[Themaintainers] readings for a 100-level course on maintenance?

brandon benevento jbbenevento at gmail.com
Mon Nov 20 10:34:46 EST 2017


Leaving aside all of the Maintainer's work I've used in class, I listed a
few of the texts I've had luck with when combining 100-level undergrad
classes with "maintenance" as a topic-- all of this is in the context of
Composition classes, so I'm not sure how much translates to STHV.

*Shop Class as Soulcraft-- *You mention it in your email, but I figured I
throw it onto this list as its basically ground-zero for my own academic
interest in maintenance, and students seem to really like it. I usually
just excerpt the intro and conclusion, highlighting Crawford's term "The
ethics of maintenance and repair" which I usually argue should have been
the book's title. The "Agency in a Shared World" part in the conclusion is
the cornerstone of the book in my opinion-- he offers a really useful and
accessible intersection of "self reliance" and inter-dependance.

You probably saw this NYT article from early September, but its a really
good one: "To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two
Top Companies, Then and Now" --  a comparison between a 1980'- era Kodak
janitor's job with a current janitor at Apple.

A couple heavy-weights from Political Economy (both public realm, and
easily excerpted)--

The "Property" chapter of John Locke's 2nd Treatise of Gov. (which
"inspired" a good bit of The Dec of Independence) is actually pretty heavy
on discussion of preservation v spoilage-- not letting things go to waste
serves as the yard stick by which private ownership of wealth can be
considered "just".  Lots here for getting to broadest contexts of
"upkeep"-- money holding its value; property as involving upkeep; politics
as a form of maint.

Ditto Part IV Chapter I of Adam Smith's *Theory of Moral Sentiments*
(particularly
the paragraph beginning "And it is well nature imposes upon us in this
manner " which contains the famous "invisible hand" metaphor).  There's
about ten different types of upkeep and maintenance here, and Smith makes a
direct connection between small acts of maintenance and systemic upkeep.

Mierle Ukele's "Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969"-- well accompanied by some
of her photographs (I think the mirrored garbage truck is my fav). Pairs
nicely with Crawford, as a sort of "hold on there would-be celebrators of
maintenance" and as a way of pushing away from masculine, garage-oriented
uses of our favorite word.

Marjorie Rawlings' *Cross Creek*-- particularly the "A Pig is Paid For" and
"Antses in Tim's Breakfest" chapters. This is a CNF version of Rawling's
life on a Florida Orange grove (her fictional version became *The Yearling*)
and definitely provokes discussion of both gender and race around upkeep.

Steinbeck's *Cannery Row*-- it's relatively short, and pays attention to a
lot of types of handed maintenance, including housework, store-keeping, car
maintenance and the preservation of animal life for science
experiments/education, all of it in the shadow of mass production of food.
Also a pretty direct jux of aspirational ethics to what might be called the
ethics of daily contentment.

Barbara Ehrenreich's "Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women's Work"--
a relatively short, essayistic discussion of the history and present of the
"cleaning woman."

The most recent adaptation of *Westworld*-- I haven't actually used this in
class, but maintenance, especially in light of independence, new
beginnings, and nostalgia, seems all over the place.




On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 8:15 PM, Andrew Russell <arussell at arussell.org>
wrote:

> Hi everyone -
>
> Help!
>
> In Spring 18 I’ll be teaching a 100-level course on Science, Technology,
> and Human Values, offered by my college's program in Interdisciplinary
> Studies.  We treat the course as a special topics course: in past semesters
> faculty have focused on themes of food & public health, but in Spring 18
> I’m organizing the course around innovation and maintenance.  I’ll have no
> more than 24 students, maybe as few as a dozen, and I expect that all will
> be taking it because it satisfies a general education humanities
> requirement.  I’m guessing a good chunk of the students will be computer
> science majors. A small but significant detail is that courses on my campus
> are 4 credits, which means class runs twice weekly for 1 hour & 50 minutes.
>
> My questions for you all have to do with readings, assignments, projects,
> and so on.  I’ve got some ideas, but I’m hoping you can help me with a few
> things.  My provisional semester outline starts by tracing some history of
> “innovation”; then turn to readings on maintenance (drawing heavily from
> the Maintainers conference papers); perhaps assign the book “Shop Class as
> Soulcraft”; and spend significant time on group projects that will be
> ethnographies of maintenance (inspired by Henke’s “Mechanics of Workplace
> Order").
>
> Questions:
>
> First, have you or anyone you know taught a course with these themes?
> Clearly there are many STHV syllabi out there, and those are helpful, but
> it’s the innovation/maintenance angle where I need the most help.  I know
> there is a genre of “innovation studies” courses that I plan to explore,
> although I don’t have high expectations (to be honest).  I’d be curious to
> see syllabi recommended by this group.
>
> Second, do you have any readings/materials (books, essays, movies, etc)
> that you would recommend?  In some ways I think a 100-level non-majors
> course could be trickier than a advanced undergrad seminar or graduate
> course, and I want to make sure the readings are engaging and the projects
> are meaningful.  Rigor is important, of course, but I’m not overly
> concerned with teaching theory or methods in any particular field.
>
> I’ll be really happy to hear any suggestions, and I’ll share the syllabus
> once I’ve got it nailed down…
>
> Thanks!
>
> Andy
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>



-- 
Brandon
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