Frameworks for successful analysis and
management of the structures of understanding.

Road Trip of the Mind

this is a beyondutopia production

You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, run amuck. You've been bamboozled.        --Malcolm X

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Timeline of Work
Unit 1  Personal Frames: The structures of individual knowledge and perception
Unit 2  Cultural Frames: Moving outside one's own frame
Unit 3   When Worlds Collide: The clash of frames
Unit 4  Frameworks of Debate:  Moving beyond simply taking sides
Unit 5  When Frames Collapse: Reconfiguring knowledge in times of upheaval and rapid change
Unit 6  The Big Frame: Global villages and beyond
Unit 7  Who's Watching the Frame?: Discussions on the Limits of Self-Expression
Unit 8  Frameworks for Community Building
Unit 9  Colonialist Frames:  The Myths and Realities of "Tribalism"
Unit 10  Hammering Out Your Own Frame:  Reconfiguring Perception for Times of Change

About the Author

Road Trip of the Mind
Guidebook for the Intrepid Traveler
Designed and developed
by Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.
© 2002

Overview
How do we know what we know?  This set of readings explores the idea that the appearance of things often passes as the reality of things.

Is this always the case?  When do appearances deceive?  What are the assumptions we are making, and what do they reveal about cultural values? 

The readings also explore the idea that individuals are swayed by the "spectacle" of something -- whether it be a Hollywood spectacle, a media spectacle, or some other kind of manipulated, staged, larger-than-life production designed to inflame one's emotions.

We often recognize this in advertising, but are not so astute when it comes to print journalism, film, and/or television.

As individuals in an image-enhanced, media-spin kind of world, we have to learn to analyze what we are reading and seeing, and discern possible "spin" or manipulation. 

Readings
THEORETICAL BASES
Guy DeBord, Society of the Spectacle (1967)
   "Separation Perfected"
   "Commodity as Spectacle"

Linda Williams, Playing the Race Card:  Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O. J. Simpson

How did white stereotypes of black sexual assault hide the truth of white violence against black women?

hooks, bell.  "moving beyond shame" in Salvation: Black People and Love.  NY: Morrow, 2001.

Hughes, Langston.  "Passing" in The Ways of White Folks. NY: Vintage Classics, 1933.

Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology (1964)
   
Roman Jakobson, Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning (1942)

"Yemen Geographicalized" by Daniel Martin Varisco

Music
"Madonna:  Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?"  from Black Looks: Race and Representation by bell hooks

Film & Television
Bamboozled, a film by Spike Lee
   a review by Kelwyn Wright
   a review in Salon.com

First Light:  Anthology of Paraguayan Women Writers

Literature -- Short Stories // Prose
"Keter V" by Luisa Moreno Gabaglio

Nisell, Angela.  "October 7 - November 25"  The Broke Diaries. New York: Villard, 2001.

Chadwick, Cydney.  "Indebted."

Melville, Herman
"I and My Chimney" (1856)

Anderson, Sherwood (1919)
from "Winesburg, Ohio"
"Hands" -- Concerning Wing Biddlebaum

Poetry -- what is reality?  These poems explore the idea that reality is almost unknowable, shaped as it is by hopes, dreams, and illusion.

"If You Arrive Today" by Gladys Carmagnola

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro
"La vida es sueño" (1651)
Act III, Scene II -- poetry

Charles Baudelaire
"Spleen"

Anne Sexton  (knowing through myth)
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarves"

Christopher Smart
from Jubilate Agno
"For I will consider my cat, Jeffrey"