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Bodies: A Digital Companion

The Women's March, "Mission and Vision"

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Walking: Introduction and Contents
"Walking...is how the body measures itself against the earth." - Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust

A baby's first steps, hiking Mt. Mansfield, a protest march, and Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind all have in common the act of walking. It seems so simple and natural, which may be why the cultural significance of walking is often ignored. Dr. Wright's focus section "Bodies: Walking" will consider why we walk, and how the cultural history of walking intersects with our understanding of bodies in the past and present.
The simple act of walking is one of the primary ways we, as humans, come to know our own bodies. It is also how we come to know our communities and environments, the followed and unfollowed paths that become the worlds we inhabit. As you will discover, our class on walking will ask you to reconsider the meaning of place. Landscapes are made and remade through our bodies walking within them. Our main book is Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Solnit's lyrical journey is about how our bodies move through different spaces, transform those spaces and ourselves in the process.

"Bodies: Walking" (click on link to access the syllabus on Google Docs) begins by examining the walk as embodied experience. We will focus on the connection between walking and key concepts central to understanding the body: mind-body dualism, embodiment, intersectionality, physical difference, cultural norm, and stigma. We will consider these five key concepts in relation to both the art and technology of walking. Next, we will dig into the historical contexts of walking by looking at the pilgrimage, the nature walk, and walking the city. We will conclude our class by examining walking practices in the late 20th and early 21st century with an eye - or foot?! - towards understanding the power dynamics that enable certain bodies to walk freely, to occupy certain spaces, or to control the paths they take, while others cannot. We will do several experiential workshops like making a walking map of Champlain College's campus, going on a Haiku walk, wandering through the woods, and brainstorming about possible walking-based video games and apps. You will work in groups to make your own narrative walking map using your own phenomenological research as a starting point.

Required materials include a copy of Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust, portable notebook for your walking journal, and a good pair of walking shoes! The remainder of your required readings/screenings are available as content links to this page. Check out the syllabus for specific due dates.
Intersectionality
Definition and Context
Intersectionality refers to “the way overlapping identities — including race, class, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation” — affect how oppression and discrimination are experienced (Dastagir). The term was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 but the idea itself predates Crenshaw, as seen in the 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement. The concept of intersectionality rejects the notion that we can understand someone’s experience simply by adding up separate components of their identity as if it was an equation.

Intersectionality is also “a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power” (Crenshaw 2015) that has social, political, economic, personal, and bodily implications. In the late 1980s, Crenshaw demonstrated that the legal system discriminated against black women by assuming that their experiences could be explained by combining white women’s and Black men’s experiences (1989, 143). She broke legal ground by insisting that “any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated” (140). This was true not only of institutions like the courts, but even within feminist and civil rights movements (150).

Intersectionality has not always been easy or comfortable to identify, particularly for those with privilege and cultural capital. However, intersectionality has become an increasingly popular tool in analyzing how to make social change. The term recently “received increased attention in part due to how the Women’s March on Washington came together. The rally, which began organically on Facebook, was initially criticized for failing to include any women of color as organizers” (Dastagir). Ultimately, the march was organized by a diverse group of activists with a mission to “support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities” (Mission and Vision).
People of color within LGBTQ movements; girls of color in the fight against the school-to-prison pipeline; women within immigration movements; trans women within feminist movements; and people with disabilities fighting police abuse — all face vulnerabilities that reflect the intersections of racism, sexism, class oppression, transphobia, able-ism and more (Crenshaw 2015).
While intersectional bodies/identities have historically been overlooked, silenced, and targeted, they are also argued to offer unique standpoints that are needed to understand and critique society as well as to push the boundaries of human thought.

Sources and Further Reading
Collins, Patricia Hill. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Social Problems, Vol 33, No. 6, December 1986. Web.

Combahee River Collective. "Statement." In Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Ed. Barbara Smith. Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press Inc., 1983.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics." University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8. Web.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait.” The Washington Post, September 24, 2015. Web.

Dastagir, Alia E. “What is Intersectional Feminism? A Look at the Term You May be Hearing A Lot.” USA TODAY, January 19, 2017. Web.

Isler, Jedidah. “The Untapped Genius that Could Change Science for the Better.” TED Talk. TED Fellows Retreat, August 2015. Web.

“Mission and Vision.” Women’s March, womensmarch.com. Web.

Author Information
Kristin Novotny, Ph.D.
Professor, Core Division
Champlain College