Resources: Projects and Action Horizons

Introduction
Part of the pedagogy of Expos 101 involves encouraging you to imagine "action horizons." Projects that move towards an action horizon tend to be stronger because they require you to speak with confidence and authority even as they also require you to recognize the complexity of both the essays and the real world.

I strongly recommend you take a few minutes to read through Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer's essay "Teaching the Action Hoirzon" (link opens in new window). It's fifteen pages long, but it's a pretty quick ready, and you can always just zero in on the section that describes what an action horizon is. But the essay as a whole is valuable because it exposes the full project of what we're trying to do here in 101.

The Action Horizon Explained
In case you didn't bother to read Miller and Spellmeyer's essay, they define the action horizon as a strategy that "imagines ordinary citizens like [all of you] as the shapers of policy rather than as mere critics, passive observers, or discerning consumers. To be a shaper of policy means that one possesses the capacity to act upon the world in ways that do justice to its real complexity." But what does that mean?

It means that we want Expos to be more than a meaningless exercise in critical thinking; we want you to start thinking of yourselves as active members of communities, members who can engage problems and work towards solutions. Let me give an example. Right now, I'm in Folder Review, which means I am looking at a lot of Boyarin/Gould papers from other classes. Many of them have a project that involves critical thinking: "Boyarin's search for identity is a kind of variational evolution." Yes, that's a project. Yes, it involves critical thinking. But so what? What does it change in the world? How does it help you prepare for change in the world, or for changing the world?

Projects that remain trapped in the texts--that focus on compare/contrast or applying the idea of one essay to another--do not have action horizons.

Finding an Action Horizon
So how do you find one of these new-fangled action horizons? Well, for starters, let's look at the assignment for Paper Four. There are three different questions, but each has room for you to imagine an action horizon.

The first possible question ("What is science?") resembles the disastrous Paper Two assignment. Both of those are asking a question that's not readily answered by the texts we've read. That means you HAVE TO think critically, and it also means that you can say something about the world outside the texts, and that's where the action horizon is. Is there an easy answer to this question? It might look like there is, but there isn't. In each of the essays, there are competing definitions of what counts as science, and in each we see the limitations of what we take to be science. Engaging with these openings, working with the complex little corners of the essays, is what forces you to think critically in a way that can produce a more complicated project.

The second question, about challenging science as a layperson, more directly ptompts an action horizon. It asks you to think about how YOU will act in relation to science. Every day there's a new study on something or other--do you buy all of them? How can you when they often contradict each other? Will you do what science tells you to do? Will you let science control governmental policy? Is that even a good idea? The question is asking you to take science off its pedestal, NOT by trashing it but by thinking about strategies for evaluating it: how can we tell good science from bad? And what can we do when bad science is creating policy? It's not an idle question. In an era of stem cell research, cloning, genetics, space exploration, and more you need to be able to make these kinds of decisions. You need to be able to act if you so choose.

The third question gives you a direct real world context, a problem that resembles the situation Becker discusses. At the same time, it is NOT the situation of Maoist China. It is a Communist country, and it is experiencing a famine, but perhaps not because of "bad science." The question is asking you, then, to abstract out from the essays whatever lessons you can that can illuminate this new famine.

In NONE of these questions are you being asked to compare these essays, contrast these essays, or apply the ideas of one to another. That's not what the action horizon is about.

What is NOT an Action Horizon
The action horizon is also not about finding THE solution. This is something we ran into on Paper One. Most everyone was able to find tools from Boyarin that could help the Middle East peace process, but most everyone made gigantic and simplified claims, making is sound as though all the U.S. needed to do was fax a copy of "Waiting for a Jew" to the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians and suddenly everything would be OK.

Now, it's great to propose solutions. It's even better to propose solutions that emerge FROM the essays (because then you have textual support for them), but more than anything the action horizon is about recognizing complexity. You probably don't have THE answer, but that's because there isn't ONE answer. At the same time, you can indeed make a contribution to dealing with and resolving these real-world problems. And that's the action horizon.

Testing for Action Horizons
Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your project to see whether or not you are moving towards the aciton horizon:

1. Can your project be challenged?
   That is, could someone argue that you're wrong? If your project can't be challenged, it's not a project--it's a statement of fact.
2. Is your project a discovery?
   That is, does it add something new to our undestanding of these issues? When you modify the ideas of one essay by using the insights from another, we learn something new about both essays. This functions like an action horizon because it's what academics do--it's a way of creating change in an academic community.
3. Does your project contribute to a larger conversation?
   Your project should be part of a larger, ongoing discussion about religion, about science, about politics, about whatever. That's what a society is about: who do we want to be? What matters to us? The way we answer these questions is by having conversations about larger issues.