Campus Connection

Art exhibit details new course

UW-La Crosse faculty working to develop a new multidisciplinary general education course will share images and writings about their research of social justice issues. “The Search for Economic Justice,” the title of the new course and the exhibit, provides a look through the lens of photography of the depictions of various aspects of economic justice in photos. The images also posed different questions pertaining to the depictions, promoting reflection and discussion about economics and the human side of economic inequality. The exhibit brings together perspectives from the departments of Anthropology, Economics, English, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Political Science, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. The exhibit, free and open to the public, opens in Murphy’s Mug in the university’s Murphy Library with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5. View the exhibit through Friday, Nov. 11, when Murphy’s Mug is open: 7:45 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays –Thursdays; 7:45 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays, and 4-10 p.m. Sundays. Marc Manke, Murphy Library, says the exhibit is a first for the “Art in the Mug” program at Murphy — it’s the first time an exhibit is promoting a class. “We wanted to use the exhibit to address the complex and nuanced ideas of economic justice but in a way students, faculty and the general public could approach it and begin to interact with the underlying concept of economic justice,” Manke says. “What better than photographs to show these concepts in action and jump start that conversation.” He says by giving a taste of course content, students will be intrigued and driven to join the class to discover more. The exhibit is made possible by a grant from the UWL Foundation, and organized by Manke along with faculty members Christine Hippert, Archaeology/Anthropology, and Nabamita Dutta, Economics. For more information about the exhibit, visit: https://www.uwlax.edu/art-in-the-mug More about the new class “ANT/ECO 212 Search for Economic Justice” will be offered in spring 2017 and can be taken in any of the departments in which it is offered. The course examines inequality as a social process, the outcome of a series of social, cultural, political, and economic decisions in contexts over time. The course fulfills the "Global and Multicultural Studies" subcategory of the "International and Multi-/Cultural Studies: Becoming World Citizens" category (GE04). [caption id="attachment_46898" align="alignnone" width="685"] There are many organizations that work to help families and children learn marketable skills, illustrated in the photo showing Bolivian children learning higher-yield farming techniques at the Bolivian organization called the Pirwa ("silo" in Quechua). These techniques support and maintain valuable indigenous farming knowledge that has been lost because of increased rural to urban migration to work in the informal economy as day-laborers or for very low-pay work in factories.[/caption] Search for Economic Justice requires students to examine and demonstrate knowledge of the structure and connections of economic systems across the world and throughout history. Students will also critically analyze economic and political structures in a variety of different nations, and evaluate global social movements for economic empowerment as a critical dimension of justice in increasingly globalized contexts. Specific attention will be paid to the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender as they operate in the lives of individuals and as organizing principles of various societies. Throughout the course, various assignments help students to examine structural and systemic factors that help create and maintain economic inequality and to assess those factors that would seek to alleviate inequality. [caption id="attachment_46896" align="alignnone" width="685"] How does global inequality affect perceptions and practices related to conservation and the environment? Sometimes, whole families migrate so that a family member can work in the wage economy. While their male partners and sons work as migrant farmers, these women work to earn cash by washing other people's clothes and are paid by the piece. They don't have washing machines in their homes, due to lack of running water, so they wash these clothes in the nearby river. In order to survive, these women use a utilitarian framework of their environments, and the resulting pollution in the river is an externality, or by-product, of a survival strategy. Therefore, in order to conserve environments, people don't need education about conserving environments, they need to be able to meet their basic needs.[/caption] Search for Economic Justice promotes the values of UWL’s General Education program in three primary ways. First, the course requires students to trace connections between their own lives as economic actors and broader socio-economic systems and realities. Second, it engages students to critically examine these relationships through multi- and inter-disciplinary lenses. And third, the course articulates the key dimensions of the development and evolution of capitalism in a global context, especially as they pertain to structures of gender, racial and class inequality. If you go—    What: “The Search for Economic Justice” When: Opens with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5. View the exhibit through Friday, Nov. 11, when Murphy’s Mug is open: 7:45 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays –Thursdays; 7:45 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays, and 4-10 p.m. Sundays. Where: Murphy’s Mug, Murphy Library Admission: Free