The choices we make on whom to include and whom to exclude as we choose the readings for a syllabus are important and can be a political act as well. One of empowerment or one of exclusion. I strongly believe that we have a responsibility when designing syllabi.
Developing a syllabus for a course/class requires that you have broad and deep understanding of a subject. This is partly why I think both breadth and depth are important both in comprehensive examinations and in doctoral research https://t.co/b7vZVB1AV5
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 26, 2020
I have written about the importance of acknowledging the differences across undergraduate, Masters and PhD-level theses https://t.co/eajzAEDJ62
I have developed my heuristics, but I don’t believe they’re universal and I haven’t seen them globally agreed upon. Each one of us…
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 26, 2020
(on the topic of “surveying the lay of the land” I have a blog post on mapping an entirely new body of scholarship https://t.co/lz8TcgWCVt)
I have developed two instruments to help me craft syllabi:
1) storytelling (syllabi as narratives/stories) https://t.co/oLYnnqE6Gw
and
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 26, 2020
My point about writing a syllabus as a political act: you can choose if you diversify your syllabus or not https://t.co/fUcNPzCmiC
If the canon is no longer useful for the conversations we are having, then we ought to change the canon.
For example: Dr. Elinor Ostrom was THE…
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 26, 2020
Dr. Elinor Ostrom was the global authority on commons governance and institutional theory. Eliminating Dr. Ostrom from a syllabus on institutional analysis, on commons theories, on governance theories, etc., is purposefully denying her place in the global landscape of scholarship.
This IS an omission.
(I have seen it done, and seeing it has made my blood boil, BTW).
As scholarship evolves, who is the canonical citation/authority does as well. And you can purposefully choose to highlight scholars who have not had as much “action” in the literature, or choose to obscure them. I also feel like crafting a syllabus is a responsibility. I have the duty to my students to provide them with the best available knowledge (to my understanding, and within my own limits, of course). And I have a duty to scholars to make their work shine, particularly those who haven’t had as much “play” in the global citation game.
Citation has its own politics, and as a result you get to decide who you highlight in syllabi and citations. I very strongly believe we have a responsibility to have diverse citation lists and syllabi.
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