RHE309K Rhetoric & Research
E314, ANT310 Literature & Ethnography
RHE309K Rhetoric Around Campus
RHE306 On Liberty
Course ArchiveNavigationUser login |
Unit 1: Ethnographic Environments
Scholars have debated the meaning of the term "ethnography" for a long time, and rather than defining this mode of research and argumentation upfront, we'll consider each of these examples and see if we can come up with a good definition. In the process, we'll learn to rhetorically analyze how ethnographic texts make an argument, how they present evidence, and how we can analyze and interpret them to formulate our own ideas about important cultural themes, especially, how young adults learn and enter into the norms of a culture.
In your formal paper for this unit, you will be asked to compare two of these texts by tracing and expanding upon a common theme, concept, ritual, or behavior. I'll give you some guidance in choosing a theme, and we'll be working on close-reading, rhetorical analysis, and interpretive strategies all unit (all semester, actually). The goals of this unit are to:
Submitted by little on Thu, 2009-08-20 11:43
|
Current Course InfoResourcesContactsOffice FAC 16 |
To begin learning about human subjects research, we will read exerpts from four ethnographies conducted in vastly different environments. As we learn some interesting things about coming of age and the role of socialization in education (both inside and outside the classroom), we will return to a central methodological question: what is ethnography? How are scholars producing academic research by spending time in different environments? What are they doing? What are they looking for? What are they looking at?
We will consider ethnographies that document some very different environments: the Amish practice of "rumspringen," football games and high school classrooms in south Texas (Foley), the education and coming of age of young women in in Somoa (Mead), and briefly, how "noobs" or newbies learn the rules of social interaction in second life (Boellstorf). Notice how each of these studies defines the domain of the ethnography differently. What can we learn from a classroom, as an ethnographic environment? What can we learn from a "virtual" ethnographic environment?