Unruly Women Give Tradition

I am currently teaching an academic course titled Unruly Women in American History and simultaneously teaching a dance course on Jamila Salimpour technique. The two are perfectly complimentary.

Both give us tradition.

I chose several unruly women from the American radical tradition, including Sojourner Truth and Mother Jones, to study in my course. We are examining their personal and political lives, in-depth, and focusing on how these two spheres of life are inseparable and constantly informing the other. The unruly women of our past were all social artists. Each of them devoted their lives to pointing out hidden truths of society and teaching people to see with fresh vision. They dug into the roots of social beliefs and reexamined tired slogans and lifeless symbols. 

What is tradition?

It is a process in which one generation passes its ideas and beliefs on to the next. There has been very little emphasis on the tradition of American radical women because there has been little acceptance of women as a political force. For most of history, they were defined by their private lives.

To learn about radical women is to get new insight into incomplete interpretations of the past.

Lessons I'm learning - without tradition, people act without consciousness or form.

Know your history.

Find your traditions.

xoxo - KG

---