Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing Reading Group [Online]
Full Tuition: $200 — Scholarship options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select.
Instructor: Hollis | 3 Weeks | Wednesdays | January 10 - 24 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM ET | ONLINE
In her call-to-action to artists, writers, scholars, and everyone thinking critically about living in the world, artist and educator Jenny Odell aims to help us learn How to Do Nothing. While it might seem oxymoronic to learn how to do nothing, Odell’s book explores ways to actively insist on living differently in the age of an attention economy that seeks to turn our hours into profit via advertisers, influencers, and the “buy now” button. Odell walks through the practices of artists and communities of people who practice living in ways that are perceived as “nothing,” and helps us understand how to engage with the world in ways that reclaim our time and attention. How to Do Nothing centers Odell’s lived experience as a mixed-race artist making space for nothing, and asks readers to consider our relationships to productivity, usefulness, time, attention, and the world around us.
Over the course of 3 weeks, we will discuss Odell's book and think about how we might enact some of her ideas in our own lives. We will think about how we might change our understanding of how we live in the world. Finally, we will attempt to map our own paths of resistance as we reject being valued for our usefulness and discover ways to be useless, to reclaim our attention, and to do nothing.
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Recordings may be provided upon request for missed classes.
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Scholarships: We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class. Our full scholarship tier is a nonrefundable offering, limited to one per student per month.Because our scholarship funding is limited, selecting multiple full scholarships in a single month will result in disenrollment from all classes. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out please email us directly, and we will add you to a waitlist and notify you if additional scholarships become available. Please see our FAQ for more information, including installment plans and refund policy.
Asynchronous Auditing: Classes are discussion-based and designed to be taken synchronously. However, we do offer an asynchronous audit option for most online classes if you need to follow along at your own pace. You must choose the audit option to receive all course recordings; please do not register using a scholarship if you do not plan to attend the majority of class sessions as you will not receive the recording materials to follow along. We do not automatically offer scholarships for auditors, but if you need one, you may request one by filling out this form.