"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
This web portfolio reflects the process of the major "Social Justice and Cultural Transformation." This major explores the concepts of social, environmental, and other justices across disciplines, incorporating theory, case study, application, imagination, and reflection. It also addresses the posssibility of societal and individual transformation through various strategies. Concepts of community, power, nature, justice, and identity emerge as central to the discussions and study of the major.
As I have journeyed through this practice of study and reflection, I've found that my study has been a tool for understanding my self and my place in the world around me, and a process of creating a framework for placing myself in the "long arc of history," more than it has been an empirical study of data or concepts. "Social Justice and Cultural Transformation," as a major, is a search for meaning centered around a particular method/framework, and a particular content area.
The links above lay out the progression of my courses and coursework, articulate my perspectives on education and how I came to this major, show how my understanding of the major changed as I went through my four years at St. Olaf, share resources I've found useful in my learning, present my senior project, and reflect on the questions from which my major sprang.
Seed Questions
The major "Social Justice and Cultural Transformation" stems from and is guided by a series of questions which form a strategy to answer this core question:
How do I respond to a world that is unacceptable to me?
1. Who am I? What do I see in the world around me? How do systems intersect interact in it?
2. What in that world is unacceptable to me? Why?
3. How do I choose to respond?