April 14, 2007
Report on Syllabus Project Meeting 2
Amelia, Limor, Mattias, Alfred, and I met on April 11 to go over the original suggestions for the Anthropology of the Contemporary syllabus. I’ve summarized our discussion in the form of a skeletal syllabus. It was agreed that the syllabus shouldn’t focus on the conceptual issues of the anthropology of the contemporary as a mode of inquiry because that would be more of a graduate level undertaking. Rather, we felt it should focus on “problems.” Part One of the course would introduce the problem as a new approach with more theoretical readings, setting conceptual foundations. Part Two (Contemporary Problems) would focus on specific contemporary problems. Read more »
April 9, 2007
Syllabus Project Meeting Wed @ 10 a.m.
We’ll meet Wednesday at 10. The Gifford Room is booked then so we’ll need to find another venue. Does anyone have suggestions?
Everyone should review the wiki page contributions to date.
April 1, 2007
Syllabus Project Meeting
I’m proposing that we meet Wednesday, April 11, from 10 to 12, to discuss the selections that we’ve been compiling on the wiki. Can everyone come then?
Also, a reminder to add by Friday two potential readings for the syllabus on the syllabus project wiki page. Say why, and provide bibliographic information. Also, please add your schedule restrictions to the group calendar page on the wiki, if you have not already.
February 5, 2007
Everyone Blog!
To get our blog going, it was decided at today’s Labinar general meeting that everyone should post a blog about either “the” problem of their ongoing research or “a” problem that is concerning them at the moment, explaining why it is important. Everyone should try to do this within the next week. The entry needn’t be long or especially detailed. A couple of succinct paragraphs will suffice.
The purposes of the Lab Notes blog are:
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1. to develop a space for intellectual conversation outside of the classroom;
2. to allow the group to stay informed about what other members of the group are both thinking and doing;
3. to share information, resources, readings, anecdotes; and
4. ultimately, to discover resonances between domains.
Wordpress (the blogging software we’re using) provides most html codes that you’ll need: for boldface, italic, blockquotes, linking to other websites and photo uploads.
A few tips about blogging (picked up in my I-School class last term):
1. use an effective headline (that captures the point of the post)
2. include links in your post as often as possible. Linking improves traffic to the site and allows others to find your post. Linking is considered the art of blogging, captured in the blogospheric motto: “Link as you think.” Discoveries are a great aspect of blogging: sharing things that people might not otherwise know about or find themselves.
3. write clearly and grammatically — although a blog is relatively informal, the writing should not be sloppy.
Notes from General Labinar Meeting Feb 4
Today Anthony Stavrianakis, Mattias Viktorin, Limor Darash, Amelia Moore, Alfred Montoya, Jerome Whitington, Emily Chua, Paul Rabinow, China Scherz, and I met today to discuss our activities this Spring. Kevin Karpiak, Adrian MacIntyre, and Erin Mahaffey couldn’t make the meeting due to schedule conflicts.
Most importantly we discussed the new blog and the less-new wiki. Anthony has been named the Lab Notes blog administrator, so all concerns among our group should be forwarded to him: stavrianakis@berkeley.edu
Also discussed:
– We decided against having a regularly scheduled face-to-face meeting. On the other hand, we hope to have at least one “event” a month throughout the term.
– Paul reported that he and Gaymon are working on a draft statement on
“contemporary equipment.” Amelia and Mattias will be arranging a event
around it.
– Right now the Lab Notes blog has a glitch that requires anyone commenting to log in first. We are attempting to fix this now so that anyone can comment. Only those logged in will be able to post, but anyone will be able to comment.
– I appointed myself the “wiki gardener” and will keep the “current event” section
of that updated, so that everyone can look there for meeting times, dates,
upcoming events. Just click on: this link. If you have questions about using the wiki, you can direct them to me, but of course everyone should be actively editing and adding to the wiki as he or she likes. People who haven’t put something about themselves on their individual wiki pages, should try to do so, at least their contact info.