ANTH 212 - Ethnographic Understanding

Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)

In this intensive, students collectively process any aspects of their identities in relation to their anticipated or completed JYA experience (or in relation to their studies in any socio-culturally unfamiliar place, including Vassar). Students engage in closely mentored, collaborative work, reviewing and framing their experiences abroad through related ethnographic studies. These ethnographic studies may be regionally or topically focused, and students may use this intensive to plan their JYA experience or to process a completed JYA experience in order to develop thinking for a thesis or gain increased familiarity with the area in which they will or have studied, for example. Engaging with each other, students in this intensive also consider what their cross-cultural encounters suggest regarding policy, global citizenship, ethical and epistemological issues surrounding how we know what we know. This intensive is open to all majors from any discipline. Students intending to use their study abroad experience as the basis for a senior thesis or for senior independent work are especially encouraged to participate. Candice Lowe Swift.

Prerequisite(s): Students have to have recently studied abroad or plan to study abroad next semester.

Second six-week course.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: INT