29.1.07

Quiero ser.....Hermione!



Eep tots! Estic viva...crec :) Aquests dies no estic postejant però és que tampoc estic tenint massa temps! Les classes han començat i encara estic decidint l'horari però sigui com sigui estic pencant un munt. Així que avui em demano ser Hermione, i poder tenir un rellotge per viatjar pel temps i poder fer tot el que haig de fer i que encara em sobrin hores!!!!!

Aquesta és una vista maca del meu edifici (és el del fons)...que segons votació popular és l'ugliest del campus!!!! jeje Però el campus és perfecte, amb milions de racons que començo a descobrir i especialment amb arbres immensos! Enmig de l'estrès em giro i miro la llum entre les fulles dels arbres i somric....

18.1.07

RESERVED FOR....NOBEL LAUREATES

Si Cristian si, encara que sigui per pixar-se de riure aixo es el que BERKELEY regalala als seus Nobels (i res mes!): un lloc per aparcar al campus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Vale que el tema d' aparcar esta dificil per aqui pero aixo es la pera!!!
ADAM ES EL GUANYADOR!!!!!!! :) Volem saber com has arribat a aquesta deduccio! un petonet a tots, tots i tots que sou lo millor del mon i us trobo a faltar!
[Concurs:
Pista: está en la universidad. Fue todo un descubrimiento de estas navidades cuando hice -por fín- el tour oficial por el campus.

Premio: CÓMO? QUE NO OS PARECE SUFICIENTE EL PLACER DEL CONOCIMIENTO???? Faltaría vamos!

;) ]

16.1.07

Freaking out!

Esto es sólo una de mis asignaturas.....

In this course we will explore varied ways of “seeing” families – as households (political and economic units whose composition and dynamics change historically and vary by social class and culture); families as organized through kinship and discursive practices, including family ideologies, myths, rituals; and families as nodes of care, intimacy, inequality, and power-laden emotional connections. We will examine families through the lens of labor (paid and unpaid, structured through intersections of gender, age, “race,” migration, social class); sexuality, intimacy, care, and control; the social organization of time (e.g. historical constructions of “family time”; generational relations and processes of growing older); and space (varied geographies of daily living, including ties of families to other institutions). Throughout the course we will attend to varying standpoints, including those of children.

Course format:

We will meet each Tuesday from 2 to 4 pm (one of our early-semester meetings will be at Bxx ’s home from 6 to 9 p.m., and will include dinner as well as discussion).

This is an intensive reading and discussion course; and the short and frequent written assignments, some of them to be posted and shared on-line, are designed to keep us moving at a shared, productive pace. Since collective dialogue is central to the course, you should plan to attend every week and to keep up with and think about the readings. Please e-mail Bxx ahead of time if you will not be able to attend a particular class session.

Course Requirements (each will count towards a third of your course grade):

1. Keeping up with the weekly readings and participating in each class Active engagement with our on-line discussions is also a plus.

2. Timely completion and on-line posting of 8 short (2 page) reaction memos, each in response to the readings assigned for a particular class session. Please space your memos throughout the term (roughly every other week). Each reaction memo should be posted on the course web site no later than Monday (11:59 pm!) on the day before the readings will be discussed. Everyone is expected to read and think about the on-line postings – and the readings themselves -- before our Tuesday 2 pm class. This should enhance participation and enliven our discussions. Reaction memos should focus your thoughts and reflections on the week’s readings as a set, highlighting a common theme, points of debate, and/or tracing a conceptual development reflected in readings over time. Craft each memo in whatever way seems most useful for stimulating our ongoing and collective thinking about the ideas of the course. Each memo should conclude with several suggested questions for class discussion. Everyone is encouraged to respond on-line, as well as in class, to the thoughts of our colleagues.

3. A seminar paper or project, loosely anchored in course themes and materials, and chosen from one of the following five options (these are designed to further the work of students at various points in their academic trajectories). Here are the OPTIONS:

a) Drawing partly on assigned course readings, write a proposal (12-15 pp) and develop an initial bibliography for an empirical project you would like to pursue which is connected in some way to themes in the course. Describe the central issue(s) you will pose, the leading theoretical perspectives on your question(s), the methods you will employ, and your rationale and motives for undertaking this research.

b) Write a paper (15-17 pp.) in which you discuss the implications, contributions, and limitations that selected course readings (a minimum of 3) suggest for work you have done or are currently doing in your own current or projected research.

c) Drawing on assigned readings from the seminar, compose 4 questions for a Ph.D. qualifying examination in the sociology of families. Answer two of your questions in essays of 8-10 pp. each.

d) If you are already working on a pertinent paper or project (e.g. for an M.A. or for a field exam in education), develop it further, drawing on readings and ideas from the course.

PLEASE EMAIL Bxxx BY MARCH 7 TO SPECIFY THE OPTION YOU WILL FOLLOW AND THE THEME(S) YOU WILL PURSUE. The final paper is due in Bxxx’s box in 410 Barrows on Wed., May 16 at the latest.


Course website: http://bspace.berkeley.edu

Please sign up on the course “bspace” website as soon as possible, logging in with your Calnet ID; search for the course under SOC28

The course syllabus is posted on the website, as well as links to other relevant sources of information and announcements of upcoming events. .


On-line discussions: The “Discussion” section of the website is divided into weekly forums for the posting and reading of reaction memos, and also for additional discussion. Please set aside time each Tuesday, before 2 pm, to read the memos posted on Monday, and to add your thoughts, questions, amplifications, reactions. [Research has shown that the combination of face-to-face discussions and on-line dialogue enhances learning; it’s a way for the reticent to come more fully to voice, to extend discussions begun in the classroom, and to spark one another’s thinking. The website discussions should also help focus topics and analysis for the final written assignment.]

Course Readings:

Books available for purchase at the University Bookstore and Ned’s Book Exchange:

-John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values. Harvard Univ. Press paperback, 1997

-Mary Pattillo-McCoy, Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class. Univ. of Chicago Press paperback, 2000

-Christopher Carrington, No Place Like Home: Relationships and Family Life Among Lesbians and Gay Men. University of Chicago Press paperback, 1999.

-Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children Princeton Univ. Press paperback, 1994.

- Miri Song, Helping Out: Children's Labor in Ethnic Businesses. Temple Univ. Press paperback, 1999,

A course reader of all the other assigned readings will be available for purchase at Copy Central on Bancroft by Jan. 17. The full bibliography for these readings is at the end of this syllabus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Topics and Reading Assignments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introduction: Brainstorming question: How is a family different from a bowling team?

WEEK 1: Jan. 16: no readings.

What is “Family”? Different ways of “seeing” (conceptualizing, theorizing, thinking about) families

WEEK 2: Jan. 23:

Jane Collier, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanigasako, “Is There a Family? New Anthropological Views”

Dorothy E. Smith, “The Standard North American Family: SNAF as an Ideological

Code”

Martha Minow, “Redefining Families: Who’s In and Who’s Out?”

Kath Weston, “The Politics of Gay Families”

Arlene S. Skolnick, “The Life Course Revolution”

Carol B. Stack and Linda M. Burton, “Kinscripts: Reflections of Family, Generation, and

Culture”



Historical Changes in the Ideals and Realities of Family Life

WEEK 3: Jan. 30: John Gillis, A World of Their Own Making, chs. 1-7.

Social Class, the State, and Changing Constructions of “Public/Private” and “Dependency”

WEEK 4: Feb. 6

Gillis, chs. 8-11.

Leonore Davidoff, “Regarding Some ‘Old Husbands’ Tale’s: Public and Private in

Feminist History”

Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon. 1994. “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing

A Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State”

Sexuality, Intimacy, Marriage, and Reproduction Through The Lenses of Colonialism, Globalization, and Transmigration

WEEK 5: Feb. 13

Ellen Ross and Rayna Rapp, “Sex and Society: A Research Note from

Social History and Anthropology”

Ann Stoler, 1997. “Making Empire Respectable: the Politics of Race and Sexual

Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures”

Hung Cam Thai, “For Better or Worse: Gender Allures in the Vietnamese Global Marriage Market”

Jennifer S. Hirsch, “ En el Norte la Mujer Manda: Gender, Generation, and Geography in a Mexican Transnational Community”


Families, Neighborhoods, Class, and Racialization in the Contemporary U.S.

WEEK 6: Feb. 20 Mary Pattillo-McCoy, Black Picket Fences


Experiences of Intimacy, Domesticity, Work and Family

WEEK 7: Feb. 27 Christopher Carrington, No Place Like Home


Family Labor Systems and Generational Relations

WEEK 8: March 6 Miri Song, Helping Out

[*By March 7th be sure to email Bxxx with a description of your final paper/project]

Theorizing Care and Carework

WEEK 9: March 13

Sara Ruddick, “Care as Labor and Relationship.”

Joan Tronto, “Care as a Basis for Radical Political Judgments”

Arlie Russell Hochschild, “The Commodity Frontier”

Evelyn Nakano Glenn. “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the

Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor.”

Constructions of Motherhood

WEEK 10: March 20:

Shellee Colen, “’Like a Mother to Them’: Stratified Reproduction and West Indian

Childcare Workers and Employers in New York
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “(M)Other Love: Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking”

Claudia Fonseca, “Patterns of Shared Parenthood among the Brazilian Poor”

Anne Allison, “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State

Apparatus”

Tillie Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing”

Lynet Uttal, “Custodial Care, Surrogate Care, and Coordinated Care: Employed Mothers
and the Meaning of Child Care”


Spring Break


Constructions of Fatherhood

WEEK 11: April 3:

Andrea Doucet, Do Men Mother? Fathering, Care, and Domestic Responsibility, pp. 1-136;

215-145.

Changing Constructions of Childhood (and Adulthood)

WEEK 12: April 10: Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child


Varied Circumstances and Experiences of Growing Up

WEEK 13:: April 17

Donald Hernandez, with David E. Myers, “Revolutions in Children’s Lives”

Sharon Stephens, “Children and the Politics of Culture in ‘Late Capitalism”

Anne Solberg, “Negotiating Childhood: Changing Constructions of Age for Norwegian

Children”

Pat Allatt, Conceptualizing Parenting from the Standpoint of Children: Relationship and Transition in the Life Course”

Gender, Generation, and the Emotional Dynamics of Families

(Psychoanalytic Perspectives)

WEEK 14: April 26: Carolyn Kay Steedman. 1987. Landscape for a Good Woman

Conclusion and Sharing of Projects

WEEK 15: May 1: no reading


-------

**. The final seminar paper or project is due in May 16 at the latest.

14.1.07

December in USA. Part II

El desembre, i part del gener, ha estat un període estrany aquí a les Califòrnies. Després de l'estrès del semestre, els primers dies de vacances van ser genials. Amb el Diego i la resta d'amics vam fer forces escapades i vam passejar moltíssim per racons que encara no havíem vist! El nadal fora de casa (la de Barcelona) ha estat estrany, gairebé com si no hagués estat nadal, però divertit! El 24 vam anar a escoltar gospel al Slims, una sala super xula de San Francisco on ens ho vam passar en gran! El grup Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir és molt de Califòrnia: interracial, multicultural i tot plegat! Va ser una festa i realment ens ho vam passar molt bé.

El dia de nadal va començar amb una skypejada amb tota, tooooota, la meva familia que estaven reunits a casa la meva mare i va ser molt divertit. Especialment el Juan, casi com un avi, que com no hi sentia massa bé no parava de dir "Per mi poden dir el que vulguin: com no els sento!" jejeje: pura familia en acció!. Després amb el nen vam anar a passar el dia fora: dinar de nadal a la platja de Monterey lluitant contra les gavines que es volien menjar el nostre picnic. Monterey està en una bahia molt gran, davant de Santa Cruz. El paisatge un cop t'apropes és força curiós, molt salí, amb algunes dunes al costat de la platja. Després el poble no va tenir res d'especial. La part que vam veure ens va semblar molt turística. Això sí, per ser el dia de nadal hi havia un munt de gent pel carrer!


Després vam dirigir-nos cap a Big Sur, i aquí sí que ens vam quedar impressionats. De fet, crec que és un dels llocs més macos i màgics on he estat mai. No vam tenir temps de veure'l com cal, donat que ara es fa fosc molt d'hora. Peró algunes imatges han quedat gravades a la meva retina i segur que tornarem.


Ens van quedar pendents els parcs naturals cap a l'interior. Hi ha un munt de cabins, campings i llocs on estar per tal de planejar un viatge ple d'excursionetes interessants...potser en el recés del març...ja ho veurem!

Després va venir el notición i el dia 27 de decembre el Diego va començar a treballar a Cupertino! Wow! Tant temps parlant de Silicon Valley, sempre com algo llunyà i ara està al mig del meollo, li haurieu de veure la cara: està exultant! jeje i és que tot, TOT, passa a Silicon Valley...


Lo unic és que aleshores les nostres vacances together es van escurçar una mica, i em quedaven 15 dies de vacances però sense ell...:( ...tot sigui per la causa!!!!!! i quina causa! :P

Bé, ara que he tornat demà us postejo una mica més!