Decolonizing media is a project that cannot be given in advance. Rather than offering a passively-received/taught agenda, this facilitated workshop is centered around active learning.
Each meeting of the workshop has a post (day one to day twelve). Each post has links to relevant media, books, or essays to look at and read. Links indicate suggested readings (see below).
The goal is not to pretend to some colonial “mastery” of the work being considered but to come with an open mind, a pen and a willingness to engage. Where it goes is up to the participants: you.
The workshop meetings are opportunities for you to work: to map ideas, to create relationships between texts and images, between ideas and between people. Attending is an act of solidarity. This is not a disciplinary space but one of commitment.
Rather than be directed by one instructor, the workshop will form into working groups of 3-5 people. Each working group should endeavor to be diverse and should not all be previous friendship networks. Each working group (WG) [established after the first two weeks] will decide its own agenda. You might concentrate on one reading, line by line. You might want to read more of a specific text than assigned. On the actions, you’ll work together and report back collectively (i.e. do not divide the work into sections and do it individually).
Each WG will post its agenda each week to a course blog (not this one!). We’ll discuss that at the beginning of each meeting. WGs may decide to work with each other if they so choose at that point. At the end of each meeting, WGs will present a list of “bullet points” that emerged during their discussion.
This is social movement organizing. That said, we are working within the university. Right now, decolonizing is a hot topic. If you’re serious about the field and your (academic) future, it makes sense to engage in a written project as well as the collective work (collective written work is also very much allowed). What you do depends on where you are. If this is a known field to you, some kind of research(ed) paper makes sense. If it’s new, a critical review of (some) readings and methods might be the way to go. A proposal will be called for.