Engaging Young Humanists
Evolution of Multicultural Barbies: A Study in Racial Attitudes
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jennifer Tang
The Barbie doll has long been vilified by feminists for its detrimental impact on female body image. In an age when toys are no longer branded by gender and technology has transformed the way children play and learn, it would appear that Barbie has little relevance. In an effort to halt this decline, Mattel has, in recent years, increasingly courted black, Hispanic, and Asian doll buyers. Currently there are more multicultural representations of Barbie than ever before. My paper will examine these efforts in the context of Mattel’s well-documented history of reluctance in integrating the Barbie line and its notable missteps (for example, its failed attempt in 1967 to introduce the first Black doll, an experiment that was roundly condemned by African American parents). I will also discuss how educators can use the history of multicultural Barbies (from the 1960s to the present) to teach students about colonialism, Western standards of beauty, and the reality of low-wage labor in developing countries. Lastly, I will argue that using popular icons such as Barbie are an imaginative way for educators to cover multidisciplinary ideas in a highly accessible but substantive way.
Pataphysics Postal Service: Science and Technology in Childhood, with a Gender Focus
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Diana Sánchez Barrios
Pataphysics Postal Service (PPS) is a postal mail service that, through letters co-created with women scientists, seeks to motivate and inspire girls between six and eleven to explore their surroundings through science and technology with the help of activities they can do in their spare time parallel to their formal education. Girls have as much curiosity as boys in knowing how the world works, solving problems, and learning; however, there are barriers such as gender stereotypes, reinforced in school as well as at home, that legitimate socially constructed misconceptions about the abilities that children are supposed to have according to their gender. The limited presence of feminine role models in science and technology, the established ideas about which behaviors and roles girls must fit in at certain ages pull them away from exploration practices needed to maintain the interest in science and technology. PPS invites girls to discover the world, for that purpose uses the wonder, the curiosity, and the imagination, and integrates the feminist perspective of care introduced by María Puig de la Bellacasa about the techno-science thinking. Such perspective seeks to favor aspects such as care, and affection, generally associated with femininity when focusing on science and technology topics. Based on this concept, this project inspires girls to get interested in science and technology, but also to teach girls and boys that science and technology must be conceived and used for the welfare and the common wealth. This project builds upon Pataphysics, defined by the writer Alfred Jarry as “the science of imaginary solutions” (4), with the purpose to expand the creative possibilities of the project when the girls learn and cultivate a scientific spirit that also nourish their imagination, constructing their point of view about the environment they explore.
Reconsidering Stories, Righting Freedoms : A Conversation between Human Rights and Literature
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chemutai Glasheen
James Dawes argues that at the core of human rights work is storytelling because storytelling is essential to how we come to be who we are. Stories make us aware of the dignity of others by giving us access to their shoes which is essential for the realisation of justice. The literature in the field interrogates the foundational concepts on human rights and literary discourses and how they relate to one another. In seeking to answer the question on how fiction is instrumental in raising awareness about human rights among young adults, I analyse short stories such as Shalini Goodimal’s "Root Gold" and Grace Musila’s "She" for the ways in which they represent rights and the rights bearer. I also create a series of human rights themed short stories as part of my creative response to the question. Excerpts from my stories will also be presented.
Teaching the Experience and Ethics of Modern Warfare: War Horses during the Great War and Discussions of Duty, Loyalty, and Patriotism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carolyn Vacca, Frederick Dotolo
This paper discusses how focusing on historiography and literary analysis through the metaphor of the war horse draws upon students’ own attachment to companion animals to engage them in discussions of the “Great War” as demonstrating a shift in agricultural economies away from animal to mechanized labor, to beings as instruments rather than subjects, and to growing issues of conscience. In addition, the value of these foils for experiential learning in discussion with veterans will be presented.
