Border Culture 2020
Welcome
This Google site serves as an orientation and general introduction to me (Dr. Rodney) and Ashley Hemmings (Graduate Assistant) and the course (MACS/CMAF4500).
It is a supplement to our Blackboard course site which is the home base (with readings, assignments, discussion boards etc). Think of it as an annex: a place to browse through timely and relevant materials as well a tools that I find useful for my own work and recommend to students. As Google Sites is more media rich than Blackboard, I may send you here (from our Blackboard home base) for food for thought, examples, and discussion questions linked to videos or websites. Please note that this is not our main course website. All important syllabus and assignment information will continue to be found on our Blackboard course site. If you don't feel 100% comfortable with Blackboard, please take the tutorials through the University of Windsor Centre for Teaching and Learning apps.medialab.uwindsor.ca/ctl/bbproject/general-help.html. And don't hesitate to email me through the help/and email portals found on our Blackboard course site.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank you for having the good faith for diving into online learning this fall! This is as new to me as it is to you, so please give me feedback--positive or negative. We will have some flexibility to tweak assignments after the course begins and as you begin your journey with online learning. I hope you’ll spend some time browsing through this page while looking over the syllabus. I’m looking forward to meeting you all in September.
Lee
Mapping as Method, from KM2, Armouries Strata-walk, Windsor, ON September 2017
Resources | An evolving selection of websites and videos for inspiration and reference, some of these sites are cross referenced with weekly selections linked on your Blackboard site.
Contemporary Debates
ABOUT ME + THE COURSE
Hi. My official title is Dr. Rodney, but please call me Lee. I started teaching as as graduate student, 25 years ago when email was new. I think education is very important (perhaps now more than ever) and this is why I have three degrees. My education started in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia where I completed a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, it continued at York University in Toronto and it finished (technically speaking) in a PhD from the University of London (UK).
But obviously education goes beyond the classroom or institution (real or virtual). Travel is often linked to education and research for me and my interest in borders developed while I was studying in the United Kingdom just after 9/11. My interest grew after I arrived at the University of Windsor and was perplexed by the local border situation and the proximity of the American border. My first office in the old LeBel building on Huron Church Road looked out over the international customs plaza of the Ambassador Bridge. I developed an intense curiosity about how borders operate, how long they’ve been around and how different cultures view them. This course is particularly focused on how we view personal and political borders, as well as how social justice movements take place at and across borders.
The first ever border culture course was co-taught with Dr. Marcel O’Gorman who was then at the University of Detroit Mercy. Every two weeks we met on the Detroit side at that campus and every other week the Detroit students would meet with us on the Windsor side. We learned a lot about each other’s experiences and perspectives and the complications of crossing the border in mixed groups. It has become increasingly difficult to run this course as a cross-border endeavour, but the silver lining in the cloud of COVID 19 is that it has motivated me to connect with colleagues virtually in other countries who will join us at key points in the course.
I continue to write and make projects about borders of different kinds. Most of my publications can be found on Academia.edu and one of my projects, The Border Bookmobile, can be found on frontierfiles.org.
Ashley Hemmings (GA)
Hello! My name is Ashley Hemmings and I’m going to be the GA (Graduate Assistant) for this course! I am starting the second year of my MFA at the University of Windsor, but am currently attending by distance from Newfoundland (my home province)!
In my art practice, I consider the intersection of many different ways of looking at and relating to the natural world. My current focus is on how language influences the ways that humans interact with their natural environments. I consider my practice to be interdisciplinary, I often work in textiles, but also enjoy drawing, performance, video, digital illustration, bioart and installation. I have worked in a number of art galleries and artist run centres across Newfoundland assisting with arts education, gallery programming, arts festivals, curating, and installing exhibitions. Currently I am working as a research assistant to Dr. Jennifer Willet in the INCUBATOR Art Lab.
My experiences of “border culture” are possibly limited to the one year that I spend living in Windsor, but having grown up and lived on an Island for my whole life, I have my own thoughts and experiences of being separated from the rest of Canada by the Atlantic Ocean.
If you want to look at some of my past artwork you can check out my website: ashleyhemmings.ca and if you have any questions about my art, or this class, or the MFA program, you can email me at hemming1@uwindsor.ca !! :)