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Despite the critical importance of research
in institutions of higher learning, teaching is increasingly
"coming back home" in academic discourse, a reward
system that undeniably and consistently enhances the former
and downplays the latter notwithstanding. Teaching is and should
be a critical component of a university's mission and is an
endeavor to which I am committed. In that vein I have taught
at a variety of different institutions, such as Pittsburgh,
UT-Houston, the University of Houston as well as on a ship that
sailed around the world, Semester at Sea. Each of these experiences
has provided the opportunity to improve my skills as a teacher
and present a variety of materials to a diverse mix of student
populations.
Currently, I am teaching two sections of Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology and an upper division course in Visual Anthropology
at the University of Houston - Main Campus. The Intro course
is broad in scope, seeking to interest students in how anthropology
may enlighten their own pursuits. Above all I provide a means
for students to interact with the material, encouraging class
discussion and experiencing it for themselves through exercises
conducted outside of the classroom. All students write-up their
projects and have the opportunity to share them with the entire
class. I use two primary texts, including the well-known Haviland
introductory text as well as a reader on applied anthropology.
For students who will only take one anthropology course while
at the University, this course provides a thorough discussion
of the history, theories and people of anthropology, and enables
students to gain first hand knowledge by experiencing it for
themselves as well as through the work of others.
Through visual anthropology I explore how seeing the world through
the lens of a camera both expands and inhibits our ability to
understand and to connote culture to an audience. In my own
work I have tried to fuse medical anthropology theory with visual
methods, and enjoy relating the difficulties and triumphs of
my work to students. Certainly an ethnographic understanding
allows me to capture images that have more cultural bearing
than those of documentary work. Through writing, I ask students
to realize the impetus of the filmmaker or photographer and
how such a view distorts the reality of the subject and the
audience. With this in mind we will examine image contexts and
relations that yield meanings, both in terms of production and
viewing via three dyadic relations: filmer/filmed; filmer/audience,
and filmed/audience. Throughout the semester we will view and
critique ethnographic films, videos and photographs and I will
ask students to develop their own project, expressing their
culture through visual techniques, if possible.
During the fall of 2001 I was a professor of anthropology on
the study abroad program Semester at Sea, run by the Institute
for Shipboard Education. During this semester I taught three
courses, including Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Medical
Anthropology and Race, Ethnicity, Transnationalism (& Tourism).
All three were equally relevant courses for a voyage around
the world, in which students had the opportunity to take information
from class and experience it first-hand in the ports-of-call,
as well as bring their experiences back to the classroom and
discuss them in an open forum. I found Semester at Sea to be
my most challenging teaching experience to date, as we had multiple
unanticipated happenings, including the events of 9/11, which
required us to be very flexible and resourceful, as we were
rerouted three times and few materials were available for the
new countries on our itinerary. The most challenging aspect
was teaching material to a variety of students with multiple
levels of understanding, background and experience. As well,
I believe students found the environment demanding as they not
only coped with the world political situation, but more acutely
had to listen, respond and live with each other and the multiple
views expressed within the community and classroom. Presumed
by students and some institutions as a "booze cruise"
and other equally derogatory titles, the Academic Dean for fall
2001, Dr. Iain Campbell, strove to correct that reputation in
one outing, imploring the faculty to "crank-up" the
academics and push the students from day one. Dr. Campbell established
"boards of excellence" where we could place outstanding
student papers and projects for the entire community to read
and observe. Despite the disparate academic backgrounds of the
students on board, the work levels they maintained and results
they produced were nothing less than stellar.
During the fall of 1999 I helped redesign and regularly lectured
in the Qualitative Research Methods course, with Dr. Lori Leonard.
This course provided the only opportunity at the School of Public
Health for graduate students to have a formal exposure to qualitative
research methods, allowing them to expand their understanding
of data collection and analysis. Students enjoyed the course,
as this new angle to research opened their minds to the discourse
of qualitative theory, helping them to critique and rethink
how such methods may be used alongside more quantitative methods
traditional to Public Health.
With the enthusiasm of Dr. Lowell Sever, he and I co-taught
a course exploring the interaction between medical anthropology
and epidemiology, during the spring term of 2000 at the SPH.
This seminar focused on the history and development of medical
anthropology, considering its influence and influences in domestic
and international health and its roots in biomedicine. As a
majority of the students were more familiar with epidemiology,
we challenged the class to compare and contrast how pertinent
health issues were addressed by the two disciplines. Above all,
the course engaged students to rethink their ideas about development
policy, implementation and public needs in terms of health,
and enabled them to see past the bureaucratic and political
hurdles to view the people who are the public. The overall response
to this course was sensational, as students found both the material
and the discussions enlightening and engaging. We offered the
Med Anthro / EPI course to a larger section of 50 students in
the summer of 2001 and met with great enthusiasm and support.
While an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh I had very
good responses to a course I enjoy teaching on Religion and
Culture, focusing on how the two have been intertwined throughout
history and how people's beliefs have changed over time. In
this course I challenge students to reflect upon their own beliefs
and understand how, where, and when the associated myths, rituals
and symbols originated and evolved. Writing is a substantial
component of this course as students are required to observe
people practicing religions different than their own throughout
the semester, and reflect upon their observations, experience,
and beliefs in a series of papers and projects. I will continue
to develop and teach courses such as this in the future, ones
which engage the student to reflect upon their worldview in
a positive atmosphere conducive to thinking and growth.
Regarding the courses I could teach, I would particularly like
to examine materials and ideas that have interested me but have
not had the opportunity to explore in the classroom. For example,
as a photographer and anthropologist, I am keenly aware of how
images are made and produced to support a point of view or elicit
reaction.
I would like to consider how Latin America, including its people,
government, and religions, portrays itself over time through
images (photos, painting, sculpture, etc.) and is then represented
by others for a western audience. Between these two discourses
is an understanding of what Latin America may be. This course
will help us acknowledge our own assumptions about the countries
and cultures as well as recognize the power relationships between
the viewed and viewer.I would also like to create a seminar
that weighs the affects of migration and urbanization in Latin
American countries on the people and their cultures. Given that
people have been traveling across the continent for centuries
and have built some very impressive cities, only recently does
population and worldwide economic factors directly affect peasant
farmers, rural teachers and businesspeople in such an exponential
manner. Film, photography and ethnography would each play a
role in allowing us to visualize the lives of migrants, the
impetus for their moving to the cities and the barriers they
overcome to get there. Certainly such consideration includes
contemporary migration to the US and the influence of globalism.
This course will expose students to popular as well as scholarly
media on the topic in a forum that requires them to investigate
their own ethnocentric tendencies and encourages them to understand
the macro-level factors in a phenomenon that is occurring in
Houston and throughout the hemisphere.
A third class I would like to offer is a permutation of my current
visual anthropology course - one that emphasizes a critical
gaze on photography and image making in its relationship to
cultural description while also responding to cultural expression
through visual media. In other words, course materials would
underscore the discussion and critique of how visual media are
manipulated and implemented as seen through film, video, photography
and the Web. Depending upon available resources I would like
to have students create their own short ethnographic films.
Overall this course is geared towards students who are interested
in the evolution of ethnographic representation of "the
other" while simultaneously involved in exploring visual
methods as a means for conducting ethnography. Both the theoretical
and empirical experiences provide the student a more thorough
understanding of how films are made, as well as an appreciation
for a medium that is as malleable as text.
Currently the introductory courses I teach have between fifty
to one hundred students, so the university uses text books by
Havliand and Kottak. I enjoy working with large groups of students,
and they find these textbooks sufficient, although I feel they
are too general and developed with multiple choice exams in
mind. Still, I require significant writing components in my
course, and even thought this requires more work on my part,
I feel they get more out of the introductory experience if they
have to apply their own thoughts to cultural issues.
In the future I would like to develop an intense introductory
cultural course for a smaller class which would include contemporary
and classic ethnographies to present the historical directions
and current thoughts in cultural anthropology. I am committed
to students' understanding the fundamental thinking in anthropology,
and observing the various directions of the discipline over
time. For example, they would read Shostak's Nisa,
as well as Bourgois' In Search of Respect and Herdt's The
Sambia. I would also augment the ethnographies
with a reader covering specific papers on topical issues (this
could be a published book e.g. Haviland & Gordon's Talking
about People, or a reader of my own selection) Overall, my primary
goal in this course is for students to develop an appreciation
for and understanding of cultural difference, and to gain a
relativistic view of themselves and their own culture as one
particular system among many. This goes hand-in-hand with sharpening
students' critical faculties by developing an understanding
of a variety of factors including culture, history, power, politics
and social inequality.
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