Last Wednesday night, Midway Conversations premiered at the Turf Club. The film was the final project of a collaborative neighborhood-based research project done by the Spring 2012 anthropology senior seminar at Hamline University. The premiere wasn’t without a few last-minute snafus—not least of which was a missing segment in the final copy of the film—but by about 5:45 … Continue reading
Since getting my first iPad on the day it was released two years ago, I have enjoyed the challenge of experimenting with it in new ways—seeing how I can use it effectively in my daily work and professional life. This has involved trying lots of apps and removing lots of apps to see which ones … Continue reading
The film begins with a bit of disorientation—an institutional building, a cacophonous crowd, a group of men in soldier uniforms. Was that man carrying a giant sword? A woman with striking blue raspberry hair walks past, as the camera weaves through the crowd following a group of three young Hmong women up an escalator to a room … Continue reading
The past few years have been psychologically difficult ones to be teaching in higher education. Large scale economic doom has affected the average American’s personal wealth. Public disinvestment in civic infrastructure including higher education, combined with skyrocketing costs for things like healthcare, have pushed tuition prices ever higher. Employment worries. Debt. Some articles say the liberal … Continue reading
There is no place that is not haunted by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can “invoke” or not. Haunted places are the only ones people can live in—and this inverts the scheme of the Panopticon. — Michel de Certeau,The Practice of Everyday Life “…fantasy is now a social practice.” —Arjun Appadurai, … Continue reading
This past week in the anthropology senior seminar we looked at narrative documentaries in anthropology and discussed issues of dramatization and aesthetics in John Marshall’s classic, The Hunters, and Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds. Both films were shot without sync sound equipment and feature both the heavy editorial hand of the filmmaker and a strong narrative voice (“Voice of … Continue reading
Just days after posting a long description of teaching film with the iPad that discussed streaming ethnographic film, taking visual “notes”, and presenting them during class discussions, Apple announced iPhoto for the iPad. I purchased the application the evening it was released and immediately I realized it would improve upon the way I organize and present my … Continue reading
Since the day my first iPad arrived nearly two years ago, I have enjoyed experimenting with it in my research and teaching. From the beginning I was impressed with the possibility that a single device could replace my lecture notes, deliver my Keynote presentations in class, store movie clips, file journal articles, keep ebooks, record … Continue reading
This week the anthropology senior seminar moved from still images to moving pictures. We began reading Anna Grimshaw’s book, The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology, with her opening chapters on early film and ethnography. At the same time we waded into David MacDougall’s chapter “The Body in Cinema” in his book, The … Continue reading
How can students in a senior seminar present ideas to the class in a low-stakes way that might enjoyable and, above all, fast enough that we can get through all of them with time for brief discussion at the end of class? After discussing photography for two weeks, I wanted everyone in class to actually … Continue reading
