Philosophy final paper (part2/3)

Final Project (25 pts)

Prompt: Throughout the quarter, Sara Ahmed will guide us through the uses of use, and the goal of the final project is to take a selection of text from the course and “make use of it.” This will take different shapes for everyone but hopefully by the end of the quarter you will have found something that you find useful in Philosophy.

Ahmed suggests that use is in the plural—that things have different uses and use has different uses. She says:

In some instances, then, by “uses of use,” I am referring to how scholars have made use of use in developing their arguments. In reading for use, we are making connections that might not otherwise have been made across domains that might otherwise remain distinct, such as biology, psychology, architecture, and design, which all make use of use to explain the acquisition of form.[footnoteRef:0] [0: Ahmed, What’s the Use?: On the Uses of Use, Durham: Duke UP, 2019, 8.]

Following her, you might choose to write a paper that makes certain connections, you might want to change the form of a text to give it another use, you might want to create an object of use. I am giving you the opportunity to be creative with this task. However, I do have to approve of the project, which is why you must first submit a proposal where I’ll give you notes or suggest that you change some things.

The final project must be submitted in two parts:

1. By March 2rd at 21:00am CST you must submit a proposal (5 pts):

A description (of about one page) of the use you intend to make of the text detailing:

i. The section or text that you will make use of (it may be a subsection of a text, a chapter or a full text)

ii. Material you will create, detailing the medium you will use

iii. A justification of why the original material can be used in the way you intend to use it (remember that Ahmed in pp 25-26 claims that material/materiality is important to determine which uses can be given to a thing, even if they are outside of the intended use).

2. By March 15 at 8:00am CST you must submit (20pts):

a. An introduction of 2 pages in length (double space, 12pt). If you decide to write a paper, the introduction should be part of your paper, if you decide to do something else, your introduction should be in a separate document. Your introduction should do the following:

i. Explain very briefly the main issue that you think the section of the text/the text you chose treats (in other words, what is the main thesis of the section of text/text.)

ii. Why you think the text is useful in the way you to use it. Explain why you find this to be useful.

iii. Explain the way you use the text, describe the process you follow.

b. Your final paper (the paper should be at list 6 pages exclude the introduction pages and work cited page)

Assessment

Grading of the project will be determined by the following criteria:

· Timely submission of each of the elements

· Capacity to understand what the stake of the chosen text is and ability to translate the stakes into the medium you choose

· Ability to draw from and reflect critically and creatively about a philosophical issue presented in the text and relate it to contemporary or relevant use

· Proper justification of the project (including elements listed above)

· Eloquence and organization, as well as proper citation

No late projects (or elements of the project) will be accepted.

Some ideas for inspiration:

Art, game design,…

· I Was Raised in the Age of the Internet – MCA Chicago 2018

https://mcachicago.org/Publications/Websites/I-Was-Raised-On-The-Internet#online-artworks

This exhibit had a lot of really amazing interactive websites

· Hito Steyerl has a series of artworks that are thoroughly informed by philosophical texts. Adorno’s Gray is an installation that tries to investigate Adorno’s (Adorno was a famous german philosopher of the 20th century) last day of class, where he turned away from the student movement in Berlin by taking apart the classroom where the class took place. Here’s the booklet from the exhibit at the Art Institute, it also describes other works.

https://monoskop.org/images/b/be/Hito_Steyerl_ARTIC_2012.pdf

· Hito Steyerl – How Not to Be Seen. A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File

https://www.artforum.com/video/hito-steyerl-how-not-to-be-seen-a-fucking-didactic-educational-mov-file-2013-51651

· Godard, et.al., Ici et Ailleurs

He makes use of footage in ways he didn’t intend to. It produces a work that also has different uses.

· Agnès Varda, film shed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JnTbZHAo7g

Varda makes use of film in different ways.

· Spinoza’s Ethics mapped in a website

http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

· Walter Benjamin’s Radio Plays

http://clocktower.org/series/radio-benjamin#prettyPhoto

· Turning Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus into music

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/oct/04/artsfeatures.arts

Texts and …

· bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldua write children’s books

· Anne Carson – Decreation

She writes a text in prose, an analysis of three important thinkers and mystics, and then writes an opera in 3 acts (d2l)

· Jorge Luis Borges makes use of false archives (d2l)

· Carmen Maria Machado creates an archive that wasn’t there in In the Dream House

· Feminist translators have translated classics (from the Greek, for example) which makes for different texts. Every translation makes a text different. (Anne Carson translated fragments of Sappho, Emily Wilson translated the Odyssey)

· Eva Brann on translating Plato https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1248

· Walter Benjamin’s “Little History of Photography” makes use of photography and the archive (d2l)

· Audre Lorde teaches us that “Poetry is not a Luxury,” which might inspire some uses of texts (d2l)

· Elisabeth and Descartes’ letters and other philosophers’ correspondence

· Sara Ahmed’s blog https://feministkilljoys.com/