Items

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  2021-09-16

  Assignment for Literature and Cultural Analysis Seminar

  I'm sharing an assignment sheet for my "Literature and Cultural Analysis" class at Vanderbilt University for the Fall 2021 semester. The class, themed "The Archive," is designed to encourage critical thinking around the concept of the archive and its material practices and embodiments. While we think of the ways in which archives enable research and help to cultivate new knowledge and stories, we also consider how archives encode structures of power and act as sites of forgetting as much as remembering. I've asked my class of twelve students to contribute to the COVID-19 digital archive as their first writing assignment for the semester. This assignment is designed to introduce them to an existing and regularly updated archive and ask them to think critically about processes of archiving and the decisions that go into selecting, categorizing, and framing the importance of a cultural artifact. My students have been asked to choose 2-3 items from their experience of the pandemic year to share in this public forum. Their contributions will be tagged to sync up with this assignment sheet.
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  2020-05-19

  Anishinaabe Pandemic Prophecies by Isaac Murdoch

  From the Yellowhead Institute’s website: “As we collectively grapple with this pandemic and supporting each other though it, the efforts of Yellowhead and our call for collaboration, along with Isaac Murdoch’s contributions a COVID-19 webinar hosted by Idle No More and Indigenous Climate Action, came together in a beautiful team effort to create this animated video. Murdoch, along with Travis Porter and Fallon Simard worked together to draw, animate and edit this message about Anishinaabe prophecy, knowledge and experience with pandemics.”
• 2021-01-11

  the beginning of the corona virus

  I thought this was going to be like the common cold everyone would get over it in like 2 weeks. but after a few days it started to get a lot more serious in a way that everyone had to start wearing masks.i think the cause of how its spread so much is that some people don't want to wear a mask. my knowledge has changed because now I know a lot more than it can just kill people. some of my experiances with this is that when the people came across the news that they were saying that the first case of covid has came into the u.s., was that it was kinda confusing because I didn't know what it was.
• 2021-01-11

  My Early Ideas on the Origin of COVID

  This virus, known in early March simply as "the coronavirus", was shrouded in mystery. We were told that it originated in China, which inspired many jokes. A parody of the song "Break my Stride" was the most memorable. In the earliest days of the pandemic, not much was known about COVID besides it's symptoms and things that we were being told could prevent it. That and that it was impossible to find paper products, cleaning products, and eggs. We knew that the symptoms were similar to the flu and that we were supposed to stay six feet away from other people and not high five. We were also told to sanitize everything frequently (hence the shortage of cleaning products) and wear masks. Not much of that has changed since then. We still do all the same things to prevent it, but somehow, it feels that my knowledge has filled out. There is less fear now (the teacher's unions are certainly using that fear to their advantage). Though I know that there is much that I did not understand in March and April, I feel that my opinions and knowledge of COVID have not changed much.
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  12/03/2020

  Anonymous Northeastern University Student Oral History, 2020/12/03

  This is an interview with a classmate. In the interview we discuss the handling of the pandemic and we also discuss previous pandemics as well as what we can learn from them going forward.
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  2020-05-06

  Healing Indigenous Lives Initiative: Culture as Prevention Webinar

  United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc. holds webinar focused on helping tribal youth overcome obstacles during these tough times by drawing from cultural knowledge.
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  2020-04-16

  "Indigenous Peoples Turning to Traditional Knowledge On COVID-19 Response"

  “Through online, webinars and social networking, Indigenous leaders are sharing traditional knowledge - and the latest biomedical and epidemiological information - to protect their communities from harm…Tribal communities all over the world are showing leadership in acting swiftly to protect their communities, even where some individual freedoms are curtailed.” #IndigenousStories