Jan 14 2008
Syllabus
Anth319.L90
fall2009_Syllabus (.pdf)
Monday, 5:00-7:45PM – Bell 207
Open Lab: TBD
fall2009_Syllabus (.pdf)
Wednesday, 5:00-7:45PM – Bell 207
OPEN LAB: TBD
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Contact Information
Instructor: Jolanda-Pieta (Joey) van Arnhem, M.F.A.
Email: vanarnhemj@cofc.edu
Phone: 843-345-4648
Office: Bell Building, Room 318
Office Hours: By Appointment
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Course Description
Anthropology confronts the challenges of culture and difference in the contemporary social world. The special mandate of the field is to discover new and less harmful ways of perceiving, understanding, reporting on, and therefore validating the different experiences, histories, and values of peoples and communities from all parts of the world. Expressive culture, from an anthropological perspective, includes plastic and graphic arts, myth and folktale, music, dance, humor and tragedy, play, games, etc.
This course, Research Methods in Expressive Culture, guides students in collecting, compiling and analyzing socio-cultural materials. It also enables them to use expressive culture as a lens by which to conduct anthropological field research. Students will be introduced to methods that require participating, observing, listening, interviewing, and taking, transcribing and analyzing field notes. They will learn about some of the ways anthropologists study and think about expressive culture and they will explore experimental forms of ethnographic presentation today.
The Research Methods in Expressive Culture Lab consists of projects and special in-class activities to encourage students to apply specific anthropological methods. Rather than approaching visual anthropology with its usual divide between ‘anthropological content’ and ‘aesthetic composition,’ this lab will attempt to foster both, pushing an artistic eye toward newly unfolding anthropological concerns. Experimentation and creativity will be highly valued within this setting.
Upon completion of the lab, students should be able to: 1) use visual forms of communication to tell stories, 2) creatively and artistically explore issues of anthropological concern, 3) explain a variety of theoretical approaches to the visual, and 4) comprehend and compare the process of constructing media representations.
