Welcome!
What's this Class About?
This class is devoted to teaching you to brainstorm, research, and present your ideas for university-level research projects. Because you are a Global Liberal Studies student in the CCCP concentration, much of our long-range focus will be on your Senior thesis, but the skills you are learning will be applicable almost immediately in your other classes, as well.
The subtitle for this class is "The Creative Researcher." If this were the late 1990's, I would have titled it, "The Creative (As) Researcher," to indicate that ideally, the class should serve two cohorts: it can show traditional students more creative ways to do research than they might have thought possible, and it will also teach those of you who identify primarily as "creatives" (e.g. fiction writers, photographers, filmmakers, etc) how to frame your interests in the vein of arts-as-research.
Because many CCCP students are interested in studying things like photography, film, street life, architecture, fashion, advertising, etc., we will spend time learning how to efficiently collect, observe and theorize visual and material culture, but those of you who identify as writers or musicians: do not despair! I am currently working with Seniors who are writing short stories, novellas and monologues for their thesis projects, and they are eager to share what they've learned along the way.
There is a reason you are taking this class in the Spring semester of Sophomore year. Our intention is to give you plenty of time to start thinking of yourself as a student-researcher before heading abroad as a Junior. The goal by semester’s end is to get you to be thinking about nearly everything as ‘fieldwork’ of sorts, so you have plenty of ideas and material to consider as you head into your thesis in Senior year—with plenty of time to change your mind again, and again!
This class is devoted to teaching you to brainstorm, research, and present your ideas for university-level research projects. Because you are a Global Liberal Studies student in the CCCP concentration, much of our long-range focus will be on your Senior thesis, but the skills you are learning will be applicable almost immediately in your other classes, as well.
The subtitle for this class is "The Creative Researcher." If this were the late 1990's, I would have titled it, "The Creative (As) Researcher," to indicate that ideally, the class should serve two cohorts: it can show traditional students more creative ways to do research than they might have thought possible, and it will also teach those of you who identify primarily as "creatives" (e.g. fiction writers, photographers, filmmakers, etc) how to frame your interests in the vein of arts-as-research.
Because many CCCP students are interested in studying things like photography, film, street life, architecture, fashion, advertising, etc., we will spend time learning how to efficiently collect, observe and theorize visual and material culture, but those of you who identify as writers or musicians: do not despair! I am currently working with Seniors who are writing short stories, novellas and monologues for their thesis projects, and they are eager to share what they've learned along the way.
There is a reason you are taking this class in the Spring semester of Sophomore year. Our intention is to give you plenty of time to start thinking of yourself as a student-researcher before heading abroad as a Junior. The goal by semester’s end is to get you to be thinking about nearly everything as ‘fieldwork’ of sorts, so you have plenty of ideas and material to consider as you head into your thesis in Senior year—with plenty of time to change your mind again, and again!