overease

I wasn't sure how my art and activism class was going to go; the discussion was a little sluggish on Monday. The students are mostly not art history or art majors, and in some ways they're a little naive about art. But they are fantastic about activism! Today's discussion was really great, in spite of my stumbling around trying to get them to appreciate Clement Greenberg. (He's there kind of as a foil, but still.) They came up with all kinds of issues that really set the stage for the class as a whole, about the relationship between negative and affirmative politics (being against something vs. being for something), about what cultural resistance is (is it something forced upon you or something you engage in without even thinking about it; is it even a term we can use?), about multitudes and media and the World Social Forum and modes of production -- all kinds of stuff. They're smart kids, and they care. Similarly, my other class -- the early modern print culture class -- is full of smart kids who have lots to say, even though it's an introductory class. I was sort of dumbfounded at how much they already knew and how enthusiastic they were about relatively arcane issues. Someone remind me when I am bitching about my life how lucky I was feeling today...