This course is about community organizing. The skills and concepts this class will discuss and explore have to do with all levels and means and intents of organizing. Organizing can be bringing together the members of a church youth group for a yard sale or bake sale, or coordinating the parents in local school district to lobby for increased school funding, or working to build alliances for social change, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Textile Strike of 1934 or the Pittston Strike in Russell and Dickenson counties of 1989. This course introduces students to the rationale, goals, tactics, and strategies of community organizing, on all these levels, examining how people get power and how democracy is built. Differing models of community organization and their related values, goals, processes, and strategies are explored. Brief histories of citizen and social movements, along with profiles of individual organizers are offered to demonstrate how and why people become involved in their communities. Central to this semester-long conversation will be a critical examination of the concepts hegemony and ideology and their relationship to personal identity, social formations, and community organizing. The course builds also from the concepts and experiences democracy, place, public life, conflict, politics, community, fear, hope, and civic vision.
Resting at the center of this course is the premise that in the American context all organizing for social change and justice, all organizing for community-focused work whether it be large projects or small, the struggle to articulate and realize new visions for our places and ourselves begins with the long and difficult processes that result in personal and collective ideological change. Students are expected to participate in a hands-on community organizing project, which will take place in the town of Marion, Virginia. Guest speakers, films, and music will complement course readings and class discussion.
Resting at the center of this course is the premise that in the American context all organizing for social change and justice, all organizing for community-focused work whether it be large projects or small, the struggle to articulate and realize new visions for our places and ourselves begins with the long and difficult processes that result in personal and collective ideological change. Students are expected to participate in a hands-on community organizing project, which will take place in the town of Marion, Virginia. Guest speakers, films, and music will complement course readings and class discussion.