Wed, Feb 8: Ethics and Epistemology of Care (Not Empathy)

Dear friends,

As I write this, I’m gearing up to teach my first solo class in… a long time. CUNY’s semester starts late, so I’m sure that many folks reading this may already have met the students in your spring classes, may be getting a feel for how the term will go. I’m excited and nervous to join that rhythm.

The class I’ll be teaching is called Power, Precarity, and Care in the Digital Humanities, and I welcome anyone interested to read along with us. I think there will be interesting crossover between the Inkcap space and the more structured class space, and I’m curious to see how each shapes my thinking.

For our next Inkcap session, I’d like to pull a bit from that syllabus to talk about the ethics of care. Let’s discuss the following texts:

• Vrinda Dalmiya, Caring to Know (ch 1)
• Jade E. Davis, Empathy is an Ideology

Jade E. Davis’s zine on (or rather against) empathy is, for me, a challenging and important one that reframes empathy as a tool of domination and the status quo, rather than an avenue for reform or even genuine care. In her interpretation of empathy as ideology, Davis asserts that empathy in fact erases anyone outside the subject, leading to a radical dehumanization. It’s a concept that breaks with the way I grew up understanding empathy—and perhaps, given my position as a white woman within the racial politics of the US, that rupture is precisely why it matters.

I look forward to discussing it together.

Register here to join us.

Upcoming Sessions

I’d also like to look ahead and give folks a little more notice about topics for upcoming sessions so you can mark your calendars. With that in mind, here’s what’s in the works for the next few months. (Each session is on a Wednesday from 3-4pm Eastern.)

• February 8: The Ethics of Care (see details above).
• March 8: Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron (introduction).
• April 5: Activist and Coalitional Leadership with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Carrie Smith, and Kendra Sullivan.
• May 3: topic TBD

If you’d like to co-lead a particular topic, or if you have a text/discussion idea, please let me know. I always love letting others take the lead in these sessions and hearing new perspectives.

Warmly,

Katina