HILL New Orleans Cluster Seminar (Fall 2022) Syllabus

IDSY 295 HILL NEW ORLEANS CLUSTER SEMINAR
(FALL 2022)

Dr. Espelencia Baptiste, ANSO426
Office: ULC 301
Office Hours: M. 1:00-3:00 W. 9:30-11:00
(and by appointment)

Dr. Christine Hahn, ARTX225
Office: LFA 20
Office Hours: MW 11:00am-11:45am
(and by appointment)

Dr. Shanna Salinas, ENGL490
Office: Humphrey House 108
Office Hours: Th, 2:15-4:00pm
(and by appointment)

Dr. Beau Bothwell, SEMN295/MUSC295
Office: FAB 128
Office Hours: M11am-12pm, W10-11am, Th4-5pm
(and by appointment)



Dr. Bruce Mills, HILL Digital Humanities Coordinator
Office: Humphrey House 208
Office Hours: M 1:15-2:15pm; TTh 3-4pm (and by appointment)

Seminar Cohort Meetings: Mondays, 11:05am-11:45am (Weeks 5-10)
Location: Hicks Banquet Hall West
Additional meetings TBA

Course Description

What is memory? What is identity? And how do we understand the relationship between these two concepts, particularly for communities once defined as commodities? Research suggests the significance of origins in the formation of individual and collective identity. However, for the African Diaspora, heritage, roots, and associated memory are traversed by trauma and displacement engendered by slavery, the middle passage, and contemporary structural oppressions. This course explores the different labors that slavery and the memory of slavery perform in the development of New Orleans as a city and the relationship between its composite populations.

This course participates in the Mellon-funded Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) curriculum and contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans with three other courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), and SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell). While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.). Students registered for the New Orleans cluster courses are eligible to apply for a partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022).  More details on the seminar and application process are included on page 9 of the syllabus.

Course Requirements

Participation in the New Orleans Cluster Seminar will require the following mandatory commitments:

  • Additional preparatory work throughout the term to prepare for site engagements in New Orleans. See Cluster Seminar Assignments and Due Dates (detailed below)
  • Weekly meetings with the supradisciplinary research group (held weeks 5-10 on Mondays during common time)
  • Attendance of information sessions with community partners (TBA, when applicable)
  • Meetings with the HILL Digital Humanities Coordinator, Dr. Bruce Mills
  • Submission of pre-departure materials to CIP, due 7th week Thursday.
  • Attendance at a CIP orientation meeting, 10th week Wednesday (4:15pm DE 305)
  • Write and submit a supradisciplinary collaborative group project research proposal (Due week 9 Friday by 11:59pm ET)
  • Research group interview for DH site (due Winter 2023)
  • Individual reflection (blog or video) focused on course, research, place-based learning for Digital Humanities site (due Winter 2023)
  • Supradisciplinary collaborative group research project (due first week Wednesday in Winter quarter, with revision and approval in consultation with cluster faculty and DH Coordinator finalized 2nd week Friday.)

Cluster Seminar Assignments and Due Dates

Journal Entries

Due

Fridays by 11:59pm ET
(uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams. Please make sure your Teams notifications are turned on for this channel as announcements and important information will be disseminated through your Research Group channel.)

Supradisciplinary Collaborative Group Project Proposal

Due

Week 9 Friday, 11/11 by 11:59pm ET *
(uploaded to your Research Group channel onTeams)

*Assignment prompt distributed in Week 8

Supradisciplinary Collaborative Group Project

Completed Project Due

Wednesday, January 4, 2023 by noon ET
(to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Revised Project with Bibliography/Resource List Due

Friday, January 13 by 11:59pm ET
(to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Individual Reflection for DH site

Due

Winter 2023, TBA*

*Assignment prompt distributed in Week 8


Research group interview for DH site

Due

Winter 2023, TBA

Course Grading (C/NC)

All assignments must be completed and submitted in accordance with the deadlines in the weekly assignment schedule in order to receive credit for this course. Successful completion of a DH supradisciplinary collaborative project is dependent on guided development during Fall quarter and contributions from all members of the research group. Being accountable to those deadlines and your group members will be paramount. Assessment of the DH supradisciplinary project will be undertaken by the cluster faculty in consultation with the DH coordinator to determine whether the project is ready for publication on the HILL Digital Humanities Hub. Should the cluster faculty and DH Coordinator determine that the project is not ready for publication, students will still receive credit for the course provided they have completed all required assignments to the satisfaction of their project supervisor.

Cluster Seminar Cohort Meetings and Events

The Cluster Seminar Cohort meetings during weeks 5-10 of Fall Quarter are designed to introduce students to different research modalities in advance of the seminar trip and to assist in the design of a Digital Humanities project that encapsulates each respective research group’s interests in New Orleans.

Week 5: Meet research group and discuss intersections within their research interests

Week 6: Digital Humanities presentation and brainstorming DH options (Bruce Mills)

Week 7: IRB presentation and brainstorming about collaborative DH project (Brittany Liu)

Week 8: Project proposal workshop and site visit itinerary

Thursday, November 3, 7pm: Dr. Lauron Kehrer, author of the forthcoming Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Community, and Contemporary Performance, will give a talk drawing from her chapter on New Orleans and Bounce music. Location TBA

Week 9: Place-based engagement overview, with emphasis on ethical collaboration best practices and brainstorming about engagement with community partners (Alison Geist)

Wednesday, November 9, 9:40am: Monica Kelly, Founder and Executive Director for People for Public Art, will give a talk on issues related to contemporary muralism on Zoom. Link TBA.

Week 10: Archival research presentation (Historic New Orleans Collection and/or Tulane University)

Weekly Assignment Schedule (Fall 2022)

Week 5

Advanced preparation: Submit a passage from a text in your course that informs your research interests

Session Focus: Meet with research group and supervisor; share individual research interests and grounding in course texts; discuss intersections and similarities within/across courses

Week 6

Advanced Preparation: Review two Digital Humanities Websites:

Session Focus: Overview of digital humanities (Dr. Bruce Mills)

Assignment: Individual 2-page reflective journal entry, “Brainstorming the Digital Humanities”: What different types of Digital Humanities projects are you contemplating? How/why would these DH approaches serve/represent your research interests and social issue you’ve identified?) This reflective essay will be shared with your cluster group as you work together to find areas of crossover interest for your group research project.

Due: Friday, October 21 by 11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Week 7

Advanced Preparation: Review Institutional Review Board website and take the IRB test

Session Focus: Overview of IRB and research with human subjects (Dr. Brittany Liu) Meet in OU408

Assignment: Individual 2-page reflective journal entry, “Brainstorming the Collaborative DH Project”: Review your group members’ reflective brainstorming entries from week 6. What intersections do you note? Are there synchronicities in subject matter/topic across the reflections that can be consolidated? Are there overlaps in DH approaches that can be combined? What type of collaborative project could be created from these various imaginings?

Due: Friday, October 28 by11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Week 8

Advanced Preparation: Read “Brainstorming the Collaborative DH Project” entries from your research group

Session Focus: Discuss Collaborative DH Project ideas with your research group and consider relevant site visits useful to/for your research beyond our established community partners (tours, museums, locations, etc.)

Assignment: Collaborative 2-page in-progress DH Project idea(s) and site visit itinerary proposal.

Due: Friday, November 4 by 11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Week 9

Advanced Preparation: TBA

Session Focus: Place-based learning and community engagement (Alison Geist)

Assignment: Project Proposal

Due: Friday, November 11 by 11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Week 10

Advanced Preparation: Read feedback from project supervisor (cluster faculty member assigned to your research group)

Session Focus: Archival research (Historic New Orleans Collection or Tulane)

Assignment: Meet with Bruce Mills about your DH project and refine/revise project proposal that considers feedback from him, your project supervisor, and potential archive use.

Due: Friday, November 18 by 11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Finals Week

Advanced Preparation: Read or watch the supplemental materials provided for the two community partners whose work is most central to your DH project.

Assignment: Each group member should submit two substantive questions for each of those community partners.

Due: Friday, November 25 by 11:59pm ET (uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Weekly Assignment Schedule (Winter 2023)

Week 1

Completed project due: Wednesday, January 4, 2023 by noon ET
(uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Week 2

Revised Project with Bibliography/Resource List due: Friday, January 13 by 11:59pm ET
(uploaded to your Research Group channel on Teams)

Supradisciplinary Collaborative Research Groups

Group One

Student 1 (ANSO426)
Student 2 (ANSO426)
Student 3 (ENGL490)
Student 4 (MUSC295)

Research Interests: Music/Jazz; slavery; transcendence; Black body; Medicine/Medical experimentation; natural disaster/Katrina; neoliberal policy; capitalism; anti-Black racism; place/displacement; language; colonization

Supervisor: Dr. Beau Bothwell

Group Two

Student 5 (ANSO426)
Student 6 (ARTX225)
Student 7 (ENGL490)
Student 8 (MUSC295)

Research interests: Jazz; music as history; transcendence; Found/Outsider art; Decentering Western canon; art activism; legacies of enslavement; intersectional social justice activism; memorialization; performance and/as resistance; ritual; performance/tourism consumption

Supervisor: Dr. Christine Hahn

Group Three

Student 9 (ANSO426)
Student 10 (ANSO426)
Student 11 (ARTX225)
Student 12 (ENGL490)
Student 13 (MUSC295)

Research interests: mutual aid; community development; survival; Katrina; environmental racism; history as process; Confederate monuments/memorials; anti-racist/anti-colonial public art; community storytelling as resistance; history of place and displacement; redlining; infrastructural; Jewish history in NOLA; Jewish/Black historical relations; burial/death rites; intercultural history

Supervisor: Dr. Shanna Salinas

Group Four

Student 14 (ANSO426)
Student 15 (ANSO426)
Student 16 (ARTX225)
Student 17 (ENGL490)
Student 18 (MUSC295)

Research interests: Africanisms; Vodou/Hoodoo; African spirituality; slavery; vodou as resistance; community as resistance; voodoo influence on architecture; public rituals; art/music/dance; landscape and identity formation; struggle for power and influence on landscape; Black experience of space/place; vodou and spaces of practice as formative for Black expression/creation/maintenance; spirituality and community; vodou/spirituality and changes across time/space; music and space

Supervisor: Dr. Espelencia Baptiste

Public Art and its Publics Syllabus

ARTX 225 Public Art and its Publics Fall Quarter 2022

Instructor: Professor Christine Hahn
Email: chahn@kzoo.edu or contact me through MSTeams.

Office Hours: 1:05 – 2:05pm Wednesdays or by appointment.

Course Description

New Orleans Cluster Course Information

In the history of art, public art has been the source of much commentary and controversy. After all, to call an artwork “public” is to suggest that it belongs to everyone—“the public”—and thus that anyone might have a say in it. But what makes an artwork public? This course is an opportunity to reflect on this and other questions, as we explore shifting conceptions and practices of public art in the United States from the 18th Century to the present, when older models of site-specific public art objects have ceded to an emphasis on community-oriented “social practice.”

This course works in tandem with a cluster of interrelated courses during the 2022-2023 academic year that are united by the overarching theme of “location and dislocation,” and draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.).

After the conclusion of the quarter, cluster faculty and selected students will extend the classroom to New Orleans for a partial-unit study away experience. During this week-long trip to New Orleans, November 28th – December 4th, 2022, 4-5 students from each cluster course will undertake individual and collaborative research within and across the disciplinary knowledges acquired in their respective courses. The trip will prioritize place-based learning, humanities-based inquiry, and social justice problem-solving via relevant site visits, partnerships with local community organizations, and student-led discussion and reflection. At the end of the trip, students will publish their research on a digital humanities website.

Interested students will need to submit an application and research proposal by the Monday of Week 4 (3 October 2022). Applications will be reviewed by cluster faculty and the CIP. Participants will be chosen based on potential collaborative research intersections across courses and the importance of New Orleans as a site. Selected students will be notified by the Friday of Week 4 (7 October 2022) and will be expected to participate in preparatory workshops with their cluster cohort in the second half of the fall quarter. More information is available on the class Moodle site.

Goals, Purpose, Outcomes

  • Gain historical understanding of public art in the United States with a particular emphasis on the 20th century.
  • Study changing notions of public art and public space as sites of contestation over collective experiences and national memory.
  • Apply independent research to exploring a particular area or issue related to public art in more depth.

Assignments

Reader Reports

Reader reports are submitted on Moodle by Sunday nights at 11:59pm. Each week, a selection of readings will be highlighted to be read carefully. Your Reader Report should consist of: 1) A 3-5 paragraph synopsis of the main points of the reading. 2) 3 or 4 quotes that are germane to the central arguments of the reading. 3) 2 or 3 questions you are asking of the material.

Midpoint and Final Essays

You will write a set of reflective essays of approximately 5 -7 pages in length in response to a set of guided questions. The prompt for each essay will be available on Moodle. Essays are due by Friday of 5th week and Monday of Finals Week, respectively, by 11:59pm EST.

Site Exploration

How often do you spend time noticing where you are? To encourage you to develop the habit of noticing and analyzing your surroundings, you will select and visit three sites/spaces during the quarter. Challenge yourself to stay in the same spot for at least 30 minutes. Set up a timer on your phone and take note of what things you notice about your space/site during that duration of time. Are you in a public space? A private space? What markers designate it as such? What do you hear and what do you smell? What made you want to stop in the spot you selected? Take a photograph and write a 3 – 4 paragraph reflection. Site Exploration Credits can be completed individually or in groups. If writing it up as a group, make sure to include everyone’s name on the forum post so I can give credit accordingly.

Public Art Mapping Project

A separate prompt will be posted on Moodle.

Community Events Forum

There is a LOT that happens during the quarter! If you know of an event coming up, or participated in one, receive 10 points each time you post about it on the Community Events forum. I will also be announcing opportunities throughout the quarter where you can receive double Community Events points by participating.

Due Dates

Reader Reports

Due Sunday evenings, starting with the Sunday evening of the start of week 2, by 11:59pm, uploaded onto Moodle.

Midpoint and Final Reflective Essays

Midpoint Essay due Friday night of 5th week; Final Essay due Monday night of Finals Week by 11:59pm.

Site Exploration

Posted by Monday of Finals Week by 11:59pm.

Public Art Mapping Project

Due Monday of Finals Week by 11:59pm.

Community Events

Posts due on the Moodle forum by Monday of Finals Week by 11:59pm.

Grading

ElementPoints
Attendance100 points total (10 weeks, 10 points
per week)
Community Events Forum100 points total (10 points per post)
Reader Reports450 points total (9 Reader Reports,
50 points each)
Midpoint Reflective Essay150 points
Final Reflective Essay150 points
Public Art Mapping Project300 points
Site Analysis150 points (3 site visits, 50 points
each)

This course utilizes contract grading. We will discuss how contract grading works during Week One.

There are 1400 total possible points.

Grading Scale

PointsLetter Grade
940+ pointsA
900 – 939A-
880 – 899B+
840 – 879B
800 – 839B-
780 – 799C+
740 – 779C
700 – 739C-
680 – 699D+
640 – 679D
600 – 639D-
599 and belowF

Class Policies

Classroom Interactions

Your communication with others in this class should be professional and polite. Even when we disagree strongly, we will focus on the content of arguments, not evaluations of other people’s character. To encourage respectful interaction, students are unable to revise or delete their comments on the discussion boards, so think carefully before you post.

For this reason, I encourage you to read the discussion board assignment early on, think about it for a few days, and then return to write and revise your answer before you post. If you see something inappropriate on our class discussion boards, please tell me. I’m not able to monitor posts as they arrive, so I rely on students to alert me if a post violates our classroom standards.

Recording Class Content

It is a violation of copyright law and may be a violation of FERPA (if you include student-related content) to share recordings or images produced in this or any other class without explicit permission from the instructor. Students in violation of this will be charged with an academic misconduct violation. While I encourage you to discuss what you are learning in this class with friends and family members, you may not share recorded lectures, notes that I have written, or other content I have created without my written permission, and you may NEVER share comments or other content written by your classmates. This is a violation of the trust in our classroom as well as copyright law.

The World Through New Orleans Syllabus

SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans

Romare Bearden, New Orleans: Ragging Home, 1974

Fall 2022
SEMN295/MUSC295
Dr. Beau Bothwell
Email: beau.bothwell@kzoo.edu

Class: Tuesday/Thursday 2:10-4pm
Office Hours: M 10-11am, T 4-5, W 10-
11am. Or by Appointment.
Office: Fine Arts 128

Description

As the physical reality of New Orleans has been shaped and reshaped by topography and climate, settler migration and indigenous displacement, enslavement and commodification, so has its music been shaped by the successive legal, economic, racial and political regimes that accompanied these changes. In crafting musical tools to help navigate local realities, New Orleanians established some of central elements of African American music—and through it much of the popular music of the contemporary world.

The class begins with a sampling of New Orleans’ constitutive musical cultures –both indigenous and those imported from Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe–before narrowing towards a brief history of music in New Orleans. Finally, we expand into an examination of how that music has been heard, consumed, and adapted around the world.

Statement of course goals

The goal of this course is to introduce students to a variety of ways of thinking about music, developing their ability to analyze, discuss, and write about music as a force in people’s lives, and in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of human hierarchies (political, racial, sexual, economic…)

Through an examination of the aesthetic priorities, philosophical bases, and social imperatives that underpin the act of music-making in New Orleans, students will explore music as a site for the expression and contestation of issues of identity, individuality, community and difference. Studying musical practice as it is instantiated and theorized locally in New Orleans, participants in this course will learn to hear, analyze, and write about the embedded assumptions of their own, native musical cultures with a more critical and nuanced ear.

Through weekly writing assignments and a final term paper, students will develop their ability to research and write about music in cultural and historical context.

New Orleans Cluster

This course participates in the Mellon-funded Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) curriculum and contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans with three other courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ANSO426 Lest we Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora (Dr. Espelencia Baptiste), and ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas.) While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.). Students registered for the New Orleans cluster courses are eligible to apply for a partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022). More details on the seminar and application process is included at the end of the
syllabus.

Preparation

This course will be primarily discussion-based, and students should come to class ready to discuss and ask questions about daily reading and listening assignments. Students will also be asked to prepare weekly writing assignments and occasionally to lead discussion of readings or listening examples. In order to contextualize and prepare students for the readings, some class time will be spent in short lectures on historical background and musical terminology.

Assignments and Evaluation

Students will be evaluated according to the following criteria

PercentageElement
15%Participation in class discussions and general level of preparation for class.
15%Quizzes, designed to gauge both class preparation and ability to put aural concepts into practice.
30%Short writing assignments (see below)
40%Final Project (see below)

Course Website

All reading and listening assignments will be posted on the course website. This is the site you should be checking frequently.
password: hotfives
Moodle will be used exclusively to post grades.

Required Texts

Sublette, Ned. The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008.

Stooges Brass Band, and Kyle DeCoste, Can’t Be Faded: Twenty Years in the New Orleans Brass Band Game. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2020.

Short Writing Assignments

Each week, students will complete two regular written responses to the reading and listening assignments, one short (1.5-2 pages, due Tuesday) and the other extremely short (2-4 sentences, due Thursday).

Tuesday Short Response: Weekly short responses will require students to demonstrate engagement with the reading and listening material and will take various forms depending on the topics covered. The criteria and mode of evaluation for each of these assignments will be discussed in class. (1-2 pages)

Thursday Shorter Response: Short responses will consist of a comment posted on the course website, in which the student will 1) clarify an aspect of the reading or define a word that people might have some trouble with (including a reference if necessary) and 2) Ask a question about some aspect of the reading.

Assignments are due either over email (short) or on the course website (shorter), by midnight the evening before class.

Class Participation

Participation will be evaluated on the following criteria:

A: You contribute to class frequently (almost every session, though I don’t expect everyone to be “on” every day). Your comments reflect excellent preparation, build from the comments of others and/or offer direction for the discussion. If you were not in the class, the quality of discussion would be diminished markedly.

B: You contribute to class sometimes. Your comments reflect good preparation, sometimes build from the comments of others and/or sometimes offer direction for the discussion. If you were not in the class, the quality of discussion would be diminished.

C: You contribute to class rarely. Your comments reflect adequate preparation, occasionally build from the comments of others and/or occasionally offer direction for the discussion. If you were not in the class, the quality of discussion would be diminished somewhat.

D: You contribute to class very rarely or not at all. As a result, there is little or no basis for evaluation. If you were not in the class, the discussion would not be changed.

Also D: You contribute to class but your contributions reflect inadequate preparation and offer no direction for the discussion. If you were not in the class, the discussion would be improved

Required Music Streaming Service

This semester, we will primarily be using Spotify (www.spotify.com) and Youtube as our music portals, supplemented by online databases accessed through your Kalamazoo login, as well as a variety of online resources. All students should sign up for a (free) Spotify account.

Attendance Policy

Students are expected to attend every class session. In the event that you must miss a class due to religious observance, illness, family emergency, etc…, please provide notification as soon as possible, preferably in advance of the absence. After two unexcused absences, each subsequent absence will result in a 4% reduction in total course grade.

Statement on Academic Integrity

Acts of academic dishonesty are prohibited. Cheating includes, but is not limited to: (1) use of any unauthorized assistance in taking quizzes, tests, or examinations; (2) use of sources beyond those authorized by the instructor in writing papers, preparing reports, solving problems; or carrying out other assignments; (3) the acquisition, without permission, of tests or other academic material belonging to a member of the College community; (4) engaging in any behavior specifically prohibited by a faculty member in the course syllabus or class discussion. If you have any questions about these policies, please ask, and refer to the guidelines here: https://studev.kzoo.edu/policies/

Statement on Learning Difference

Any student with a learning difference who needs an accommodation or other assistance in this course should make an appointment to speak with me as soon as possible. Please do feel free to reach out as soon as possible.

An Important Tip for The Rest of Your Life

Whenever you send an assignment to a professor, a resume to a potential employer, or a request to a new contact, you should assume that this person receives dozens (or hundreds) of files as attachments every week. As such, it is in your interest to title your file in such a way that it is easy to track and identify at a glance. Using very specific filenames will also make your life much easier down the road when you are trying to find an old file.

Good Filename: MyName__Week1Response_Sept2022.doc
Bad Filename: Assignment1.doc

Good Filename: MyName_NewOrleansBoucePaper_10Oct22.pdf
Awful Filename: NewOrleans.pdf

Good Filename: MyNameResume_PositionTitle-CompanyName_2Nov24.prf
No Good, Terrible Filename: Resume.pdf

If you send me a filename similar to the bad examples above, you will receive a reply
email consisting entirely of “what.huh?”

Drafts

In addition to the assigned draft sections and preliminary assignments that every student will complete as they work towards their final project, I am happy to review early drafts of final papers, provided that I receive them at least five days in advance of the due date. This is to ensure that I can review and comment on drafts with enough time for students to revise and improve their work before the final deadline. Remember that the act of submitting an early draft doesn’t achieve anything on its own; rather it is the act of revision in response to reader comments that helps all of us improve a piece of writing.

The [Imaginary] Final Paper – Designing a Research Project at Multiple Scales

Early on in the term, each student will decide on a topic of interest for their research paper. This can be an individual artist, a particular recording, a dance, a physical site, a historical event, or a stylistic feature of a musical subgenre or practice. While you are not limited to a specific range of subjects, you should choose a concrete person/place/thing/event (rather than a more abstract concept) that is embedded in an existing musical culture of or related to New Orleans. The subject does not need to be geographically restricted to New Orleans itself.

The task for this project is not to “write a paper” about the subject. Rather, each student will develop a bibliography, discography, and potential research agenda that could be used to explore a variety of questions about the subject. These questions will range in type, from the factual to the theoretical, and in scope, from the type of question that might make an interesting footnote to the type of question that would be the basis for a scholarly monograph. You will not, importantly, be asked to actually complete more than discrete elements of this research agenda. Thus you will construct a bibliography that is larger than what you could possibly read in a 10 week term, and will detail potential research methodologies and practices that you will not be able to undertake during the Fall.

The point of this project is not only to explore the topic at hand, but to begin to ask questions about knowledge production and what counts as knowledge on this topic:

What kinds of knowledge are valued and understood as knowledge within the musical culture in question here? Who counts as a knowledgeable listener in this setting? How is that knowledge acquired, transmitted, or created? What kinds of inquiry would be relevant to understanding this subject? What methodologies or humanistic or social-scientific research are appropriate or useful for the exploration of this topic? What kinds of research are possible? Feasible? Ethical?

In the process of constructing a general overview for this subject you will write several abstracts for hypothetical academic papers and non-academic articles based on smaller-scale subsets of this imaginary research agenda. At the end of the term, you will give a preliminary presentation on one of these small-scale questions related to your topic.

The timeline for the term project will be as follows.

Week 4: Students select a research interest
Week 6: Abstract 1 Due.
Week 7: Abstract 2 Due.
Week 8: Student and Professor agree on final grading rubric.
Week 9: Mock exam due.
Week 10: Abstract 3 Due – Class Presentations

Final Paper Due

Monday, November 21.

3000 words (about 12 pages) Times New Roman/12-point font/Double-spaced
Annotated Bibliography (criteria will be discussed in class)
Annotated Discography (criteria will be discussed in class)

Grading

Your final project will be assessed according to a rubric that we will discuss and agree upon in class. Since each member of the seminar will be investigating very different topics, each student will contribute one specific parameter to the rubric (in consultation with Prof. Bothwell) upon which they will be evaluated. This parameter should be specific to the content of your project, and how well you are able to compile, analyze, and communicate material in a way that is specifically appropriate to your chosen musical culture.

Draft Timeline for the Quarter

Week 1

Tuesday – Introduction to the course

Thursday – Indigenous Bayou
Readings: World that Made New Orleans Ch. 1-6
Watch:

Week 2

Week 2 Items Due

Thursday, Shorter Response 1

TuesdayCan’t Be Faded
Preface/Acknowledgements/Introduction
Part I

Thursday Reading: World that Made New Orleans Ch. 7-16
Tang Masters of the Sabar: Wolof Griot Percussionists of Senegal (excerpts)
J.H. Nketia Role of the Drummer in Akan Society (excerpts)
Baraka – Blues People – excerpts
Listening/Language Assignment:
A) Wolof and Mande (Senegal/Gambia)
B) Akan and Aja (Ghana/Benin/Nigeria)
C) Kikongo (Angola)

Film Viewing: The Language You Cry In

Week 3: Music in 19th Century New Orleans

Week 3 Items Due

Tuesday, Short Response 2

Thursday, Shorter Response 2

Tuesday
World that Made New Orleans Ch. 17-22
Ostendorf Sounds American: National Identity and the Music Cultures of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, 1800-1860. (excerpts)
Listening Assignment: France and Spain

Thursday
Reading: Can’t Be Faded – Part II, III
Cuba and its Music selections
Film: Buckjumping

Week 4: Music in 20th Century New Orleans

Week 4 items Due

Tuesday, Short Response 3

Thursday, Shorter Response 3

Tuesday“Storyville”
Reading: Barker and Shipton. Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville. (excerpts)
Armstrong, Louis. Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. (excerpts)
Keeping Time readings: “The Location of ‘Jass’” “Whence comes Jass”
Jelly Roll Morton Interviews

Thursday – N.O. Piano:
Professor Longhair, Jelly Roll Morton, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Fats Domino, Ellis Marsalis Jr., Henry Butler, Dr. John, Sweet Emma Barrett,
Readings: Can’t Be Faded Part 4

Week 5: Selected Autobiography (on Reserve)

Barker, Danny. A Life in Jazz. Illustrated edition. New Orleans, Louisiana: Historic New Orleans Collections, 2016.

Battiste, Harold, and Karen Celestan. Unfinished Blues–: Memories of a New Orleans Music Man. 1st ed. New Orleans, La: Historic New Orleans Collection, 2010.

Bechet, Sidney. Treat It Gentle: An Autobiography. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002.

Bethell, Tom. George Lewis: A Jazzman from New Orleans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

Week 6: Music in 20th Century New Orleans*

Week 6 Items Due

Tuesday, Short Response 4, Abstract # 1

Thursday, Shorter Response 4, Shorter Response 5

Tuesday
Reading: Can’t Be Faded – Part IV.

Thursday
Reading: TBA

*Possible artists include: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Edmond Dede, Buddy Bolden, Jelly Morton, James Brown Humphrey, Lorenzo Tio, Sr., the Original Dixieland Jass Band, Kid Ory, King Oliver, Johnny Dodge, The Original Tuxedo Orchestra, Sidney Bichet, Danny Barker, Jellyroll Morton, Armand Piron, Sam Morgan, Louis Nelson, George Lewis, Danny Barker, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Louis Prima, Mahalia Jackson, Moses Hogan, Professor Longhair, Antoine Domino, The Lasties, Vernon Wilson, Roy Brown, Roy Price, Champion Jack Dupree, Smiley Lewis, Tuts Washington, James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, Huey “Piano” Smith, Guitar Slim, Lloyd Price, Little Richard, Allen Toussaint, Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, Benny Spellman, Chris Kenner Earl King, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, , Oliver Morgan, Cosimo Mattasa, Harold Battiste, Earl Turbinton, James Black, , Tami Lynn, Richard Payne, Willie Tee, James Rivers, The Marsalis Family, Dave “Fat Man” Williams, Edward Frank, James Booker, Dr. John, Willie Tee and the Wild Magnolias, Big Chief Jolly, the Neville Brothers, Dennis McGee, Sady Corville, The Hackberry Ramblers, Harry Choates, D.L Menard, Doug Kershaw, the Balfa Brothers, Bruce Draignepont, Michael Doucet, Zachary Richard, Clifton Chenier, Stanley Dural and Buckwheat Zydeco, Wayne Toups, C. J. Chenier, Master P and No Limit Records, Birdman & Mannie Fresh, Juvenile, Turk, Lil Wayne, Trombone Shorty Olympia Brass Band, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Rebirth, Soul Rebels (Thanks to Sanford Hinderlie for his larger list of N.O. musicians)

Week 7

Week 7 Items Due

Tuesday, Abstract #2

Thursday, Shorter Response 6

Tuesday
Reading: Kehrer Queer Voices in Hip-Hop, chapter 4 “Nice For What”: New Orleans Bounce and Disembodied Queer Voices in the Mainstream
Miller – Bounce: Rap Music and Local Identity in New Orleans. excerpts

Thursday

Week 8: The World that New Orleans Made – Export, Tourism & Consumption

Week 8 Items Due

Thursday, Rubric Selection

Tuesday
Von Eschen – Satchmo Blows Up the World (excerpts)
Regis, Helen A. “Producing Africa at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.” African Arts 46, no. 2 (June 2013): 70–85.
“Second Lines, Minstrelsy, and the Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals.” Cultural Anthropology 14, no. 4 (1999): 472–504.

Thursday
The Music of Courtney Bryan

Week 9: The World that New Orleans Made

Week 9 Items Due

Tuesday, Mock Exam Assignment
(Students will write a final exam and grading key, as if they were the instructor in a course devoted to the topic of their final paper.)

Tuesday
Roots in Reverse: Senegalese Afro-Cuban Music and Tropical Cosmopolitanism. (excerpts)
White, Bob W. “Congolese Rumba and Other Cosmopolitanisms.” Cahiers d’études Africaines 42, no. 168 (January 1, 2002): 663–86. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.161.

Thursday
Feld, Jazz in Accra (excerpts)
Lilley, The Musical Artistry of Bheki Mseleku. (excerpts)

Week 10

Week 10 Items Due

Monday, November 21: Final Projects

Tuesday: Final Presentations

Thursday: Final Presentations

NEW ORLEANS CLUSTER INFORMATION

In January, Kalamazoo College received a three-year Mellon grant (For information about the grant, see the grant announcement.) Entitled Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL), this initiative examines how many problems of our time can be analyzed through the lens of location and dislocation. To develop a deeper knowledge of these disruptions (physical, psychological, social, linguistic, and more) with the aim of generating the potential for change, HILL supports the formation of class clusters linked to specific places within and beyond Kalamazoo. Our course contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans, comprised of the following courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), ANSO426 Lest we Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora (Dr. Espelencia Baptiste), SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell). While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.)

After the conclusion of the quarter, cluster faculty and selected students will extend the classroom to New Orleans for a 7-day, fully-funded* study away experience (includes airfare, housing, and meals). During this partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022), 4-5 students from each cluster course will undertake individual and collaborative research within and across the disciplinary knowledges acquired in their respective courses in order to produce a supradisciplinary research project. The trip will prioritize place-based learning, humanities-based inquiry, and social justice problem-solving via relevant site visits, partnerships with local community organizations, and student-led discussion and reflection. At the end of the trip, students will
publish their research on a digital humanities website.

Application process: Interested students will need to submit an application and a research proposal to the HILL site (https://hill.kzoo.edu/) by October 3rd (4th week Monday) at 5pm ET. In it, students will be asked to address the following questions:

1000-word proposal that addresses the following questions:

  1. What is your research area of interest? Please highlight subject matters, themes, texts, etc. from
    your cluster course for support.
  2. How does New Orleans’s “placeness” (history, geography/landscape, culture, etc.) pertain to
    your research interest? How do you see the theme of “location and dislocation” at work?
  3. How does your research interest connect to relevant social justice concerns?
  4. Review the websites of our confirmed community partners: The Whitney Plantation; People for
    Public Art; Junebug Productions; and Lower Nine. How do you see your research interest aligning
    with at least two of these organizations? What appeals to you about these organizations and
    their work in the community?

Optional research and past experience questions:

  1. Review the Historic New Orleans Collection’s exhibitions, special collections, and digital archives.
    Are there particular materials that relate to your research interest? If so, please explain their
    relevance.
  2. Have you had any experiences that may have prepared you for this experiential research
    seminar? Please detail any past research (individual or collaborative), service-learning courses,
    and/or experiential learning engagement you identify as relevant.

*Please note: Previous research experience and/or experiential learning engagement are NOT required and will not positively or negatively impact your selection.


Community Partners

Whitney Plantation Museum

People for Public Art

Junebug Productions

Lower Nine

Historic New Orleans Collection

Applications will be reviewed by cluster faculty in conjunction with the Center for International Programs. Participants will be chosen based on potential collaborative research intersections across cluster courses and the importance of New Orleans as a site. Those selected for the experiential research seminar in New Orleans will be notified no later than October 7th (4th week Friday).

Selection for the New Orleans Cluster Seminar will require the following mandatory commitments:

  • Additional preparatory work throughout the term to prepare you for site engagements in New Orleans. You will be provided with a seminar syllabus after cohort selection is finalized.
  • Weekly meetings with your research group (held weeks 5-10 on Mondays during common time, Hicks Banquet Hall West)
  • Attend information sessions with community partners (TBA)
  • Meetings with the HILL Digital Humanities Coordinator, Bruce Mills
  • Submission of pre-departure materials, due 7th week Thursday.
  • Attend an orientation meeting, 10th week Wednesday (4:15pm DE 305)
  • Write and submit a group project research proposal
  • Individual or group seminar experiential reflection blog, video, interview due [TBA]
  • Research project, due first week Monday in Winter quarter, with revision and approval in consultation with cluster faculty and DH Coordinator finalized 2nd week Friday.

Additionally, a $4,500 summer research stipend for June-August 2023 is open to all students, with priority given to students who want to return to New Orleans after the cluster trip or students who participated in one of the four New Orleans cluster courses in 2022. More information is available on our website.

NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy Syllabus

ENGL 490 NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy

(Pandemic Syllabus 1.0: Nothing is Normal or Okay Yet, and I Can’t Pretend It Is) 

Dr. Shanna Salinas
English 490: Advanced Literary Studies (Fall 2022)
Class Time and Location: TTh 12:10-2pm, Dewing 307
E-mail Address: shanna.salinas@kzoo.edu  

Office: Humphrey House 108 
Student Hours: Thursday, 2:15-4:00 pm
(and by appointment)

NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy

What is memory? What is identity? And how do we understand the relationship between these two concepts, particularly for communities once defined as commodities? Research suggests the significance of origins in the formation of individual and collective identity. However, for the African Diaspora, heritage, roots, and associated memory are traversed by trauma and displacement engendered by slavery, the middle passage, and contemporary structural oppressions. This course explores the different labors that slavery and the memory of slavery perform in the development of New Orleans as a city and the relationship between its composite populations.

This course participates in the Mellon-funded Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) curriculum and contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans with three other courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), and SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell). While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.). Students registered for the New Orleans cluster courses are eligible to apply for a partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022).  More details on the seminar and application process are included on page 9 of the syllabus.

Required Texts

George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes 
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories 
Natasha Trethewey, Bellocq’s Ophelia 
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler 
Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas 
Supplemental Reading Materials available on Moodle  

Required Films and Television 

“New Orleans, Louisiana” Street Food USA (streaming on Netflix) 
“Bitchcraft,” American Horror Story: Coven (streaming on Hulu) 
Angel Heart (streaming free on PlutoTV) 
Pretty Baby (streaming free on Hoopla with library card; or DailyMotion: part one + part two
Mardi Gras documentary (streaming free on YouTube) 
We Won’t Bow Down (streaming free on YouTube) 
“You Can’t Stop Spirit,” New York Times short film (streaming free on NYT site) 
Trouble the Water (streaming free on Kanopy) 

Grade Breakdown

ElementPercentage
Participation10%
Discussion Leader/Presentation Respondent 10%
Seminar ProjectPercentage
Analytical Presentation (5-7 pages)15%
Critical Dialogue and Analysis (3-4 pages)15%
Annotated Bibliography (in-progress + final)10%
Research Paper (12-20 pages)20%
Mapping Project + Presentation20%

Note

I have designed this course with the vision of creating a student-generated classroom that centers a multi-tiered, quarter-long “seminar project,” wherein students will focus on one text across various types of assignments (i.e., a research paper, a critical dialogue, a digitized map entry, an “alternative” mapping project). The overall course design and assignments are created to reflect this investment: your seminar project will, in effect, culminate in a longer research paper and a mapping component, one that we work toward with a series of interconnected assignments that explore, expand, and develop an engagement with one core text in our course. Your ongoing individual development of research, literary analysis, and critical engagement across various academic approaches will comprise the majority of your course grade.   

To that end, I have provided you with the materials and the structure to sustain the conversations we’ll have throughout the quarter. My function in the room will be to serve as a facilitator and co-collaborator. Of utmost importance is to consider our conversations as a way to assist yourself and your peers’ primary interests and to help each other refine and develop a seminar project.  

Seminar Project

The seminar project is designed to mimic the type of engagement and structured development that you would undertake in a SIP. The project has been scaffolded so that you execute different elements in stages in order to produce a substantial research paper by the end of the course. These assignments are all designed to build off of each other, and they can be used cumulatively, meaning that you can repurpose portions from each assignment toward another as they best serve your purposes. Please note: You will choose one course text and the entirety of the seminar project will be focused accordingly. In other words, your selected seminar text will be your primary focus for both analysis and research throughout the term across all assignments in this course.  

Choose one of the following texts for your seminar project:  

  • George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes 
  • Robert Tallant, Voodoo in New Orleans  
  • George Washington Cable, “The Haunted House on Royal Street” 
  • “Bitchcraft,” AHS: Coven 
  • Angel Heart 
  • Alice Dunbar-Nelson, The Goodness of St. Rocque   
  • Natasha Trethewey, Bellocq’s Ophelia  
  • Pretty Baby 
  • We Won’t Bow Down 
  • You Can’t Stop Spirit 
  • Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler 
  • Trouble the Water 

Since this course employs a student-led and generated model, it will require advanced preparation and active individualized planning to execute. Accordingly, students will need to be proactive throughout the term and construct a research schedule that will ensure successful progress. With this in mind, I suggest the following timeline, which will designate both required and recommended deadlines.  

Week Two Thursday (Required): Deadline to select seminar text (a google doc sign-up roster will be provided via email and on Moodle. We will confirm final selections in class on Thursday of 2nd week).  

Week Three Thursday (Required): Sign up for your Weeks 4-7 Respondent/Discussion Leader text (Reminder: You must sign up for a text and thematic unit that differs from your seminar text) 

Weeks Three-Five (Recommended): Find/Skim 2-3 outside sources for your Annotated Bibliography each week. 

Week Three Friday (Required): Read/Skim or view as much of your seminar text as possible. This approach enables students to begin research for the annotated bibliography due week 5. This timeline also ensures that students interested in applying for the New Orleans Cluster Seminar will have an operational understanding of their text and research interests by the week 4 Monday deadline.   

Week Seven Thursday (Required): Sign up for your Weeks 8-10 Respondent/Discussion Leader text (Reminder: You must sign up for a text and thematic unit that differs from your seminar text) 

Weeks One-Ten (Recommended): Read/Consider two maps per week from Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas to assist your thinking about the “placeness” of New Orleans. Reflect on approaches to and conceptualizations of space, plus modes of mapping utilized, as pre-work for your mapping project.   

Weeks One-Ten (Recommended): Keep a New Orleans Location Journal (a google doc or word doc is fine) where you log references to specific locations in NOLA mentioned in your seminar text and in your research. Keeping track of these references, with page numbers and content relevance, will be a invaluable resource when you start working on your mapping project. 

Analytical Presentation (15%) 

Note

DUE: In accordance with the allotted day for your chosen seminar text

There are two components to this assignment: 1) the analytical presentation and 2) the workshop discussion that follows. Each presentation will be approximately 40-45 minutes in length. You will be graded on the strength of your analysis, the clarity of your delivery, and the questions and feedback you offer during workshop discussions throughout the quarter. You will receive a written evaluation from me within a week of your presentation; in it, I will assess your analytical argument and presentation, as well as give you suggestions for how to develop your work further.  

The in-class presentation: In advanced seminars (and at professional conferences in our field), the typical format for presentations is the delivery of a 10-20 minute talk, during which you read an analytical interpretation of the assigned text/s. For our purposes, we will approach this presentation like a works-in-progress workshop, wherein you present a short paper (approximately 5-7 pages), then announce questions (usually 3 questions will guarantee enough material with which to work) that develop and build from the core ideas in your analysis. These questions are largely grounded in ideas you’re still working through: are there moments in your analysis that you’re struggling to resolve? Are there elements within your primary text that you can’t reconcile given your approach? Are there crucial moments in the text (a film sequence, a passage from a novel, a concept from a piece of criticism) that you haven’t incorporated yet and want to discuss further? Are there important themes or ideas that you feel connect to your analysis and you want to brainstorm ways to make those conversant with the work you’re already doing in your analysis? In the discussion that follows your presentation, your respondents and I, with help from your other classmates, will help you work through the questions you have posed. This is your time to collaborate with knowledgeable peers about the material and your argument, with an eye toward the next steps in the development of your analysis for the research paper.  

The content of your analysis can pull from other texts: a comparison with another piece of literature, the use of an assigned critical essay, the use of outside critical or historical research, the application of theory, etc. Or, you can simply offer an extended analysis of your primary text. What you’re presenting is simply where you are at that moment in the process.  

The workshop discussion: The questions you pose about your work will be the foundation upon which we build a class. The objective is to raise specific concerns that we can address together. To that end, please submit your paper and your core questions in advance of your presentation so that your respondents and I can better prepare to address your concerns. Please send a Google Docs link of your paper to our course alias (engl490-1@kzoo.edu) by 9pm EST the day prior to your presentation. This platform will allow for greater ease with sharing, enable your peers to comment directly on the paper itself, and give me the ability to track and credit your peers’ feedback.  

Discussion Leader/Respondent Role (10%) 

To help lessen anxiety about the need to read all of the texts for this course thoroughly, each student will serve as a Discussion Leader/Presentation Respondent twice during the term (first in Weeks 4-7 and again in Weeks 8-10), both times with 2-3 other classmates, though you need not work/prepare together in advance. In this capacity, you will be expected to read (and/or view) all of that day’s course material with great care and thoroughness, to the extent that you’d feel comfortable doing a presentation about the assigned texts. In effect, you will serve as our designated “experts” for our discussion and will also undertake the following: 1) read the Analytical Presentation/s in advance of class, 2) offer both in-class and written feedback to the presenter/s on Google Docs, and 3) help lead and sustain discussion of the course material after the presentation/s.  

Please Note

Your Discussion Leader/Presentation Respondent days cannot be the same as your Analytical Presentation; nor should they be on the same topic or text.

Respondent Feedback Expectations: Please read through the Analytical Presentation paper/s, in advance of that day’s class, with the writer’s concerns and questions in mind. You can elect to offer written feedback at that time, or wait until after the presentation and discussion. This feedback can be as straightforward as “I really like this portion of your analysis because your argument was really clear and purposeful” or “I think this point needs to be developed more” with suggestions about what needs clarifying and/or ways the writer can do so. Your feedback should be added no later than Friday by 11:59pm EST via track changes in the Google Doc.   

Annotated Bibliography (10%) 

Note

DUE: In-Progress Annotated Bibliography, Sunday, 10/17 by 11:59pm EST, with final version submitted with the Research Paper  

Research scholarly criticism on the primary text/s in your presentation 

  • Annotate 10 sources (peer-reviewed journal articles or books on your selected text and/or subject; acceptable variations: theory/criticism, historical, cultural, etc.) 
  • Use at least five of these sources in your research paper (due Wednesday, 11/23 by noon EST) 
  • Submit the final, revised draft of your annotated bibliography with your research paper 
  • Each annotation should be approximately ¾- 1 full page in length and should present the following scope: 1) full MLA citation of source 2) a brief summation of the source itself, which would include the author’s main argument and methodology or theoretical intervention. You will resubmit this annotated bibliography with your final research paper, in which your annotations will be expanded to include one additional component: 3) an explanation of how this source is useful, i.e., how you’re engaging the source and/or how the source helps you to advance your specific analytical argument.  

Critical Dialogue and Analysis (15%) 

Note

DUE: Saturday, 11/5 by 11:59pm EST 

This assignment is designed with the following objectives in mind: 1) to help you hone the way you frame criticism within your analysis 2) to guide you in how to posit your entry into a critical dialogue within a field of existing scholarship and 3) to practice this kind of critical intervention prior to the submission of your research paper. 

Write a 3-4 page paper on your chosen course text that places two critical essays about that text (or subject matter) in dialogue with one another. After establishing a critical dialogue, you will use that foundation as framework to inform your analysis. There are many ways to conceptualize this work, but ultimately it requires that you solidly introduce the overarching argument within your respective critical essays, synthesize the way in which their interventions overlap or work in contestation with one another, and use this synthesis to triangulate your analysis accordingly.  

The strongest approach will consider these developmental steps:  

  1. The way your respective critics highlight a particular theme that has been a primary focal point for this course (history, invention or construction, territorialization, race, language, gender, sexuality, etc.) 
  2. An exploration of the dialogue that emerges within the overlap in how your selected critics consider that theme in relation to your chosen text 
  3. Your original analysis of that theme in your chosen text 
  4. A consideration of how this analytical foundation informs a greater understanding of the use of NOLA as an experienced or imagined space 

Here’s a suggested structure that might help you execute the assignment in an effective manner:  

  • Standard introduction that situates your analysis of your chosen text. In this case, your critical essays are secondary rather than primary sources, so they do not need to included. If you have already done your Analytical Presentation, it is absolutely fine to copy/paste from that existing document 
  • A summary/overview or explication of Critical Essay 1 (approximately 1/2 page; feel free to borrow exact language from your Annotated Bibliography) 
  • A summary/overview or explication of Critical Essay 2 (approximately 1/2 page; feel free to borrow exact language from your Annotated Bibliography) 
  • Critical dialogue synthesis, wherein you establish the conversation between these critical ideas or arguments (1-2 pages) 
  • A summative paragraph that announces your analytical intervention and application to your course text (this will function as your conclusion) 

Research Paper (20%) 

Note

Due Wednesday, 11/23 by noon EST 

Build off the approach you used in the Analytical Presentation and/or Critical Dialogue and Analysis assignment to write a 12-20 page paper based on the research you undertook on your selected presentation text/s. Of utmost importance is to center and to advance your analytical argument, but to do so while framing the critical dialogue of scholars within the field. This expertise can encompass periodization (e.g., American Realism and Local Color Fiction as particular fields of study); textual (what analyses preeminent scholars have advanced about The Grandissimes); authorial (what analyses preeminent scholars have advanced about George Washington Cable and his literary canon); theoretical (how structural or post-structural theory influences an analysis of the word “Creole” and how it is being “manipulated” within the novel); historical (The Louisiana Purchase and U.S. territorialization within New Orleans); cultural (social practices—like the masquerade balls—of the Creole elite.)  

Papers should be formatted according to MLA: one-inch margins, 12-point font, Times New Roman, last name and page number in header at top right, parenthetical in-text citations, a Works Cited page, and Annotated Bibliography. 

Mapping Project and Presentation (20%) 

Note

A Literary Guide to New Orleans entry due: Monday 11/21 by 5pm EST 

Alternative Map and Mapping Project Presentation: Tuesday, 11/23 during our final exam period, 8:30-11am (or alternate day/time arranged in advance by class vote)  

There are two mapping components to this assignment. The first will be an entry into our course’s A Literary Guide to New Orleans site.* This entry should be approximately 4 pages in length and will blend the analysis in your research paper alongside an analysis of your text’s locational significance within New Orleans.  We will be using Google Maps, or some other type of GPS-dependent program to affix your entry to a particular point on a digitized map of NOLA. This location can be a particular site (the Lalaurie House), a street (one of the streets on the Mardi Gras route), a neighborhood (The French Quarter), etc. Ideally, your coverage of the text’s locational significance will contextualize the specific history embedded at the site, as well as its contemporary use and/or relevance. Of particular importance is to ensure that your textual analysis and research work cooperatively with the site location analysis. In other words, your textual analysis and research should inform the way you read and understand it as a site during your text’s time period and within contemporary New Orleans.  
*Information on host site and uploading instructions TBA 

The second mapping entry will use Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker’s Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas as a model for an alternative map—in both form and concept—of your literary site. Use the following excerpt from their introduction as guidance for formal concerns:  

Most people don’t use paper maps anymore. Instead, they use digital data devices—their smartphones, GPS devices that issue voice commands, or various versions of MapQuest and Google maps that generate specific directions. The problem with these technologies is that though they generally help get you where you’re going, that’s all they do. With a paper map, you take charge; with these other means, you take orders and don’t learn your way around, any more than you learn math by using a calculator. A map shows countless routes; a computer-generated itinerary shows one. Using the navigational aids, you remain dependent, and your trajectory requires obedience to the technology—some GPS devices literally dictate voice commands you are meant to obey. When you navigate with a paper map, tracing your own route rather than having it issued as a line, a list, or a set of commands, you incrementally learn the lay of the land. The map becomes obsolete as you become oriented. The map is then no longer on paper in front of you but inside you; many maps are, as you contain knowledge of many kinds of history and community in one place. You no longer need help navigating but can offer it. You become a map, and atlas, a guide, a person who has absorbed maps, or who needs no map intermediaries because you know the place and the many ways to here from there.

(4-5, emphasis added) 

Using your knowledge of this site as the grounding for your design, create a map that conceptualizes and represents the simultaneity of history, community, culture, systems of territorializing power, etc. embedded in this location. Your medium, materials, scale, and means of representation are part of the process of encoding and revealing the place. 

During our scheduled final exam time, you will present both of these maps. (Everyone in class will have your mapping entry for A Literary Guide to New Orleans in advance of your presentation.) This presentation should be approximately 10 minutes and needs to detail the anchoring locational foundation for each map individually. After you establish a point of comparison in terms of content and approach, your presentation should emphasize the interplay of meaning established between these site maps.  

Assignment Guidelines and Submission Procedures

Assignment Extensions and Late Assignments

The assignment deadlines are structured in a way to keep you advancing forward in this course and to ensure that the work is spread out and balanced. Each deadline is a hard deadline, meaning that is when the assignment should be completed. I am happy to give extensions with no grade penalty (up to one week after the allotted deadline) for any assignment except the Analytical Presentation and the Respondent Participation and Feedback. Please email me in advance of the deadline if you will be requesting an extension. In that email, we will arrange for and finalize a new deadline. I will accept late assignment submissions only if an extension was requested. If you are unable to complete the assignment in accordance with the new deadline, I will accept a late submission up to two weeks after the original deadline, with a full letter grade reduction.  

Assignment Submissions 

All written assignments should follow MLA guidelines: one-inch margins, 12-point font, Times New Roman, last name and page number in header at top right, parenthetical in-text citations, and a Works Cited page. Please consult a writing handbook, or ask me, if you are unsure about proper formatting. Submit assignments as a Word or PDF document to our course Moodle site. (I have spent the entirety of my teaching career doing everything possible to avoid using Moodle, but I can avoid it no longer. Ours will be a sparsely designed and used site, existing mostly as an assignment submission repository.) 

The Honor System and Academic Honesty 

This course operates under the College Honor System. Academic honesty is a critical part of our value system at K. When you borrow an idea or phrasing from another author, website, etc., whether intentional or unintentional, without attributing credit to that person or source is considered plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, and it will be treated as such. All cases of plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students for further investigation and disciplinary action will be taken accordingly. Course penalty will be determined on a case-by-case basis according to the level and severity of the plagiarism: 1) “Accidental” plagiarism stemming from improper in-text citation: resubmission with grade reduction 2) All other forms of plagiarism will result in a failing score on the paper assignment AND an automatic failing grade in the course.  

Learning and Course Expectations

Learning During a Pandemic

As evidenced by my course syllabus subtitle, “Pandemic Syllabus 1.0: Nothing is Normal or Okay Yet, and I Can’t Pretend It Is,” I am particularly attuned to the fact that we are attempting to learn under exceedingly challenging circumstances. Unpredictability is exhausting. Social re-integration can be and feel vexed for some. Many of us are grieving across a wide spectrum of experiences and, through it all, we have been struggling to produce meaningful work for almost two years. In consideration of these conditions, I have altered the design of this course in several ways: 1) scaling back on the amount and page lengths of the writing assignments, 2) implementing a Discussion Leader/Presentation Respondent role that will allow students to prioritize certain course readings, and 3) implementing more lenient policies for assignment extensions, late assignments, missing assignments, and attendance. Please contact me if you find yourself struggling to attend class and/or complete assignments so that we can be proactive in our approach to your overall learning and ensure you are able to pass this course.  

Classroom Community

I approach the classroom as a space of collaboration. We come together to share experiences, insights, opinions, and analyses, while we strive to learn more about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In our time together, we will engage critically with material that depicts violence, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism, along with other topics that may provoke intense emotional responses. We will engage in conversations about social inequity and the legacies of historical trauma, some of which will be intensely personal to some students in the class and unsettling or uncomfortable for others. Discomfort can take many forms and, in many cases, is a productive site for learning and personal growth. It is important to hold space for such discomfort and confront it when possible. As the instructor of this course, I will always strive to facilitate our conversations in ways that acknowledges disparate experiences and positionalities, while being attentive to historical structures and social conditions that have, and continue to make, certain spaces less safe for some people. We must all work toward the creation of a collaborative learning community, so please come to our discussions with generosity, care, and vigilance, with the intent to value the insights, circumstances, experiences, and needs of your classmates. While a “safe space” is the ideal, what we hope to achieve is a “brave space,” wherein we are as deeply invested in the learning of others as we are our own, and we expect dedication and accountability from ourselves and others. Likewise, please be fully present during our discussions, which includes using laptops only to access our course readings and not using your phone in class. If you have a personal issue that will necessitate monitoring your phone, please keep it on vibrate and leave the classroom to communicate as needed.  

Learning and Engagement Practices

Learning and achievement in academia have, historically, been gauged and assessed through grades. While grades can be one indicator of academic success, it is by no means the only, or even the primary gauge. Very frequently, the most valuable things we learn from a course are intangible, or even exist outside the reading material or assignments. If receiving an A in this course is something you desire, I have structured the course to make that a possibility for every student (i.e., offering revision opportunities, lower-stakes writing assignments, and a variety of course engagement approaches that aren’t reliant on writing excellence or mastery). However, aside from grades and assignments, I also urge you to set defined learning goals for this course (and in each course you take, actually) as well as a way to assess your progress in meeting these goals. Goals should be particular to your continued growth as a writer and a learner but can also be about your personal or social growth. They can run the gamut from writing goals (e.g., “learn to write strong thesis statements”), to time management and organization (e.g., “I will start writing paper drafts three days earlier than the deadline so I can attend office hours for feedback and guidance”), to personal development (e.g., “I want to be more comfortable sharing my ideas in class” or “I will befriend someone I don’t know”). Keep one, or even a couple of goals, each quarter, set guidelines and expectations about what meeting these goals means, and implement a system for assessing and meeting those goals at the end of each term. 

Attendance

In light of our ongoing struggles with COVID-19 variants, I have elected not to implement a punitive attendance policy, as per the college’s recommendation that students (and faculty) not attend class if they have tested positive, been exposed, or feel any associated symptoms. If you feel sick, 1) please do not come to class, 2) go to Student Health for a Covid test, and 3) upon testing positive, contact me immediately about how best to keep up with discussion and assignments. While there is no punitive attendance policy, being in class regularly will aid in your overall success in this course; if you find yourself in a position where you have missed more than 6 classes, please contact me about how to proceed. Note: While the College has shifted to a mask-optional policy, I will require everyone be masked, with complete nose and mouth coverage at all times, during class and in my office. This policy reflects my belief that masking is an act of solidarity: a concrete effort we can and should undertake to protect the immunocompromised and other vulnerable communities at K and beyond. We all must do our utmost to ensure those around us are safe and well. Anyone not in compliance with this policy will be asked to leave the classroom.  

Participation 

I appreciate lively conversations, where everyone contributes and talks to each other. I love excited investment in the materials we’re discussing. At the same time, I would like to acknowledge that there are numerous ways to participate that do not involve speaking in class regularly: active listening, eye-contact, note-taking, following along in your book, etc., are all participatory modes of engagement. Asking questions and volunteering to read a passage aloud are contributions to our discussion, with as much value as answering a question or offering an analysis. Above all else, our objective is to learn together. When I ask a question, I am not looking for, or expecting, a particular answer. I want to know what you think and how you’re processing our class material. You can and should move through our conversations as you would if you were talking in everyday life: it’s okay to backtrack to a previous topic we discussed 15 minutes earlier; it’s fine to say, “I don’t know how to answer that question, but my initial instinct is to think about it in this way”; you can change your mind or contradict an earlier statement you made after further consideration; you can simply elect to stop talking if you lose control over your thought or what you started to say. Conversations can, and should be and feel, fluid. 

Student Resources

COVID-19

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the College’s COVID-19 policies and protocols. For information about symptom screening, testing, and isolation or quarantine, visit the Student Health Center site for guidance. Call 269-337-7200 if you need to schedule a COVID-19 test.  

Counseling Services

The counseling center is located in Hicks Hall (campus map #12). If you enter from the center quad of campus, go through the front door and to the right. Go up one set of stairs and turn right past the game room and health center. We are on the left side of the hallway. The waiting room is to your right. To make an appointment: Please visit the counseling center in Hicks to complete intake forms on one of the iPads in the lobby. When you have completed the intake forms, a counselor will receive your intake information electronically and contact you by email within 48 hours to arrange and initial appointment. Emergencies: A counselor is available 24/7. If you are in crisis, the counseling center has a walk-in crisis hour M-F at 2 P.M. Please ring the bell on the credenza near the front door of the center and a counselor will come to greet you. If you experiencing a crisis at any other time during business hours, please go to the health center next door and let the front office staff know that you need to speak to a counselor right away. They will contact a counselor. If you are experiencing a crisis outside of office hours, please call campus safety at 269.337.7321 or contact your Resident Assistant and let them know that you need to speak to the on-call counselor. Confidentiality: The fact that you are seeing us and the content of our session is confidential information. We do not give this information out—even to faculty members, parents, or RAs—unless you give us your consent. Typically, that consent involves filling out a short written form that indicates with whom we may communicate and about what. There is an exception to this policy of strict confidentiality. It involves those situations where we believe that you are unable to continue functioning, are a threat to yourself or the safety of others, or inform of us others in potential danger (e.g., current abuse of children or vulnerable adults). In those cases, we are ethically and legally bound as psychologists and counselors to inform persons who can help reduce the risks of harm. Most often, those people are family members and/or the residence hall staff. The Dean of Students is also informed of these very serious situations. Sometimes our student interns will tape-record sessions for their learning process. This is always done with permission from the client first. All session tapes are kept in a confidential file in the Counseling Center which is only available to the Counseling Center staff. These recordings are destroyed at the end of each academic year. More information can be found on the Counseling Center website.  

Writing Center

If you want individual guidance on your assignments, please visit the college’s Writing Center. Writing Center Mission: We, the staff of the Kalamazoo College Writing Center, strive to assist the students of this college to create stronger pieces of writing. We will work to accomplish this by helping students hone the skills that they already possess as writers and editors, providing them with strategies and constructive feedback so that they may seek further accomplishment in the craft of writing. We will help students with any kind of writing and any writing-related skills. About the Writing Center:The Writing Center is staffed by Kalamazoo College students who are selected through a competitive interview process and trained to assist their peers with all types of writing and all stages in the writing process. Writing Consultants work with students in individual thirty or sixty minute appointments or on a walk-in basis. The Writing Center is located in the Upjohn Library Commons, Room 110. Making an Appointment: To make an appointment with a Writing Consultant, visit the Writing Center’s online scheduler. Here you can view available appointment times, view consultant bios, and register for a consultation. You can also just walk in during our open hours. Please note, Writing Consultants are also available for classroom visits and in- 
class workshops. For more information, contact Writing Center Director Bela Agosa by email 
at Isabela.Agosa@kzoo.edu.  

Bias Reporting

The College’s working definition of bias for the Bias Data Gathering System (BDGS) is a preconceived negative preference, inclination, or attitude about groups of people, often based on physical, cultural, religious, or social identities. The term ‘bias related’ refers to language and/or behaviors that demonstrate bias against persons because of, but not limited to, their actual or perceived identities. Examples may include defacement of posters or signs, intimidating comments or messages, vandalism to personal or university property, or similar acts, if there is evidence that the target or victim was chosen because of a characteristic such as those listed above. To find out more about BDGS or to report an incident of bias, visit the BDGS website. Additionally, the college has several channels through which you can report an incident of bias or receive support. Incidents involving students may be reported to the Office of Student Development: Office hours are 8am –5pm Monday through Friday, with the exception of the lunch hour from 12:00–1:00 pm (Hicks 119). The Office of Student Development can be reached at 269.337.7210 or at studev@kzoo.edu. Incidents involving faculty or athletic staff may be reported to the Provost’s Office: Office hours are 8am –5pm Monday through Friday (Mandelle Hall 203). The Office of the Provost can be reached at 269.337.7158. Incidents involving support and administrative staff behavior may be reported to Renee Boelcke in Human Resources (Mandelle 112) by email renee.boelcke@kzoo.edu or phone 269.337.7248. 

Title IX Office 

If you need to report any incidents involving sexual assault or harassment, you can fill out this form to start an investigation (reports can be submitted anonymously). If you would rather speak to someone confidentially about an incident of sexual assault or harassment, please set up an appointment with the Counseling Center or the college chaplain, Liz Candido (Elizabeth.Candido@kzoo.edu). Please be aware that faculty are mandated reporters and cannot maintain your confidentiality.  

Resources for Students with Disabilities 

In the spirit of our strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, here at Kalamazoo College we are committed to making education accessible to all students. We strive to increase access and opportunities for students with disabilities, and promote self-advocacy and growth. Dana Jansma, the Senior Associate Dean of Students, collaborates with students with disabilities on an individualized basis to create reasonable accommodations that support and promote success. In compliance with section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as Amended, and with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Kalamazoo College recognizes that qualified students who have diagnosed or identified learning, physical, or emotional disabilities are entitled to the same benefits from the educational programs of the college as non-disabled students. Kalamazoo College is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified students with disabilities, unless that accommodation imposes undue hardship or burden or would not alleviate a direct threat to the student or others. The Senior Associate Dean of Students and the student will work together to negotiate and ensure appropriate accommodations that will work for the student. Cost associated with diagnosis, evaluation, and testing is the responsibility of the student, except in cases of severe financial need demonstrated to, and upon recommendation of, the Senior Associate Dean of Students. The office also makes assistance available to students experiencing short-term illness or physical injury. To request an accommodation, fill out this form. For more information about available resources, visit their website

Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) Curriculum

In January, Kalamazoo College received a three-year Mellon grant. (For information about the grant, see https://www.kzoo.edu/news/humanities-grant/.) Entitled Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL), this initiative examines how many problems of our time can be analyzed through the lens of location and dislocation. To develop a deeper knowledge of these disruptions (physical, psychological, social, linguistic, and more) with the aim of generating the potential for change, HILL supports the formation of class clusters linked to specific places within and beyond Kalamazoo. Our course contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans, comprised of the following courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), ANSO426 Lest we Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora (Dr. Espelencia Baptiste), SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell).  While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.) 

New Orleans Cluster Experiential Social Justice Research Seminar 

After the conclusion of the quarter, cluster faculty and selected students will extend the classroom to New Orleans for a 7-day, fully-funded* study away experience (includes airfare, housing, and meals). During this partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022), 4-5 students from each cluster course will undertake individual and collaborative research within and across the disciplinary knowledges acquired in their respective courses in order to produce a supradisciplinary research project.  The trip will prioritize place-based learning, humanities-based inquiry, and social justice problem-solving via relevant site visits, partnerships with local community organizations, and student-led discussion and reflection. At the end of the trip, students will publish their research on a digital humanities website. 

Cluster Seminar Application 

Interested students will need to submit an application and a research proposal to the HILL site (https://hill.kzoo.edu/) by October 3rd (4th week Monday) at 5pm ET. In it, students will be asked to address the following questions: 

1000-word proposal that addresses the following questions:  

  1. What is your research area of interest? Please highlight subject matters, themes, texts, etc. from your cluster course for support.  
  1. How does New Orleans’s “placeness” (history, geography/landscape, culture, etc.) pertain to your research interest? How do you see the theme of “location and dislocation” at work?  
  1. How does your research interest connect to relevant social justice concerns?  
  1. Review the websites of our confirmed community partners: The Whitney Plantation; People for Public Art; Junebug Productions; and Lower Nine.  How do you see your research interest aligning with at least two of these organizations? What appeals to you about these organizations and their work in the community? 

Optional research and past experience questions:  

  1. Review the Historic New Orleans Collection’s exhibitions, special collections, and digital archives. Are there particular materials that relate to your research interest? If so, please explain their relevance.  
  1. Have you had any experiences that may have prepared you for this experiential research seminar? Please detail any past research (individual or collaborative), service-learning courses, and/or experiential learning engagement you identify as relevant.  

*Please note: Previous research experience and/or experiential learning engagement are NOT required and will not positively or negatively impact your selection.  

Confirmed Community Partners

Whitney Plantation Museum  

People for Public Art  

Junebug Productions 

Lower Nine  

Historic New Orleans Collection  

Applications will be reviewed by cluster faculty in conjunction with the Center for International Programs (CIP). Participants will be chosen based on potential collaborative research intersections across cluster courses and the importance of New Orleans as a site. Those selected for the experiential research seminar in New Orleans will be notified no later than October 7th (4th week Friday). 

Selection for the New Orleans Cluster Seminar will require the following mandatory commitments:  

  • Additional preparatory work throughout the term to prepare you for site engagements in New Orleans. You will be provided with a seminar syllabus after cohort selection is finalized.  
  • Weekly meetings with your research group (held weeks 5-10 on Mondays during common time) 
  • Attend information sessions with community partners (TBA) 
  • Meetings with the HILL Digital Humanities Coordinator, Bruce Mills 
  • Submission of pre-departure materials, due 7th week Thursday. 
  • Attend an orientation meeting, 10th week Wednesday (4:15pm DE 305) 
  • Write and submit a group project research proposal  
  • Individual or group seminar experiential reflection blog, video, interview due (TBA) 
  • Research project, due first week Monday in Winter quarter, with revision and approval in consultation with cluster faculty and DH Coordinator finalized 2nd week Friday.  

Student Summer Research Stipend 

A $4,500 summer research stipend for June-August 2023 is open to all students, with priority given to students who want to return to New Orleans after the cluster trip or students who participated in one of the four New Orleans cluster courses in 2022. More information is available on the HILL website.

Reading and Assignment Schedule 

The following is a tentative schedule and is subject to change 

Empire and the Creation of New Orleans

Week 1

Tues, 9/13

Course overview 

Thurs, 9/15

“New Orleans, Louisiana,” Street Food USA 

Chronology from Joseph Campanella, Bienville’s Dilemma (skim for patterns) 

*Fri, 9/16

Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 1-2) 

Week 2

Tues, 9/20

Sarah Broom, The Yellow House (excerpts) 

J. Mark Souther, “The Disneyfication of New Orleans: The French Quarter as Façade in a Divided City” 

Thurs, 9/22

Lafcadio Hearn, Inventing New Orleans (excerpts)

*Fri, 9/23

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 3-4) 

Drawing Racial Lines and Consolidating Whiteness

Week 3

Week 3 Items Due

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 9/30 

Tues, 9/27

George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes (Ch. I-XV) 

Andy Doolen, Territories of Empire (Intro and Ch. 1) 

Thurs, 9/29

The Grandissimes (Ch. XVI-XXX)

Americans” (Ch. 4, Creole New Orleans

*Fri, 9/30

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 5-6) 

Week 4

Week 4 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 10/6 due Wednesday, 10/5 by 9pm EST

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 10/7

Tues, 10/4

The Grandissimes (Ch. XXXI-XLV) 

Virginia R. Dominguez, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana 

Thurs, 10/6

The Grandissimes (Ch. XLVI-End)

Fri, 10/7

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 7-8) 

The Haunting Fear of Black Spiritual Practices

Week 5

Week 5 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 10/11 due Monday, 10/9 by 9pm EST

Analytical Presentation for 10/13 due Wednesday, 10/12 by 9pm EST 

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 10/14

DUE: In-Progress Annotated Bibliography on Sunday, 10/17 by 11:59pm EST 

Tues, 10/11

Robert Tallant, Voodoo in New Orleans

Zora Neale Hurston, Of Mules and Men (excerpts) 

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans (pp. 1-61) 

Thurs, 10/13

George Washington Cable, “The Haunted House on Royal Street”  

“Bitchcraft,” American Horror Story: Coven 

Barbara Rosendale Duggal, “Marie Laveau: The Voodoo Queen Repossessed” (Ch. 7 in Sybil Kein’s Creole)

Tiya Miles, “Madame LaLaurie: French Quarter Fiend,” Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era 

*Fri, 10/14

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

The Codification of Creole Racialized Gender and Sexuality and Regulation of Race, Sex, and Desire

Week 6

Week 6 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for this 10/18 due Wednesday, 10/17 by 9pm EST 

Analytical Presentation for 10/20 due Wednesday, 10/19 by 9pm EST

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 10/21

Tues, 10/18

Angel Heart 

Ina J. Fandrich, “Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo”  

Thurs, 10/20

Alice Dunbar-Nelson, The Goodness of St. Rocque

James Nagel, “Alice Dunbar-Nelson and the New Orleans Story Cycle” 

Kenneth Aslakson, “The ‘Quadroon-Plaçage” Myth of Antebellum New Orleans: Anglo-American (Mis)Interpretations of a French-Caribbean Phenomenon”  

*Fri, 10/21

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 11-12) 

Week 7

Week 7 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 10/27 due Wednesday, 10/26 by 9pm EST 

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 10/28

Tues, 10/25

Emily Epstein Landau, Spectacular Wickedness: Sex, Race, and Memory in Storyville, New Orleans (Intro and Ch. 1) 

Guidebooks to Sin: The Bluebooks of Storyville, New Orleans (excerpts) 

Thurs, 10/27 

Natasha Trethewey, Bellocq’s Ophelia  

Alecia P. Long, The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865-1920 (Intro and Ch. 1) 

*Fri, 10/28

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans

The Public Politics of Race and Sex

Week 8

Week 8 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 11/1 due Monday, 10/31 by 9pm EST 

DUE: Respondent Feedback on Analytical Presentation by 11:59pm EST on 11/4 

DUE: Critical Dialogue on Saturday, 11/5 by 11:59pm EST 

TBA: Mapping Project Strategy Session (Wednesday, common time?) 

Tues, 11/1

Pretty Baby 

Mollie LeVeque, “The ‘White Slave’ and the Question of Ambiguity,” Images of Sex Work in Early Twentieth-Century America 

Thurs, 11/3

Mardi Gras documentary 

James Gill, Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans (Ch. 2) 

*Fri, 11/4

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

Week 9

Week 10 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 11/8 due Monday, 11/7 by 9pm EST 

Analytical Presentation for 11/10 due Wednesday, 11/9 by 9pm EST 

Tues, 11/8

We Won’t Bow Down 

Cynthia Becker, “New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians: Mediating Racial Politics from the Backstreets to Main Street” 

Ana Paulina Lee, “Memoryscapes of Race: Black Parading Cultures of New Orleans

Thurs, 11/10

“You Can’t Stop Spirit” 

Kim Marie Vaz, The ‘Baby Dolls’: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition (Intro, Ch. 1 and Ch. 2) 

Kim Vaz-Deville, Walking Raddy (excerpts) 

*Fri, 11/11

Solnit and Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (Maps 17-end)

Week 10

Week 10 Items Due

Analytical Presentation for 11/15 due Monday, 11/14 by 9pm EST 

Analytical Presentation for this 11/17 due Wednesday, 11/16 by 9pm EST 

Tues, 11/15  

Trouble the Water  

Lynell Thomas, Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory (Ch. 5) 


Thurs, 11/17

Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler

Nicole Fleetwood, “Failing Narratives, Initiating Technologies: Hurricane Katrina and the Production of a Weather Media Event” 

Finals Week

Mon, 11/21

A Literary Guide to New Orleans entry, 5pm EST

Tues, 11/22

Mapping Presentations, 8:30am-11:00am

Wed, 11/23

Research Paper and Annotated Bibliography, noon EST

Lest We Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora of New Orleans Syllabus

ANSO/AFST 426 Lest we Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora of New Orleans

Taught by: Dr. Baptiste
Location: ULC 301
Email: baptiste@kzoo.edu
Phone Number: 269.337.7242

Office Hours
Mondays – 1:00-3:00
Wednesdays – 9:30-11:00
And by appointment

Lest We Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora

What is memory? What is identity? And how do we understand the relationship between these two concepts, particularly for communities once defined as commodities? Research suggests the significance of origins in the formation of individual and collective identity. However, for the African Diaspora, heritage, roots, and associated memory are traversed by trauma and displacement engendered by slavery, the middle passage, and contemporary structural oppressions. This course explores the different labors that slavery and the memory of slavery perform in the development of New Orleans as a city and the relationship between its composite populations.

This course participates in the Mellon-funded Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) curriculum and contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans with three other courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), and SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell). While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.). Students registered for the New Orleans cluster courses are eligible to apply for a partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022).  More details on the seminar and application process are included on page 9 of the syllabus.

Required Books

Hannah-Jones, Nikole, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. First edition. New York: One World, 2021.

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, and Hazel V. Carby. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 2015

Johnson Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Cambridge: Harvard University Press., 1999

Articles and book chapters are available on the course Moodle page

Grade Breakdown

ElementPercentage
Attendance and Participation5%
Reading Notes10%
Memory and Identity essay15%
Annotated Bibliography15%
Class presentation15%
Final presentation10%
Final paper20%

Course Policies

Accommodations

If you have a disability and qualify for accommodation or other assistance in this course, please contact me as soon as possible. Kalamazoo College is committed to making every effort to provide reasonable accommodations. If you want to discuss your overall needs for accommodation at the college, please direct questions to the Associate Dean of Students Office at 269.337.7209. Additional information regarding accommodations can be found on the Resources for Students with Disabilities website.

Attendance and Class Participation

If you have any concerns or issues that may interfere with attendance—for example, if you are a student-athlete or have an upcoming religious observance—please let me know at the beginning of the course. 

This class is, first and foremost, an intellectual community. As a member of any community, you must be present, actively participate, and contribute towards the overall course goals. I expect you to:

  • Be on time and ready to go at the beginning of class;
  • Come to class with hard copies of your reading, reading notes, and questions;
  • Contribute meaningfully to the class discussion. 
  • Participation also means attentively listening to your colleagues. It is ok to disagree with your colleagues, but you must allow others the space to express their opinions. Like any other community, I expect you to respect and support one another.

 You may miss two classes without penalty or excuse. Please plan accordingly. Missing five or more classes will result in an automatic failing grade for the class.

Although attendance is essential to your learning, we must be mindful of the well-being of others; if you have tested positive or have been exposed to COVID-19, please follow the College’s COVID-19 guidelines. Health-related absences will, of course, be excused.

College Honor System and Academic Honesty

This course operates under the College’s Honor System. That means:  we treat each other with respect, we nurture independent thought, we take responsibility for personal behavior, and we accept environmental responsibility. Additionally, academic honesty is a critical part of our value system at K.  When you borrow an idea, express it in your own words, thus thinking it through and making it your own, you need to acknowledge the source of the idea with a citation. In certain situations, it is appropriate to use the exact words of the reading in quotation marks and provide the appropriate citation. Ideas raised in class are part of the public domain, and, therefore, you do not need to cite classroom discussions. If you are ever in doubt about this, ask! Visit the Student Development website for more information on the College’s Honor system.

Assignment Extensions and Late Assignments

The assignment deadlines are structured in a way to keep you advancing in this course and to ensure that the work is spread out and balanced. Each deadline is a hard deadline, meaning that is when the assignment should be completed. I am happy to give extensions with no grade penalty (up to one week after the allotted deadline) for any assignment. Please email me at least 24 hours before the deadline if you will be requesting an extension. In that email exchange, we will arrange for and finalize a new deadline. I will accept late assignment submissions only if an extension was requested. If you are unable to complete the assignment by the new deadline, I will accept a late submission up to two weeks after the original deadline, with a full letter grade reduction. 

Communication and Contact

I encourage you to come to office hours, whether you have a specific question, want to discuss something from class, or say hello. I hope to see you at least once throughout the semester, in addition to the mandatory meeting to discuss your paper topic. If my posted office hours do not work with your schedule, please email me, and we can work out an appointment. Email is good for emergencies or to schedule an appointment, but not very useful for substantive questions – for these, office hours work best. Please keep in mind that I am unlikely to read and respond to emails on nights and weekends.

Assignments

Reading Notes

The success of this class is heavily dependent on all of us coming to class having read and thought about the assigned readings. To that end, you will hand in reading notes for each day’s readings. Your posts are due by midnight on the day before we discuss the readings. Depending on the length of the quotes, each set of notes will probably be two pages, single-spaced. Any reading notes posted late (after class) will not be accepted. You can miss two sets of reading notes over the course of the quarter without penalty. Please make sure to let me know when you decide to take your free reading notes to make sure you are credited appropriately.

Reading notes should include the following sections:

  • MAIN POINTS. 2-3 quotes per article or chapter assigned that encapsulate the article or chapter’s main argument. You must type the quotes (no screenshots) and provide the page numbers. Note: If, for example, three (3) chapters or articles are assigned, you need 2-3 quotes per chapter.
  • MAKING SENSE OUT OF THE READINGS. 1-2 paragraph response to the day’s readings as a whole. These responses should not be in the form of an opinion of the reading–i.e., do not talk about whether or not you liked the reading or your estimation of the writing. Instead, reflect on new insights that emerged for you out of the reading. This paragraph should be a minimum of ½ page single-spaced, longer as the class progresses. Note: You do not need a separate response for each article or chapter assigned; instead, your reflections should be integrative.
  • QUESTIONS/ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION. For each set of readings, please include two (2) questions or issues you would like the class to discuss. (Do not construct yes/any questions!) These questions should be insightful and probing, as they may well form the basis of actual class discussions. Ideally, they will push us to use the readings to make sense of things going on in the world today.
  • The reading notes will be graded on a credit/no credit scale. I will use the following criteria to assess your reading notes:
    • Do your quotations reflect the authors’ main points?
    • Have you provided interesting, analytical reflections on those quotations and the readings?
    • Do you come up with clear and insightful questions/issues for discussion?

Class Presentations

Two times during the quarter, you will be responsible for leading class discussions. Your goal is to engage your peers in a critical discussion of the reading(s). Working with a partner, you will prepare your ideas and be able to talk for about 10-15 minutes with your partner in a manner that moves beyond summarizing. As you read the articles, consider what the author’s argument consists of (the problem statement or thesis.). What data does the author marshal to support this argument? Is it convincing? Why or why not? What key points or details seem particularly striking and why? What limitations, problems with the line of reasoning, or gaps might you see in the piece? Do the authors do what they set out to do? How do the articles relate to the ideas to previous discussions/readings? Are there things you do not understand and would like to discuss? Do the authors do what they set out to do? How do the articles relate to the ideas in discussions/readings? Are there things you do not understand and would like to discuss?

Create a handout (1 page) that summarizes your discussion’s main points. Make copies for each member of the class. Your presentation should include the following:

  • A general overview of each author’s goals and assumptions, keeping in mind their academic training, if possible.
  • The significance of each reading to our understanding of the African diaspora.
  • Relate your articles to other class readings– contextualize 
  • Two provocative, penetrating questions – That will jumpstart the class discussion
  • Do not quiz people on details of dates or names, but rather construct questions that will provoke discussion of the day’s topics.

Memory and Identity Essay

The central idea of this course is that people of African descent are defined by the memory of slavery while often deploying the memory of slavery to make social and political claims to their nations of settlement. For this essay, write a 3-4 page essay (double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt font, 1” margins) that explores how memory affects your own identity. How does memory draw the boundaries around your community? Please note, that memories need not be negative or oppressive. How do your memories relate to the national narratives? When do you enter the national narrative? How does the community with which you identify fit in your country’s narrative? Are there conflicts between your community’s narrative of itself and the national narrative? Does your identification with these overlapping narratives ever bring your identity’s two (or more) components into conflict or tension? In short, how does the history of your community and nation impact your sense of belonging?

New Orleans Research Project

The objective of the project is to develop an original interpretation of the relationship of memory to some aspects of African diasporic history and culture in New Orleans. Students can choose their projects, but projects must be designed with the assistance and approval of the professor. The research paper should be no less than 20 pages in length. I suggest you use this assignment to start thinking about the project you will be working on during the December experiential experience in New Orleans. I suggest reviewing the websites of our New Orleans community partners as a source of inspiration for ideas and topics for your papers.

Your paper will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Understanding of the concept, idea, or issue that you have chosen to investigate; and
  • Ability to draw upon, analyze and use the knowledge gained from the research in making an argument;
  • Clarity of writing (punctuation, grammar, sentence construction, spelling);
  • Formatting and style (use of standard in-text citation and referencing system).

Paper Proposal and Bibliography

To facilitate the task of the final project, you will complete two preliminary assignments geared toward developing the final research question and kick-starting the research process.

The first part of the preliminary assignment is a 2-page paper proposal. The proposal will describe the research topic and formulate the research question the paper intends to pursue. When writing the research proposal, imagine the audience as scholars interested in the subject but unfamiliar with it. The goal is to give a good overview of the topic and get the audience excited about the project. Please schedule a meeting to discuss your paper proposal as soon as possible.

Annotated Bibliography

The second part of the goal of the bibliography will help you start the research process and begin thinking critically about the different writings on your topic. You will prepare an annotated bibliography of no less than 10 peer-reviewed journal articles on the subject.

You may use class readings as part of your bibliography.

Final paper presentation

During 9th and 10th week, students present the results of their research to the class

Guidelines for Presenters and Discussants

Presenters

  • Please prepare a 5-minute statement on your paper.
  • Remember that your classmates have already read the paper so you do not need to go over the whole paper.

Discussants

  • Please read the paper carefully.
  • Comments can include, but need not be limited to constructive criticism about the research questions addressed, the theoretical foundations established, the analyses and results presented, and the implications derived as they relate to the readings encountered in class over the course of the quarter.
  • Importantly, the bulk of your time as a discussant should be spent stimulating audience interest in the subject and the paper. Whenever possible, I encourage you to assume the role of devil’s advocate by provoking discussion and engaging the rest of the class in the topic. Use the bulk of your time to highlight controversial issues that will stimulate a dialogue.
  • Discussants should be as well prepared as the presenters.
  • Discussants have 10-minute. Please try to keep your remarks limited to this amount of time so that we have ample class discussion.

Class

  • Your engagement with your colleagues’ papers constitutes part of your participation grade.
  • For each paper presented, students will prepare a short paragraph with comments, questions, and suggestions for the presenter.
  • Please EMAIL your comments paragraphs to both your classmate and myself before the beginning of class.  

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Slavery and the construction of New Orleans

Tuesday

Introductory Rituals

Thursday

Eltis, David. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment.” The William and Mary Quarterly 58.1 (2001)

Johnson, Jerah. “Colonial New Orleans: A Fragment of Eighteenth-Century French Ethos. In Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization, Arnold R. Hirsh and J. Logsdon ed. New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press. 1992

Week 2: Slavery in New Orleans

Tuesday

Johnson, Introduction, chapters 1-2

Thursday

Johnson chapters 4-5

Week 3: Slavery, Continued (Assignment Due)

Week 3 Items Due

Paper Proposal due Friday of Week 3 by 5 p.m.

Please schedule a meeting to discuss your paper topic with me before turning your paper proposal in.

Tuesday

Johnson, chapters 6-Epilogue

Thursday

Film Sankofa

Week 4: Diasporas and the Creation of Creole Culture

Tuesday

Cohen, Robin. “Four Phases of Diaspora Studies” (pgs. 1-19). Global diasporas: An introduction. Routledge, 2008.

Clifford, James. “Diasporas.” Cultural anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 302-338.

William Safran. “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. 1, no.1(1991) pp. 83-99

Thursday

Campanella, Richard. “An ethnic geography of New Orleans.” In The Journal of American History, Vol.94 no.3

Mildo Hall, Gwendolyn, “The formation of Afro-Creole Culture.”In Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization, Arnold R. Hirsh and J. Logsdon ed. New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press.1992

Tregle, Joseph G. “Creoles and Americans.” Johnson, Jerah. “Colonial New Orleans: A Fragment of Eighteenth-Century French Ethos. In Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization, Arnold R. Hirsh and J. Logsdon ed. New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press. 1992

Week 5: How do societies remember? (Assignment Due)

Week 5 Important Note

Annotated bibliography due Friday of Week 5 by 5 p.m.

 Tuesday

Klein, Kerwin Lee. “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse.” Representations, no. 69 (2000): 127–50.

Ricoeur, Paul, “Forgetting,” Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago, 2004), 412-456.

Thursday

Assmann, Jan, and John Czaplicka. “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity.” New German Critique, no. 65 (1995): 125–33.

Connerton, Paul. 1989. “Social Memory. In: How Societies Remember”. Pp. 6-40. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Olick, J. 1999. “Collective memory: The Two Cultures.” Sociological Theory 17(3):333-348

Week 6: Memory and the Production of History

Tuesday

Trouillot, Ch 1 -3

Thursday

Trouillot, Ch. 4-5, Epilogue

Week 7: A New Origin story and the contributions of the diaspora (Assignment Due)

Week 7 Important Note

Memory and Identity essay due Wednesday of week 7 by 5 p.m.

Tuesday

1619- Ch. 1-3

Thursday

1619, Ch., 4 -6

Week 8 (Assignment Due)

Week 8 Important Note

Draft of final paper due Friday of week 8 by 5 p.m.

Tuesday

1619, Ch. 8, 12, 14

Thursday

1619, Ch. 16, 17

Week 9 and 10 – Presentations and Final Papers (Assignment Due)

Week 10 Important Note

Final Papers Due Sunday of Week 10 by 5 p.m.

Presentations

FINAL PAPERS DUE SUNDAY OF WEEK 10 BY 5 PM

In January, Kalamazoo College received a three-year Mellon grant. Entitled Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL), this initiative examines how many problems of our time can be analyzed through the lens of location and dislocation. To develop a deeper knowledge of these disruptions (physical, psychological, social, linguistic, and more) with the aim of generating the potential for change, HILL supports the formation of class clusters linked to specific places within and beyond Kalamazoo. Our course contributes to a “Beyond Kalamazoo” Cluster focused on New Orleans, comprised of the following courses: ARTX225 Public Art and Its Publics (Dr. Christine Hahn), ENGL490: NOLA Divided: Race in the Big Easy (Dr. Shanna Salinas), ANSO426 Lest we Forget: Memory and Identity in the African Diaspora (Dr. Espelencia Baptiste), SEMN295/MUSC295 The World Through New Orleans (Dr. Beau Bothwell).  While these courses will function independently, they are united by their engagement with New Orleans as a historical and contemporary site, as well as the way they draw from humanistic inquiry to construct justice-based notions of land, place, and belonging in response to humanistic concerns and social inequities (i.e., systemic racism, body and border policing, economic inequity, global warming, etc.)

After the conclusion of the quarter, cluster faculty and selected students will extend the classroom to New Orleans for a 7-day, fully-funded* study away experience (includes airfare, housing, and meals). During this partial-unit experiential social justice research seminar in New Orleans (November 26th – December 2nd, 2022), 4-5 students from each cluster course will undertake individual and collaborative research within and across the disciplinary knowledges acquired in their respective courses in order to produce a supradisciplinary research project.  The trip will prioritize place-based learning, humanities-based inquiry, and social justice problem-solving via relevant site visits, partnerships with local community organizations, and student-led discussion and reflection. At the end of the trip, students will publish their research on a digital humanities website.

Application process:

Interested students will need to submit an application and a research proposal to the HILL website by October 3rd (4th week Monday) at 5 p.m. ET. In it, students will be asked to address the following questions:

1000-word proposal that addresses the following questions: 

  1. What is your research area of interest? Please highlight subject matters, themes, texts, etc.  from your cluster course for support. 
  2. How does New Orleans’s  “placeness” (history, geography/landscape, culture, etc.) pertain to your research interest? How do you see the theme of “location and dislocation” at work? 
  3. How does your research interest connect to relevant social justice concerns? 
  4. Review the websites of our confirmed community partners: The Whitney Plantation; People for Public Art; Junebug Productions; and Lower Nine.  How do you see your research interest aligning with at least two of these organizations? What appeals to you about these organizations and their work in the community?

Optional research and past experience questions: 

  1. Review the Historic New Orleans Collection’s exhibitions, special collections, and digital archives. Are there particular materials that relate to your research interest? If so, please explain their relevance. 
  2. Have you had any experiences that may have prepared you for this experiential research seminar? Please detail any past research (individual or collaborative), service-learning courses, and/or experiential learning engagement you identify as relevant. 

*Please note: Previous research experience and/or experiential learning engagement are NOT required and will not positively or negatively impact your selection. 

Community Partners

Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) 

Applications will be reviewed by cluster faculty in conjunction with the Center for International Programs. Participants will be chosen based on potential collaborative research intersections across cluster courses and the importance of New Orleans as a site. Those selected for the experiential research seminar in New Orleans will be notified no later than October 7th  (4th week Friday).

Selection for the New Orleans Cluster Seminar will require the following mandatory commitments: 

  • Additional  preparatory work throughout the term to prepare you for site engagements in New Orleans. You will be provided with a seminar syllabus after cohort selection is finalized. 
  • Weekly meetings with your research group (held weeks 5-10 on Mondays during common time, Hicks Banquet Hall West)
  • Attend information sessions with community partners (TBA)
  • Meetings with the HILL Digital Humanities Coordinator, Bruce Mills
  • Submission of pre-departure materials, due 7th week Thursday.
  • Attend an orientation meeting, 10th week Wednesday (4:15pm DE 305)
  • Write and submit a group project research proposal 
  • Individual or group seminar experiential reflection blog, video, interview due [TBA]
  • Research project, due first week Monday in Winter quarter, with revision and approval in consultation with cluster faculty and DH Coordinator finalized 2nd week Friday. 

Additionally, a $4,500 summer research stipend for June-August 2023 is open to all students, with priority given to students who want to return to New Orleans after the cluster trip or students who participated in one of the four New Orleans cluster courses in 2022. Visit the Undergraduate Summer Research Support page for more information.

Community Partners (confirmed)

Community Partners (in-process)

Cluster Experiential Research Seminar Application

1000-word proposal that addresses the following questions: 

  1. What is your research area of interest? Please highlight subject matters, themes, texts, etc.  from your cluster course for support. 
  2. How does New Orleans’s  “placeness” (history, geography/landscape, culture, etc.) pertain to your research interests? How do you see the theme of “location and dislocation” at work? 
  3. How does your research interest connect to relevant social justice concerns? 
  4. Review the websites of our community partners: The Whitney Plantation; People for Public Art; Junebug Productions; Lower Nine.  What interests you about these organizations and their work in the community? In what ways do you see your research interest aligning with at least two of these organizations? 
  5. What is your personal investment in this experiential social justice research seminar?