Browse University Units and Institutional Transformation by Series/Report

    Series/Report
    ANTH 411: Methods for Sociocultural Anthropology, Prof. Nancy Abelmann. This course introduced students to a variety of ethnographic methods. Students tried their hand at some of these methods through a focused project. I had students think about their semester-long work as "pilot research"; although they did write up a short paper on their findings (their "discuss" section of the database), the culminating assignment was a research proposal in which they envision building on their preliminary findings in a longer/larger project. In the beginning of the semester, students did some warm-up exercises not directly related to their projects (an observation, an analysis of a university document, and an interview) -- some students elected to remove these from their databases while others left them in because of their connection to the final project. Students' "question" and "plan" sections of the database include multiple entries as I encouraged them to continue to refine these over the course of the semester in dialogue with their own emerging findings. I also asked students to search both the U of I Student Life and Cultures Archives and well as this EUI IDEALS collection to find archives relevant to their pilot/proposed research. All students were asked to "reflect" on the research experience and to make "recommendations" to the University on the basis of their research findings. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/ANTH411F07.doc [3]
    ANTH 411; Fall 2010 [1]
    Anth 499, East Asian Youth and Global Futures, Prof. Nancy Abelmann and Prof. Karen Kelsky: East Asian youth have experienced perhaps the world’s most compressed development as well as the world’s most aggressive globalization policies. This course examines how youth in East Asia (China/s, Japan, and the Koreas) are making their way in our globalizing world, focusing in particular on the transformations in work, education, recreation, gender, and sexuality brought about by neoliberal economic restructuring in the region. Topics studied include the insecure job market for young people, consumerism, globalized pop culture phenomena such as Pokemon, the Korean wave, and Internet gaming, emergent LGBT communities, etc. Students are encouraged to focus their research projects on aspects of the U. of I. student life that reflect the experiences of East Asian youth in a global market. The U of I offers a fascinating window on East Asian youth because of the many college (and pre-college) students who make their way here – as well as the movement of “Amercian” youth to East Asia. Through participation in the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI), students will conduct local field research that reveals the global processes at issue. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/ANTH499S08.doc [1]
    Ellen Moodie, Instructor [1]
    English 199/CHP; Spring 2012 [1]
    EOL 574, Lorenzo Baber, Instructor, Spring 2013 [1]
    Fall 2012; History 396B Oral History; Mireya Loza, Instructor [2]
    First, we strived as a class to meet the course goals. Second, we tried to reach those goals through a number of intertwined and foundational concepts including - thinking like the writers we are, creating a writing workshop environment (see the terms "Meta" and "Dialogic" and “Talking Stick”), nurturing a learned and healthy form of mental suspicion (critical thinking) leading to an awareness of "Rhetorical Situations," and eventually, creating a "dialogic" and "meta"-classroom environment. [1]
    History 200G: Audiohistory (Coming to Illinois) [1]
    In Rhetoric 105 students were expected to:1. develop skills as readers and writers by reading and writing sophisticated prose; 2. experience writing as a process of revision, where longer, more complex pieces grow out of earlier work; 3. reflect on their processes as readers and writers as they read, write about, and discuss the texts of the course: published work, peers’ writing, as well as their own; 4. become more practiced at using writing as a means of investigation, of figuring things out, thus challenging the commonplace belief that all writing is designed to prove something once and for all; 5. identify and connect the intellectual and philosophical insights that arise when reading and writing personal and ethnographic essays, to the contexts of our day to day lives; 6. accomplish 1-5 above within a course context dedicated to theorizing and practicing the art of the personal, ethnograpfic, and academic essay. [1]
    Independent Study [1]
    Instructor, Catherine Prendergast [1]
    Instructor, Melissa Littlefield [1]
    KIN 249 Fall 2010 [1]
    Kin 442, Bodies, Culture & Society, Prof. Melissa Littlefield: Students participating in this course examine bodies in history, in particular cultural contexts, in international and national forums. Questions guiding research include: What is a body? Is there such a thing as “the” body? How are bodies produced? What do they represent? Who gets to represent them? Course readings vary widely to include anthropological, historical, psychological and sociological perspectives. Student projects focus on exercise, health and sport practices in general and on the University of Illinois campus in particular. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/KINES442S08.doc [5]
    Kinesiology 442 Fall 2011 [1]
    Like all History 200s, this course will open with questions of method: what is good history, and how is it made? After the first few weeks, however, we will shift to consider the role of sound in both the making and retelling of history. We will consider such questions as how to write for audio; how and whether to incorporate sound, archival or otherwise; the strengths and weaknesses of audio (as compared to text) for talking about history; and the hybrid kinds of history (textual, audio, visual) that might emerge in coming years. We will also consider the role of sound itself in human history. How have historians tried to imagine what the world sounded like in the past, and the role that hearing has played in shaping human history and memory? [1]
    Professor John Randolph [1]
    Rhet 104, Ethnography of Race and the University, Instr. Samantha Looker: In this course, students take the writing skills that they built during Rhet 103 and apply them to research, with the ultimate goal of completing an in-depth research project. As part of the EUI-Rhetoric Race and the University Project, this class revolves around how race is represented and lived on university campuses, and specifically on our own campus here at UIUC. Students ground themselves in readings on how race is defined and talked about, and then move on to research related issues on our campus. Students will choose a research question related to race to answer in your final research project. As part of the EUI (Ethnography of the University Initiative), this class gives students the opportunity to create original scholarly research based on your firsthand experience with people, texts, and places on campus. In addition to traditional academic sources, students final research project will include several interviews, observations, surveys, and/or analyses of University texts. [3]
    Rhetoric 105, Principles of Composition, Race & the University, Instr. Kristin McCann: This course entailed continual negotiation of three primary focuses: academic writing, introduction to ethnographic research methodologies, and critical inquiry into issues of race and representation. I approached this course as a semester-long conversation with students, the texts with which we engaged, and the kairos of the physical and ideological spaces in which we were immersed. I encouraged students to draw upon their expertise as current UIUC undergraduates and to consider their stake in the university’s narratives. Students were, of course, not expected to produce a complete ‘ethnography’; rather, to consider what combination of ethnographic research methodologies might be most useful to their specific essays and research projects and what issues they deemed most exigent for their inquiries. Students also had the opportunity to present at the bi-annual EUI conference, alongside other EUI undergraduate and graduate students. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/RHET105S08.doc [2]