Week 11: New Materialism

Week 11: New Materialism
Jackie Clark

This week's readings are dense and rich in material. Some of the concepts seem very clear to me, while others are a bit more elusive. In the Coole/Frost article about New Materialism, I follow the idea that materialism, once out of favor for discussion, is having a resurgence of interest and critique. Having read this intense piece, I find it hard to imagine how one could NOT connect materialism to philosophy and policy. In fact, my appreciation for practical application helped me understand what they were trying to say. Although sometimes burdened by complex language and thought, I thought they did a good job in discussing the many ways our material world in interwoven into all the systems that make our world work. From biological, to physical, to economic, to political, it's impossible to disconnect that material from those systems. In very real ways, with excellent examples (housing crisis), they were able to convey how the material is a part of everything, and has an inseparable impact on all discourse around the biggest issues today, like bioethics, human agency, political systems, social justice etc...I think the biggest take-away is their overall case for the interconnectedness of systems. We like to think of things like science and history, and economics as discrete subjects to study and discuss, but in the application of these things, they are all connected in significant, material ways. I am not capturing this very well, there was so much in the article to understand. But, unlike prior approaches in past weeks, new materialism has a practicality and applicability that I understand, and appreciate.

The St. Pierre piece was fascinating, and frustrating. Having discussed the positivist nature of the policies of NCLB, and the SRE in other classes, I was familiar with this disturbing lack of understanding. However, her quotations really supported the argument that the committee lacked a fundamental understanding of non-positivist work. It really makes me think about the cognitive abilities of a lot of politicians and "experts" in science, if they cannot think past positivism. For example, it's clear to most law students that "everything is grey area." Relativism is a hallmark of advanced cognitive understanding, but seems to be lacking with people who cannot see that qualitative research, cannot and should not attempt to be quantitative research. There is a place for both in uncovering and examining the world. I have a feeling that it's simply easier to pick the less elusive and less complex quantitative methodology because it can be measured. And in terms of what many people think is most important, there must be a way to measure everything! How would they test student's learning if you can't have nice clean edges, and scores. Sadly, this misses the bigger and more important point: are we teaching students to LEARN. I would argue that teaching them to think, to understand, to be critical, is way more important than scores based in positivist math/science and how many vocabulary words you know. Well, I expect I am preaching to the choir here.....I did think her quote "we've forgotten we made it up" was very funny and very honest. In the spirit of the article, it was another example of why deconstruction is necessary and how critique is important as an ongoing practice.

The Tuana article was a nice application of New Materialism connected to an event and a social reality that we are all familiar with and can understand. Her re-framing of the event around material feminism and interactionism seemed another way to explore how dichotomies do not work. Its important to understand discete concepts like social and natural, but follow by understanding that nothing operates alone. In the post tradition here, she is connecting things in complex ways, and acknowledging that understanding must flow from interconnected concepts. It seems to me that this work decenters any one agent, like human, or political policy, or natural event, and recenters them all together, without privileging one over another.

Finally, the Nordstrom article was like nothing I have ever read. In fact, in the art world, I would call it performance art. Having had little to no contact with my grandparents, but lots of interest in their lives, I was deeply moved by her work. I have also collected pictures, artifacts, and have much in common with my paternal grandmother. I have thought many of the same things as I looked at her pictures, tried to comprehend time and place and think about what she was doing/thinking at the time.  I would love to work with her and make this a museum piece, with spoken word, projected images, and bring research to life in a different way.