Conversations about Care
Care is a central issue of our times, both inside and outside of the academy. From activist organizing to pandemic preparedness, from climate science to labor and migration studies, from mundane individual routines to institutional mandates and global systems, care is there: as analytic descriptor, as core concern, as rallying cry, as object of critique. The meanings and materiality of care beg critical exploration at nearly every turn. Indeed, a thriving arena of research and theorizing about care and caregiving practices is evident across the Amherst campus and beyond. This seminar will therefore bring together faculty from multiple disciplines with a shared interest in care to develop our own work and engage, through reading and discussion, the work of others. We come together recognizing that sustained intellectual engagement and mutual support across a range of life’s dimensions is very much part of the work of care – albeit work often obfuscated or even obstructed by social and institutional forces. Our vision is to develop a network, a community of practice with whom we not only think about care and trace its antecedents, but also develop together new habits of care with which to transform our shared worlds. Leader: Felicity Aulino (Anthropology and Sociology). Participants: Chris Dole (Anthropology and Sociology), Christine N. Peralta (History, Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies), Jallicia A. Jolly (American Studies, Black Studies), Joya Misra (Sociology, UMass).
