A recent sorority recruitment video from the University of Alabama last month was critically received on the internet for what some claimed were racist overtones. The nearly all-white, bikini and lingerie clad sorority sisters portrayed pranced happily throughout the over-5 minute long video, never opening a book, attending a class, or even appearing to be affiliated with a learning environment. As a college instructor, the mother of a young girl, and self-proclaimed feminist, I mentally ripped the video apart when I saw it.…
Month: September 2015
It’s Not How Many Times You Fall….
I began writing my dissertation in 2003 or so. My first year in graduate school at Kansas State University, I had the good fortune of enrolling in Dr. Robert K. Schaeffer’s graduate Social Change course. When Dr. Schaeffer assigned the requisite term paper due in every graduate level course I have ever taken, he gave me the best advice I could get: every paper you write in your classes should in some way contribute to your dissertation.…
Guns, Lawyers, and Money Blog
It seems like Paul Campos over at the Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog is getting with the spirit of ethnographic research.
As Campos notes in his blog, there is indeed a space between journalism and social science which can be called “ethnography.” He makes this point via an ad by a RINO (Republican in Name Only) “hunter” who is running for a seat in the United States Congress from the state of North Carolina. …
Teach Like You Do in America!
“Teach like you do in America!” is the default instruction I receive when teaching overseas. I have heard it in Germany, Tanzania, and last summer in China. It is the default instruction by my hosts who assume that university classes are “about the same” everywhere in a globalizing world. What can I say? It ain’t completely true, and I wrote 4,000+ words to make this point in Palgrave Communications, a new Open Source journal.…
Binge Watching Ted Talks
While writing my dissertation, my routine goes something like this most mornings:
- Stop at the local pastry shop and get my favorite morning pastry: slightly warmed spinach crustada.
- Drive to my office at the university.
- Circle for a few minutes to find parking.
- Hope I don’t hit any of the bicyclists who drive the wrong way on one-way streets.
- Park.
- Walk to my office.
- Say hello to my colleagues.
- Find my office.
Almonds in the Desert
August 2nd, 2015
This is the principle reason why California has a water shortage: agriculture where it shouldn’t be. One side of the freeway is the natural, unirrigated terrain; the other side is irrigated almonds. We should never be growing luxury crops in desert climates.
We’re in the San Joaquin Valley. There’s no natural source of water here, like in Chico; these almonds have to be watered about three times the amount of the trees in the northern Sacramento Valley.…
Civility is Why Administrators are Paid the Big Bucks!
The other day, Julie wrote “Shared Governance or Managed Dissent at Chico State.” This is of course a local story for those of us writing at Ethnography.com but perhaps other places can learn something from the turmoil that Chico State is going through.
Her description of the academic Senate meeting is about how adminstrators tried to manage restive faculty and staff, by asking them for civility in the interest of unity.…
Globalization and Mlitary Honor: The Dedication of a Statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao in California
I stopped by the dedication of the new statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao at the Chico City Hall near my university on Saturday. General Vang Pao led the Hmong forces which were allied with the United States during the “Secret War” that the CIA conducted in the country of Laos between about 1960 and 1975. Several hundred thousand Lao Hmong were brought to the United States between 1975 and about 1995 in acknowledgment of their status of as American allies during the Secret War.”…
Is There Humor Hiding in the Translations of Bourdieu or Weber?
There’s an interesting discussion about how to translate Bourdieu from French to English at the Scatterplot blog. In English at least (I don’t read French), the translations of Bourdieu often seem circular and confusing. What Steve Valsey seems to be asking is, is this really necessary? His answer is no, and he offers a translation of Bourdieu’s definition of habitus in more “standard” English. As one of he commenters on the blog notes, similar questions can be asked of Bible translators.…
Where in the world is…Marianne?
I fell off the face of Ethnography.com last Spring, the result of committing myself to completing my dissertation, teaching 5 classes, parenting, a few health issues that needed to be taken care of, and the coming summer, which was filled with lots of camping and traveling with my family. We spent nearly a month trekking all over California, finding the ocean in Fort Bragg in July, and again in San Diego in August,
To be honest, the real reason I fell off of Ethnography was I have been writing my dissertation proposal.…
Shared Governance or Managed Dissent at Chico State?
The demand for civility effectively outlaws a range of intellectual, literary, and political forms; satire is not civil, caricature is not civil, hyperbole and aesthetic mockery are not civil nor is polemic. Ultimately, the call for civility is a demand that you not express anger; and if it was enforced it would suggest that there is nothing to be angry about in the world.” –Michael Meranze
Finding parking near Chico State is a pain in the ass.…
One Year After the Death of Marc Thompson
One year ago today, Marc Thompson, Chico, California area activist, student of sociology, was found murdered in a burning car in a remote area outside the small town of Oroville, California where he had grown up. The murder shocked and saddened the many people who knew and loved Marc in the area. The story is here.
Among the many shocked and saddened was Julie Withers who blogs here.…