Fall 2011 Classes and Commitments

Katie D.

October 5, 2011 - 7:34 PM

Another academic year has begun. It's going to be a busy year: classes, GTF, internship work, and writing a Master's Thesis. I can already see that this year holds incredible potential, and that I could end up racing around to get everything done. So this year will be an exercise in balance, and in welcoming the opportunities that come. This will be my final year as a UO Duck-my last year as part of the student community in Eugene, and my last chances to live the UO student life to the fullest. I know the time will speed by, so it's a good sign that I've already hit the ground running.

I'm only enrolled in two traditional classes this term. This is normal in the CRES program: the first year is for the core classes, while the second year is focused on one's individual interests through electives, internships, and research. I've already completed one elective: my global diversity course I took last weekend (http://isupportuoregon.org/my_duckstory/blog/katie_d/global_disabilities). My other two courses are "Urban Geography" and "Philosophy of Karl Marx." I already love both.

Urban Geography is taught by visiting professor James Anderson from Belfast. The course is focused on divided cities: places like Belfast and Jerusalem, where national identity and territory claims are played out in conflicts on the streets of a city. This course is full of European history and the geographic framework to understand conflict through power, place, and identity. To have a course like this be taught by a professor who grew up in a contested city adds enormous depth to the lectures. This is the first time I have studied conflict resolution with this particular framework of geography and history. I can't wait to see how this maps into my understanding of structures of conflict and the potential for resolution.

Philosophy of Karl Marx is taught by Professor Cheyney Ryan, who is a professor of both philosophy and law, and who teaches in the CRES program. This class is focused on the context and political writings of Karl Marx. So far we've focused on the history leading up to Marx, particularly on the causes and impacts of the French Revolution (which Professor Ryan describes as being the transformational moment into political modernism), and the Industrial Revolution (described as the transition into the modern economy). I was also intrigued by Professor Ryan's description of Marx's focus on the first day of class: he said that "Marx wrote tens of thousands of pages of capitalist critique. He wrote seven pages that speculated about communism and socialism." Rather than being the prophet of a new model of human relations, it seems that Marx was mostly concerned with something being fundamentally wrong with the system in which he was living and writing in the 1840's an on. In this current political and economic moment, I am extremely interested in where this course will take us.

In addition to these courses, I am also doing thesis and internship credits. I will inevitably have much more to write about these experiences later. But both are focused on questions of immigration and human rights, based partially on my experiences and work this summer, and partially on the local Eugene activist community. I am excited about my internship, because it will provide me the opportunity to continue my work on issues that are centrally important to my identity as an activist and a believer in human rights. I will also be able to link with existing organizations to build coalitions around immigration issues.

My thesis is an entirely different topic. This year's whole focus will be building to the research, writing, and eventual defense of this thesis. If you've been following my blog long enough to remember my undergraduate thesis, you know that the effort involved with completing a research project of this magnitude is all-consuming. My thesis will underwrite this entire year, and will take enormous energy. It's time to get going-I have a long way to go.

So this year will be about balancing interests and responsibilities. It will mean embracing opportunities and having to say no to others. It will inevitably mean some hair-pulling stress, and will hopefully also lead to some true sense of accomplishment and pride.

Here we go again!

(This picture shows the Honors Theses completed by my closest undergraduate friends. Time to start a new book-sized project!)