Book Review:
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. 501 pp.
The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth is one of the more interesting explorations of material rhetoric that I have read…which may not [...]
Book Review, Journal, and Rationale
Questions 10/23
1. Lauer and Asher emphasize the amount of time that an ethnography takes. What’s the shortest amount of time in which one could do a “valid” ethnography? Would it be possible to do an ethnography-esque assignment with students in any meaningful fashion? (And, hey, what would “valid” mean in this case anyway?)
2. Smith’s piece spends [...]
Questions 10/16
1. I was particularly interested in the Charney piece, as I can be one of those people who has a knee-jerk anti-empirical reaction, if not for *exactly* the reasons she gives. Does anyone else in here have this kind of reaction? If so, has Charney changed your mind?
2. On 569, Charney says, “With the means [...]
Questions (10/9)
1. How might Web 2.0 technologies affect surveys, both in methodology and response?
2. I was interested by the reference to Miller’s “magical number seven, plus or minus two” as the limits of short-term memory. How can this be taken into account with surveys, other research tools, and in our classrooms? What should be done differently?
3. [...]
Observation Part 2–The People
When I first came into the club, there was only one couple there, dancing together in a salsa animation. This same couple remained throughout, however, a solo woman joined them on the dance floor for some time. She started out with an animation of hiphop dancing that looked a little weird with the Indian dance [...]
Observation Part 1–The Surroundings
9/24, 10:10 pm
Online Observation done in Secondlife
The observation took place in the Taste of India Mall and Desi Beatz Club in Secondlife, an online community with which I am involved. This is an area I love to visit, since the club has great ethnotechno/world music, and the shops have great clothing, some of it made [...]
