Author: Sara

why tumblr? here’s one answer

I love Fred Astaire (and Ginger Rogers), so when an image of him leaping, in honor of Leap Day, popped up on my Tumblr dashboard, I just had to reblog it on my “Staying in Trouble” tumblr. I tagged it with “joy”; I’m using my Tumblr blog to explore some of the more playful, fun and joyful moments of making, being in, and staying in trouble.

This image, along with 18 others, was posted on Life. Your Tumblr in Pictures. I really like their “about” description. It offers some great reasons why and how to use Tumblr in tandem with a blog or website. I like the idea of using Tumblr to provide readers with a little something extra (more content + special features). And the idea of using Tumblr to emphasize engagement and community building.

John Waters/Justin Bieber: Experimenting with Pinterest

Even though I’ve been wary of Pinterest over the past couple of weeks, I’m still using it. And I’ve actually found some fun/playful/useful ways in which to experiment with it. In addition to continuing to add onto my Troublemaking Role Model board, I just, a few minutes ago, created a new board: Beside/s. It’s inspired by my continued interest in beside/s as an important concept for troublemaking and troublestaying. My first pin on this board? John Waters/Justin Bieber.

While looking for an image of John Waters (I’m planning to add him to my troublemaking role model board), I came across an article headline, “Justin Bieber could win an Oscar, according to one director”. Of course, I tweeted about it:

 

I also had to post about it on my new Tumblr. Here’s what I wrote on that post:

Wow, I find this fascinating. How does it fit with my tumblr? J Waters is one of my troublemaking role models and I like to create curious/troubling/playful juxtapositions: queer camp/bieber fever, shit/bubble-gum?

I don’t think that I want to do too much theorizing about this juxtaposition, but I’m glad that John Waters/Justin Bieber inspired me to create a new Pinterest board on the concept of Beside/s. I’m not sure what I will include in it, but it could be a great space for visually representing the various juxtapositions/besides that I want to perform. This board could complement by Beside/s category on this blog. Here’s my description of that category’s purpose:

BESIDE/S: In this newly developed category (as of January, 2012), I post blog entries that enable me to experiment with being beside/s. Being beside/besides is a concept and practice that I find extremely compelling for working with and through readings, ideas, understandings, and experiences; it was the central organizing principle for my essay and blog posts on living and grieving beside Judith and for my queering ethics course last spring.

Having ideas or things beside each other is to see them as next to each other. Literally, beside is a reminder of the material spaces that we inhabit. This might mean being aware of how books that you are reading/researching reside next to each other or how multiple tabs, with the various posts you are processing, are open at the same time. Conceptually, ideas or things beside (next to) each other indicates that you are reading them together, sometimes through each other, sometimes against each other, but always in ways that recognize that the various ideas/concepts/things that you are engaging with influence and shape each other. These ideas don’t necessarily fit together (and they don’t have to), but, taken together they influence how you read, interpret, understand, and produce your own ideas. To put ideas and things beside each other is to put them into conversation with each other. The process of putting them into conversation is a form of exciting and challenging work that involves much more than sitting alone and staring painfully at a blank screen.

Beside also means besides, that is, in addition to or instead of. Besides can involve the labor of thinking about and being open to alternatives to the ideas that one is reading. It can also mean de-centering one’s own perspective or the perspective of any one idea as the Idea and considering how multiple ideas/theories/experiences outside of ourselves can provide new insights and new understandings. Embracing that which is besides enables us to be, albeit temporarily, beside (not quite outside of) ourselves.

a note for podcast 8 @the undisciplined room

On last week’s podcast, STA and I spent a lot of time discussing recent reports of human rights violations at the Apple supplier, Foxconn, in China. Our discussion was based mostly on the recent Nightline report on working conditions at the factory. After finishing the podcast, I decided to do a little more research on how the problem of labor conditions and human rights violations was being framed, what critical discussions were taking place, and what solutions were being offered. My first research stop: Democracy Now! and a report from February 10, 2012: Apple, Accustomed to Profits and Praise, Faces Outcry for Labor Practices at Chinese Factories 

I appreciate what Shelby Knox (a feminist activist and subject of a film that I screened for a class last semester: The Education of Shelby Knox) had to say about what is at stake:

We’re asking Apple to make an ethical iPhone. Factories in China and the countries that they’re made suffer horrible labor conditions. And so, we’re asking them to live up to their ethical supplier agreement, make sure that they are under good working conditions, that they’re not using toxins that harm them neurologically, and that they take care of those people as well as they would want their customers to be taken care of.

In the Apple’s ethical supplier agreement that Knox mentions, Apple discusses Labor and Human Rights, Worker Health and Safety and Environmental Impact. I’m particularly interested in the human rights aspect of their code. Key to their focus on human rights is the idea that workers should be treated with dignity and respect. I wonder, what does this actually mean? Here’s how they describe it on their site:

Apple prohibits practices that threaten the rights of workers — even when local laws and customs permit such practices. We’ve taken action toward ending excessive recruitment fees, preventing the hiring of underage workers, and prohibiting discriminatory policies at our suppliers. And as the first technology company to be admitted to the Fair Labor Association, Apple is setting a new standard in transparency and oversight.

In watching the Democracy Now! video and briefly skimming the New York Times article (which first broke this story in January), I’m struck by how different their accounts of how the workers’ human rights are being violated seem to be from the Nightline video’s depiction of working conditions. While Nightline suggests repeatedly that the work is “hard,” they don’t focus much attention on the details of why it is hard (physically, mentally or psychologically). When is hard work too hard (and demeaning, damaging, a violation of one’s dignity and respect)?

I’m sure that there are some great conversations about how to define/determine dignity and respect for workers in Foxconn factories and I bet, with a little effort, I can find them…

Another great twitter source

Looking through my Safari Reading list, I found an excellent post by Josh Greenberg “about the benefits and limitations of using Twitter in support of research and teaching.” In addition to providing his own list of reasons why he tweets (research, building profile, professional networking, teaching and personal), Greenberg also links to a Storify on why scholars tweet: Twitter in the Tower which has even more great ideas and links (like to this prezi on social media and this site about being a Networked Researcher).

This post has provided me with lots of great sources for more reflecting on twitter; I’m especially excited to read this article on social media and ethics and this one on personal branding in academe! It has also inspired me to begin sorting through my twitter reflections and fine-tuning my own statement on tweeting. And it inspired me to tweet the author:

Word count: 149

 

Storify Fail

I was really excited to try out the new Storify app for the iPad that just came out today. While it was pretty slick when I was using it, I had a problem when I tried to publish it. Instead of showing my list of 20-30+ tweets, it only showed the first tweet over and over again. I wonder if this happened when I tried to edit the storify online? I also wonder if anyone else has had this problem?