Class
Having taken seminars with Kevin Grace and Robin Selzer before, I had a fairly good idea of what to expect from each of them. The course itself is engaging and based heavily on discussion and personal interpretation, guided here and their by the instructors' prompts. There was a great deal of reading, which often helped to clarify a concept or to show us an application of the concept. Each week, we focused on a different, broad topic within folklore, and attempted to tackle it from multiple perspectives.
One of the biggest perspectives that we used for the course was that of gender. Folklore as a lot to say about gender roles, stereotypes, and its impact on society, and is often used to manipulate it. With every topic, there was something to be said about gender.
We completed several assignments, including: a PhotoVoice project, reflective essay, drawing reflections, discussion boards, , responses to readings, and a Cincinnati-based project. Below is a link to examples of two of the assignments: the final reflective essay and the Cincinnati project.
The final reflective essay was a way for us to look back on the semester, including our experience in Iceland, and analyze what it all meant. What did we come away with? How do we understand folklore in its varying contexts? Have our views on a topic changed as a result of the course?
The other, the Cincinnati project, was a way to engage us locally. We were each required to pick a folklore topic and interview a student or faculty member who was not raised in the United States (they had to have completed their high school education, or equivalent, in another country). I was fortunate enough to be in a class with Stephanie Alcantar, a graduate student who was raised in Mexico. She was able to provide me with information on three Mexican holidays. Based solely on her perspective and knowledge of the holidays, I wrote a "mini-pedia" with entries for each holiday. Keep in mind as you review it that everything written is, if I did it correctly, entirely from her own viewpoint and influenced by my own understandings as little as possible. These projects, which varied for each of us in form and content, were then archived.
One of the biggest perspectives that we used for the course was that of gender. Folklore as a lot to say about gender roles, stereotypes, and its impact on society, and is often used to manipulate it. With every topic, there was something to be said about gender.
We completed several assignments, including: a PhotoVoice project, reflective essay, drawing reflections, discussion boards, , responses to readings, and a Cincinnati-based project. Below is a link to examples of two of the assignments: the final reflective essay and the Cincinnati project.
The final reflective essay was a way for us to look back on the semester, including our experience in Iceland, and analyze what it all meant. What did we come away with? How do we understand folklore in its varying contexts? Have our views on a topic changed as a result of the course?
The other, the Cincinnati project, was a way to engage us locally. We were each required to pick a folklore topic and interview a student or faculty member who was not raised in the United States (they had to have completed their high school education, or equivalent, in another country). I was fortunate enough to be in a class with Stephanie Alcantar, a graduate student who was raised in Mexico. She was able to provide me with information on three Mexican holidays. Based solely on her perspective and knowledge of the holidays, I wrote a "mini-pedia" with entries for each holiday. Keep in mind as you review it that everything written is, if I did it correctly, entirely from her own viewpoint and influenced by my own understandings as little as possible. These projects, which varied for each of us in form and content, were then archived.