My love affair began in 2005 when I finished high school and moved to Montpelier, Vermont to serve as an Americorps member. I swear, love was literally in the air. The green rolling hills that turn bright orange and red before being overtaken by sheets of white; the small towns that have one post office, one town hall, and eleven beautiful old churches; and the multitude of cows that seemingly outnumber humans at a ratio of 10 to 1 make New England my personal utopia. Although the Pioneer Valley of Western Mass has its own personality distinct from the rest of the Northeast, the land has nevertheless renewed my deep-seated passion for rural New England.
The Five College Consortium (Smith, Mt. Holyoke, UMass, Hampshire, and Amherst) is situated in the Pioneer Valley. The Valley is essentially a vast area of farmland dotted with small towns, which are populated by back-to-the-landers and participants in the Five College Consortium. Intellectual discourse permeates every physical and abstract space here with specific attention paid to food politics, globalization, and environmentalism. Unfortunately, broad focus on national and global systems sometimes overshadows localized issues of homelessness and racism, and those who do not have the privilege to climb the ivory tower are left disillusioned by the so-called progressives.
I digress. I am not sure how I got off on that tangent when I wanted to talk about my intense love for this land. I guess the truth is that I am aware that this region is not everyone's utopia and therefore cannot truly be a utopia. I have been meeting with community organizers in town who advocate for the homeless population here, and they have uncovered for me some important narratives that have been previously pushed under the rug. I am also enrolled in a community based research class that applies theories of globalization, global land politics, and objectives of transnational feminist movements to a very small farmer's market, which is located in a low income neighborhood 45 minutes south of here. The professor is incredible and the course coincides perfectly with everything that I want to be doing, but I still cannot help feeling that the process of fitting a localized movement into big theories of global systems can only result in a contrived product of intellectual masturbation. In the professor's defense, she is conscious of all inherent power dynamics and possible disconnects that may be a part of this research, and she leads clear discussions about the ways in which we can navigate these issues so as to make our work useful to the community.
While I am on the subject of classes, I want to briefly mention my other three classes. I am taking micro-econ, which is pretty self-explanatory. The timing for taking an econ course could not have been better since my professor will spend entire class periods lecturing on current events. I actually feel like I have some vague idea of what is going down on Wall Street. I am also taking a seminar with seven other students, which meets once a week and is primarily based in outside research. The topic for this class is "Women in World War I." We are specifically studying the Smith College Relief Unit, which was a group of 47 Smith alums who made up the first women's relief unit from the US to go into Europe at the end of WWI. This course is very cool, because we are doing research in the archives, which I have never done before, and we will be learning more about the school's history. My final class is a class about Zionism and Israel. The topic is cool, and the professor is very smart, but I think she is having a hard time teaching to a group of students who are new to the topic. I have recently realized how difficult it is to study politics and government of a region without first studying history.
Incidentally (completely), my bike and I are developing quite the bond. Yesterday, I rode down the bike trail from Northampton to Hadley, where Tyler lives, and then we rode together to Amherst. The bike trail is incredible. It is a converted railroad track, so there are no cars, it is almost completely flat, and the entire route is shaded by big trees. Just past the rows of trees are endless acres of small farms. At one point, the bike path intersects with the Connecticut River, and the trail continues onto an old steel bridge that offers beautiful views of the river below. Tyler and I wound up staying later than I expected at Amherst, because we were invited by a high school friend of mine to eat at the Amherst dining hall. So, we wound up riding home in complete darkness (with the exception of Tyler's bike light). That ride was amazing. We saw one other person for the entire 8-9 mile ride. The cool night air was so refreshing, and our leisurely pace gave me some time to relax before facing my ever-accumulating list of homework assignments.
I know that this blog entry is very scattered, but if I tried to structure my thoughts into any kind of linear form, I would never finish this post. I have way too much on my mind, and I want to write about everything.
Thank you to everyone who has been posting recently. Keep it up. Hales, I forgot to mention how much I laughed when you reminded us of the hula hoop night. That was classic.
Oh yea! Tyler and I introduced BGB to Smith College on Thursday night. I have to say that the reception was lukewarm, but I got into it...
Peace to the world,
Sars
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