Happy happy joy joy

I feel like the ideal intention of this class is potentially far more constructive and beneficial than the set up of previous THAP classes i have had. As Chris said, Caleb "is treating us like adults", and i think this has been a good wake up call and an important process for third year. The blog is awesome in terms of forcing us to read and to critically think about what we are going to address in class.

However, i feel like given the way the rest of the universities theory classes have been run, the contrast in expectations of this class needed to be clearer and perhaps facilitated our adjusting more from the outset. The expectation that anything we are going to get out of the class had to be driven by ourselves needed to be far more strongly communicated. You may have a theory of how students should participate and a class should run but if this is not the case you need to adapt and construct new ways of dealing and attempting to get them there. We are adults but alot of us dont act like one and aren't used to being treated like one, and i think this needed to be taken more into consideration. For example, i don't think the majority our class was at a level that really facilitated the idea of the class being totally driven as 'conversational', and therefore may have helped to have been more critically driven by Caleb.
I also feel like the aims/ outcomes of this class were really blurry and there have been a few contradictions. I feel like the majority of class discussions have been purely chatting about case studies and not touching on much broader theory has been dissapointing. I also think this is abit nuts when coming to the essay it is obvious that Caleb expects us to have an apt understanding of contemporary theory surrounding politics, art and the idea of 'community'. I think the fact that many peoples essays were on "institutional critique"and the fact that alot of this weeks blog entries have been on how relational aesthetics and activism is going to potentially help or affect theories of their practise demonstrates that this is not the class and perhaps some points have been missed?

Hey Caleb this is no way carries an angry tone, i just wanted to be honest about my criticisms.
In saying that i have personally found this class the most enjoyable theory class, and the contemporary theory i am NOW reading (Ranciere etc) one of the most interesting and relevant.