he continued his activity in civil rights with the Free Southern Theater. This organization combined a touring repertory company, a community engagement program in New Orleans, and training workshops in Black Theater. The Free Southern Theater continued until 1980, and in that year O’Neal founded Junebug Productions, an arts organization based in New Orleans which he now serves as Artistic Director. His work as a writer, performer and director has taken him to audiences throughout North America and to Europe, and he has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. We were delighted to host his visit to Hamilton College.

John O’Neal was on campus for three days in late March. During that time he met with an English class and an acting class, conducted two story circle workshops, and performed in Wellin Hall. In the workshops, O’Neal helped the participants to realize the power of theater and story to create change. Participants gathered in small groups to share stories, listen intently to others, and join in dialogue to truly understand one another. For his final performance on campus, O’Neal presented ‘Til the Midnight Hour: Sayings and Writings of Junebug Jabbo Jones, Volume III. Junebug is a folk character who features prominently in O’Neal’s work and represents the strength to be found in traditional African-American culture. The Performing Arts at Hamilton co-sponsored O’Neal’s visit.

n the spring of 2001, a group of Kirkland Project faculty pondered a new pre-orientation program which would have the structure of Adirondack Adventure, yet would offer as an alternative to the wilderness experience an opportunity to explore the urban area in our own backyard, and provide an introduction to the life of service in its neighborhoods.

Under the leadership of a group of faculty, the Kirkland Project, with financial assistance from the office of the president of the college, organized a pilot program for USE for three days in January before the beginning of the spring semester. A group of eleven Hamilton students joined a dozen KP faculty for an experience which included: cooking and serving a meal to some of Utica’s hungry at Hope House, helping out with Thea Bowman’s after school program, bowling with some of the residents of the House of the Good Shepherd, and visiting with some elderly residents of the Loretto Center in Utica.

Sleeping on the parlor floor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Utica, we also took a couple of tours of Utica, one to meet some people involved in community service work—agencies involved with emergency housing for homeless, coordinating food distribution to local food pantries, and providing advocacy for children in court custody cases—and a second tour to gain a sense of the history of the city of Utica.

Following this experience students and faculty have continued meeting together to plan the pre-orientation experience for new students this August and to participate in various service opportunities together. Three of the students from the January program will lead the USE program this August: Melissa Stoos ‘04, Linwood Rumney ‘02, and Stephanie Baker ’01. Carol Drogus and Jeff McArn will be faculty leaders. Stay tuned for future reports on how the summer program unfolds.

9/7 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Panel Discussion. and Annual Opening Reception.

*9/13-9/16 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble.

9/22-9/23 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Sharon Bridgforth.

9/27 BROWN BAG SERIES. Rachel Barek '01, KP Service Associate. "Feeding People with AIDS: Balancing Grassroots Philosophy with Structural Change"

*9/28 IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF FACULTY. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author and educator.

*10/1-10/29 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Quilt exhibit and opening reception.

*10/5-10/6 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Sheila Kay Adams.

10/11 BROWN BAG SERIES. Sharon Humphries-Brooks, Lect. in College 100. "'Traces in the Coaldust' Coal Country, Mountainfolk, Miners, and Me: the Problems of Performing One's Past"

*10/10-10/13 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Hazel Dickens.

10/13-10/16 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Dorothy Allison.

10/19 BROWN BAG SERIES. Adam Weinberg, Asst. Prof. of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University. "Community, Service and the Classroom"

10/19-10/20 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Carolyn Mazloomi.

10/30 BROWN BAG SERIES. Lydia Hamessley, Assoc. Prof. of Music. "Crossing Racial Boundaries: The Role of the Southern Grassroots Music Tours in the Civil Rights Movement"

*11/2 WINTON TOLLES LECTURE SERIES (with Kirkland Project financial assistance). Mark Doty, poet and writer.

11/6 BROWN BAG SERIES. Jay H. Vest, Visiting Assoc. Prof. of Religious Studies and Native American Traditions. "Pocohontas: Thoughts on the Marginalization of Women and Native Americans"

*11/16 PANEL DISCUSSION. "Who's Afraid of Identity Politics? Progressive Politics, Minority Identities"

*1/15 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY. Community Dinner with Music and Readings.

2/1 SOUTHERN ACCENTS SERIES. Eddie Bushyhead.

2/8 BROWN BAG SERIES. Gillian H. Gane, Asst. Prof. of English. "The Displaced Child as Emblem of the Nation in Recent Postcolonial Novels"

2/20 BROWN BAG SERIES. USE Participants. "Urban Service Experience: A Review of the Pilot Program in January 2001"

3/5 BROWN BAG SERIES. Naomi E. Guttman, Asst. Prof. of English. "A reading from the poetry-cycle, 'Galactopoiesis'"

*3/29-3/31 ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM. John O'Neal.

4/11 BROWN BAG SERIES. Doran Larson, Asst. Prof. of English. "Reading from Hazel Doherty, a novel in progress about sex and politics in Depression-era Hollywood"

4/12 LECTURE AND DISCUSSION. Adam Weinberg, Colgate University. "Democracy Matters"

4/16 BROWN BAG SERIES. Judith Owens-Manley, Resource Coordinator, Resource Center for Human Services. "Bosnian refugees in Utica"

4/25 BROWN BAG SERIES. Byron Miller '02, KP Service Associate. "South Africa: My Summer as a Kirkland Associate"

* Denotes Kirkland Project shared sponsorship with one or more organizations or departments.

his is the fifth year of the Kirkland Project research associates program, and we have a full roster of very exciting projects. Students apply for these in the fall semester and complete their research or artistic project in the spring, working with a faculty mentor of their own choosing. The group of students and mentors form a seminar where students present their work and receive questions and suggestions from their colleagues.

The range of projects for the spring of 2001 is very exciting and wide-ranging. Mimi Pearle is working with Professor Esther Kanipe (History) on the treatment of homosexuals in Nazi Germany, reading secondary and primary studies. Jamie Crowley is working on the question of how we can improve the quality of women’s college experiences, with Professor Margo Okazawa-Rey (Women’s Studies). Jessica Ambrose’s project is “Personal Explorations through Journal Writing”; with Professor Susan Mason (Education) she is exploring how eighth-grade girls develop their sense of identity and the forces that shape it. Redell Armstrong, “A Voice for the Voiceless,” is also doing a series of interviews, but in his case, they focus on the response of Sudanese men to clitorisation of Sudanese women. Working with Professor Joseph Mwantuali (French), Redell has reached out to a segment of the Utica population little discussed. The topic of Keithley Woolward, “Identity and Experience: Rereading Samuel Delaney” with Professor Nancy Rabinowitz (Comparative Literature), has applicability to all of his colleagues’ work, since he seeks to reconceptualize an identity-based politics in the wake of poststructural theory and argue for the legitimacy of people’s own stories and experiences in establishing a politics. To quote Jamie Crowley: “The intellectual space provided by the Kirkland Project has allowed me to pursue an interdisciplinary study utilizing the knowledge gained both as a Psychology concentrator and as a student with a passion for the diverse and progressive ideas that characterize the Women’s Studies program. . . . The greatest reward, therefore, has been discovering that I have successfully combined and applied the skills and knowledge imparted by a liberal arts education, and, in doing so, have become an active participant in the educational experience.”

he Kirkland Project Service Associates program continues to thrive. For 2001, associates are Rebecca Karb ’02, Ashland, MA, who will intern with US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) in Washington, DC, and Julie Loder ’02, San Francisco, CA, who will intern with People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER) in San Francisco, CA. Service associates engage in unpaid socially useful work over a ten-week period in the summer and receive a stipend of $3000 from the Kirkland Project, with matching funds from the Kirkland Endowment, as support for this work.

Rebecca’s work with US PIRG will focus on her areas of interest: public health and public policy. In her application to the associates program Rebecca wrote, “I am interested in public health and hope to receive a joint masters degree in public health and public policy when I graduate from Hamilton. Specifically, I am concerned with minority and women’s health issues.” According to Rebecca’s letter of welcome to the US PIRG internship program, her duties may include conducting research, preparing investigative reports, helping with coordination of media events, and participating in grassroots campaign activities.

Julie’s internship with PODER is important to her because of the work they are doing in her hometown. According to Julie’s application, San Francisco’s neighborhoods are changing as a result of gentrification. She writes, “The Mission District of San Francisco has been hit particularly hard. . . . [PODER] is one of several organizations that has come about in order to defend the community against this very issue.” Julie’s duties may include assisting with outreach for community events, helping with the community planning process, and researching the community make-up.

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he theme and title of the Kirkland Project's 2001-2002 programming is “The Body in Question.” Why the body? Every branch of inquiry has something to say about the body. Western philosophy struggles with the question of the relation of the body to the mind, while the biological sciences ground their investigations in the material body. Many of the arts make art from the body or with the body, while the social sciences work to lay bare what the world makes of the body. The body has been historically the site of cruel and pervasive abuse and exploitation, in many cases as a part of an entrenched network of practices based on false beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality. At the same time bodies can be the site of much that we love and value, including pleasure, strength, reproduction, and other productive work. While we have seen extraordinary recent advances in the science and technology of prolonging and improving the life and health of the body, access to many of these advances is often limited to the privileged few, and indeed many of these advances were made possible by the abuses and exclusions of scores of poor and disempowered people. Struggles over who has control of the body—individuals, the family, or the state—continue to shape political life in the US and internationally.

Our programming this year will focus on many of these dynamic tensions. We hope to emerge with a greater appreciation of the many ways to see bodies, to think about bodies, to be embodied. In the fall, event highlights include the talks by the historians Nayan Shah on his recent work on Asian men, and Lisa Watkins on the politics of women's reproduction, H.T. Chen and Dancers whose work focuses on immigration and family issues, and a women’s self defense workshop. Most fall speakers will visit College 130 (see below). In the spring semester Lynne Luciano will speak on male body image, artist-in-residence Sharon Bridgforth will conduct a writing workshop and guide students in creating responses to oppression, and the poet and body worker Olga Broumas will conduct a reading and workshop on body and text. And we are thrilled to be able to close out the year with a performance by Tim Miller, gay rights activist and solo performer.

he Kirkland Project has been the energy behind “Coming of Age in America: Narratives of Difference” (College 130) for the past four years. This year, the course dovetailed with the Southern Accents programming (lead article), giving the students access to a rich array of speakers and artists. Beverly Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria and Other Conversations about Race, and Mark Doty, author of award-winning poetry and memoirs, also visited the class while on campus. Students have had very positive reactions to 130: “Talking about sensitive issues brought us closer together,” “Working through concepts in papers and molding my own coming of age narrative helped me to gain more focus and clarity in my writing,” “A great way to begin my four years at Hamilton.”

Members of the faculty are looking for ways to build on the pedagogical innovations of College 130 for the new sophomore seminar program. The new curriculum provides a challenge to the mission of the Kirkland Project (there is no longer a diversity requirement since there are no distribution requirements) and an opportunity (each student must take one of these interdisciplinary seminars). To minimize the disadvantage and to take advantage of the possibility newly opened up, the Kirkland Project will develop a cluster of sections and courses around the broad topic of “social movements.” There will be several models: some of the sections will share an entire syllabus; others may be team-taught; others will share a common core of readings, then go into one movement (e.g., disability studies) in depth. They will share much, however, and we hope that that sharing will lead to greater faculty cohesiveness and excitement. As this issue goes to press, we are in the process of applying for an institutional grant from the Hewlett Foundation to support the development of these courses. Wish us luck.

HE KIRKLAND PROJECT for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture is an on-campus organization committed to intellectual inquiry and social justice, focusing on issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, as well as other facets of human diversity. Through our educational programs, research and community outreach, we seek to build a community respectful of difference. Our goals are to:

· Prepare our students to live and work in an increasingly complex multiracial and multinational world.

· Foster student and faculty scholarship related to our mission.

· Develop and support curricula and pedagogies that challenge students to think critically and to make connections between classroom learning and the society in which we live.

· Initiate connections between the Hamilton community and the surrounding area, around the mission of the Project.

The Kirkland Project is named in honor of Kirkland College, from 1968-78 a college for women coordinate with Hamilton. The Project builds on Kirkland’s twin legacies of women’s education and innovative pedagogy, expanding on them to meet the global challenges that face contemporary male and female students, faculty and staff.

Special Kirkland Project 2000-2001 Program

Representation and Resistance through the Arts

John O’Neal

Urban Service Experience

Kirkland Project

Kirkland Project