the TA speaks English, and that's a plus

[walkingshadow]

I was just on time to my class this morning—I walked in as they were scraping the desks across the floor into a circle and before the prof (she's not really a prof, she's a PhD student, but I'll be calling her "the prof") handed out the syllabus. The class (Visual Anthropology) is both intriguing! and a lot of bloody work. From the course description: This course focuses on visual forms of communication by analyzing and questioning how facts travel through old and new media such as film, video, photography, and computer technology. . . . Our central goal will be to move away from concepts of objectivity or subjectivity toward the use of deeply-situated spaces to investigate the making of reality. She's interested in things like feminist approaches and moving anthropology away from it's complacent, colonial roots. Her main concern, and the central theme of the class, is how facts travel in the world. That's from a quote she included on the syllabus:

As part of my ethnography I follow this shaping process, examining how facts travel in the world, but also how they never travel alone. Instead they are always packaged in the form of stories, explanations, and experiences, as authorized or unauthorized accounts, and they necessarily include definitions of human nature.
-Joseph Dumit, A Digital Image of the Category of a Person

There were eleven of us in class. It meets in a three-hour block once a week (in a tiny room—it's a pretty good thing there were only eleven of us; also I've managed to find the only freezing room in Turlington), and she mentioned that it's a problem, because it's right during lunchtime (10:40-1:40); so she suggested that the person leading discussion that week bring in food for everybody so we can take a thirty-minute break in the middle of class and eat and chill out.

There are no tests, but the class is what she called intense. She warned us several times that we need to have time to take it, and if we don't, we shouldn't commit to it. The grades, apart from participation (which weighs 20%), are entirely comprised of projects—eleven of them, though half of those are the smaller components of our final group project. I would be composing photo essays and critiquing websites, and perhaps making a video with my other group members, whomever they might be. I'm considering dropping it and running for my life, but I'm also considering sticking around.

My other class today was African history, which should be nothing too taxing. I mean, there are eight quizzes, but he drops the lowest two; and there's a paper, but it's an 800-to-1200-word book review of one of the three novels we're assigned to read; midterm; final; attendance worth 10%, but we get four absences for free.

They've opened up another Latin American history class, and I think I'm going to check it out tomorrow to see if I might like it any better at all. And then I also thought, maybe I should take a linguistics class this semester. Did someone say something about a thesis?

And the aerobics classes continue to kick my ass.

Dear body,
I am so sorry I spent three full weeks sitting on my ass writing final papers, watching M*A*S*H until the world turned olive drab, and eating ice cream whenever the opportunity presented itself. Can we be friends again?
xoxo,
B.

Advanced Step with Ann tomorrow, YAY. It'd be nice to have the energy for it.

I dragged myself in from the gym at about 7:30, and P. called out, come watch Shrek! Turns out it was Shrek 2, and it was going on at eight, so I had time for a shower, and then N. and I climbed onto her bed to watch it. It was cute, you know? Made me laugh several times, and the music was great. I'm still not ga-ga over it like the rest of the world, but Puss-in-Boots really was fabulous. Made myself dinner after that and am now messing about on ISIS and making M*A*S*H icons from the scant pictures I have scraped from the internet. Internet, I love you.

Comments

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

If you decide to keep taking Visual Anthropology, I'd love to get a copy of your reading list, and I'll listen if you ever want to talk about class discussions or projects, because that class sounds fantastically interesting.

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

I thought about you when I signed up for it! Didn't you once take a class like this?

All our readings for the semester are downloadable pdfs, and they're all here (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jean/syllabus.htm) (or they all will be as the semester goes on), embedded in the syllabus. Thanks so much for the discussion offer, and don't think I won't take you up on it, because fantastically interesting is the right phrase. And the projects are broken down and spread clearly throughout the semester, so maybe the work won't steal up on me in the dark and coldcock me at the end of the semester this time. Oh who am I kidding.

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

I did. I took a class on Culinary Anthropology. It was fascinating, and I'd do it again in a second if the professor didn't drive me crazy. Which reminds me, I have to make a post sometime and talk about tea ceremonies and chopsticks, and how if you're high borscht could equal either sexual attraction or family.

You are fantastic, with the linking and the maybe telling me later about your class. Thanks.