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

Mon Nov 20 12:47:55 EST 2017

Here is my syllabus for a course “The Social Life of Innovation,” an undergrad seminar. The goal was to put innovation in context of gendered, colonial, racialized, and capitalist histories.
https://thiscourse.com/ucsd/comm190/sp17/

This 100-level internet industries classes is more about going from Snowden to Facebook, but there’s a section on innovation and labor where we talk about Gina Neff’s Venture Labor.
http://thiscourse.com/ucsd/comm106i/sp15/

I’d love to see what you end up with! This is a great thread.

On Nov 20, 2017, at 7:34 AM, brandon benevento <jbbenevento at gmail.com<mailto:jbbenevento at gmail.com>> wrote:

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<mailto: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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