LLC 10th Anniversary Colloquium Series 2007-2008
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery , UMBC.
Click here for the full Schedule.
Fall 2007
Date: September 17, 2007
Topic: Building Interdisciplinary Bridges
Speakers: Dr. Jodi Crandall (LLC, Education), Dr. Pat McDermott (American Studies), and Dr. Fred Pincus (Sociology and Anthropology).
Discussant: Dr. John Jeffries, Dean of CAHSS
Synopsis: This colloquium, held as a roundtable on interdisciplinarity. Dr. Crandall began by discussing the history and development of the LLC Program. With the unique interdisciplinary partnership of 7 departments, the LLC Program brings together students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and research interests to form close learning communities. In her own research, Dr. Crandall has worked on issues related to immigrant and refugee education, all of which draw on the fields of linguistics, education, and cultural studies. Dr. McDermott, who discussed the challenges inherent in interdisciplinary scholarship, also has had an interdisciplinary career working in the fields of American Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and the LLC Program. Dr. Pincus commented on how he approaches interdisciplinarity from a practical viewpoint in that questions that he investigates require going beyond the bounds of a single discipline, from sociology to social psychology, psychology, and beyond. Finally, Dr. Jeffries also discussed his longstanding interest in history and political science, from graduate school throughout his time at UMBC. Dr. Jeffries closed with remarks about LLC being a signature doctoral program as well as the new Dresher Center for the Humanities now at UMBC.
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Spring 2007
Date: May 10, 2007
Topic: A Student-Centered Session: LLC Students & Candidates Discuss
their Research in Progress
Speakers: Elisabeth Arevalo-Guerrero (Cohort 7), Alfreda Dudley-Sponaugle (Cohort 7) & Mark Parker (Cohort 6)
Synopsis: Elisabeth discussed her research on "Assessing the Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence in an Undergraduate Spanish Composition and Conversation Class;" Alfreda discussed her research on "Assessing Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Ethics Instruction in a Computing Curriculum;" and Mark discussed his research on "Experiences and Perceptions of non-Native Speakers of English in Fully Online Asynchronous U.S. College and University Courses."
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Date: April 24, 2007
Topic: Students' Expectations and the Online Educational Experience
Speaker: Dr. Zane Berge, Associate Professor, Training & Development Graduate Programs; Consultant in Online Distance Education and Training
Synopsis: Whether students think about them or not, learners all enter the formal educational arena with certain expectations. For instance, they have expectations about their role as a student and expectations about the instructor's role in the class. They have expectations about teamwork and how effectively they can communicate online compared with their abilities in an in-person classroom. They have perceptions about what constitutes good teaching and a "good course." In short, students with any familiarity with formal education have ideas and expectations concerning just about every aspect of their current or future educational experience. Despite the fact that they often go unarticulated, how important are these perceptions and expectations to the student's learning?
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Date: March 7, 2007
Topic: ‘I Dislike Politicians and Homosexuals’: Language and Homophobia in Contemporary France
Speaker: Dr. Denis M. Provencher, Assistant Professor of French & Intercultural Studies
Synopsis:
In 2002, Azédine Berkane stabbed Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, alleging a distaste for “politicians and homosexuals” as his motive. Dr. Provencher discussed what others said about Berkane’s speech act in order to lay bare the nature of homophobic formation at work.
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Fall 2006
Date: December 4, 2006
Topic: A Student-Centered Session: LLC Students & Candidates Discuss
their Research in Progress
Speakers: Cherisse Carlin (Cohort 7), Dianne McElroy (Cohort 7), & Joan Kang Shin (Cohort 6)
Synopsis: Cherisse discussed her research on "Cosmopolitanism and Trinidad"; Diane discussed her research on "The Impact of Literacy on Healthcare Delivery and Health Outcomes"; and Joan discussed her research on "Building an Effective International Community of Inquiry for EFL Professionals in an Asynchronous Online Discussion Board".
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Date: November 6, 2006
Topic: Examining Students’ Learning Process through their Collaborative Dialogues
Speaker: Ana Oscoz, Assistant Professor, Modern Languages and Linguistics
Synopsis:
This talk focused on findings from a study which examined students’ learning through their collaborative dialogues in a series of online tasks. Based on previous research in face-to-face interactions, the author expected students to engage in dialogues leading to learning. She found, however, that students did not tend to engage in this type of dialogue by themselves. The presence and intervention of an instructor was necessary in order to provide models of assistance that would lead to learning. However, once the instructor intervened, learners did indeed show instances of peer assistance that brought about collaborative learning in this online environment. Analysis of the data shows that students did move from other-regulation to self-regulation either in the same tasks or in different tasks. Students also engaged in graduated and contingent help. The analysis of the data, however, also showed that students did not all share the same degree of engagement in the tasks, and therefore, there were many missed opportunities for learning.
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Date: October 3, 2006
Topic: “Katrina That Bitch!” Interpreting T-Shirt Slogans in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
Speaker: Christine Mallinson, Assistant ProfessorLanguage, Literacy & Culture Program
Synopsis: This study upon which this talk was based examined t-shirt slogans displayed in New Orleans, Louisiana, post-Hurricane Katrina. Via a content analysis of 25 souvenir t-shirt slogans, we examine the gendered and sexualized depiction of “Katrina” to the public. We analyze portrayals of Hurricane Katrina as a sexually aggressive and destructive “whore” and “bitch” as artifacts of male-centered and male-dominated cultural production. Interviews with 26 passersby, however, suggest that the public found these t-shirts to be humorous or only mildly offensive. These results indicate the normalization of women’s sexual degradation in media messages, which reflect and sustain broader patriarchal culture.
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Spring 2006
Date: April 5, 2006
Topic: Academic Discourse, Analysis (Move Analysis) and Contrastive Rhetoric
Speaker: Budsaba Kanoksilapatham (BB), Professor of Linguistics at Silpakorn University
Synopsis:
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Date: February 21, 2006
Topic: Community Organizing and the Role of Brazilian Women
Speaker: Heloisa Maria Galvão
Synopsis: What is it like to be a Brazilian, a woman, and an immigrant? How does it change one's life? These are some of the questions that "As Viajantes do Século Vinte: Uma História oral de mulheres brasileiras na área de Boston" (Travelers of the Twentieth Century: An Oral History of Brazilian Women immigrants in the Boston area) tries to answer. Heloisa Maria Galvão, a Brazilian journalist, will discuss this piece and related issues.
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Fall 2005
Date: November 16, 2005
Topic: Changes in China: A Slideshow Lecture
Speaker: Dr. Fred Pincus
Dr. Pincus is Professor of Sociology and a member of the LLC Coordinating Committee. He has taught at UMBC since 1968. He is the author of "Reverse Discrimination: Dismantling the Myth" (2003) and the co-editor of "Race and Ethnic Conflict: Contending Views of Prejudice, Discrimination and Ethnoviolence, 2nd Ed." (1999). His forthcoming book "Understanding Diversity: An Introduction to Class, Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation" will be published in 2006.
Synopsis: During the late 1970s, Dr. Pincus was an editor of "New China" magazine which was published by the U.S.-China People's Friendship Association. He first visited China at the end of the cultural revolution (1972 and 1974) and did not return until June of this year. He will talk about the political and economic changes that he observed. He will also discuss the difficulty of knowing what the reality of China was in the past and is in the present.
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Date: September 27, 2005
Topic: Language Attitudes and Literacy Practices in Oaxaca, Mexico
Speaker: Dr. Julia Stakhnevich
Dr. Julia Stakhnevich received her PhD from the University of Mississippi, Oxford.
She teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages at Bridgewater State College in
Massachusetts. Her research interests lie in the area of language, identity and
power. Her most recent project deals with the complex issues of multilingualism in
Oaxaca, Mexico.
Synopsis: In her presentation, Dr. Stakhnevich discussed language attitudes and literacy
practices of multilingual communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. She described complex
sociolinguistic context of Oaxaca, specifically focusing on linguistic diversity,
interactions between Spanish and indigenous languages, and the increasing influence
of English. She gave an overview of current educational practices and language
policies in the state of Oaxaca, and will discuss how they are changing. Finally,
she shared preliminary results of her recent fieldwork in Oaxaca.
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Spring 2005
Date: March 1st, 2005
Topic: Literacy, Technology & Culture: Creating An Intercultural Instructional Design Framework
Speaker: Dr. Patricia Young
Dr. Patricia A. Young earned her Ph.D. degree in Education: Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of California Berkeley. She received her Master of Science degree in Education with an emphasis in Curriculum & Reading from California State University Hayward and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Communication Arts with a specialization in Television Production from New York Institute of Technology. Dr. Young is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Synopsis: This presentation reveals how African Americans appropriated communications media and produced instructional technologies for educating their own. Through an examination of critical moments in US history, several historical artifacts revealed themselves as representative examples of cultural ingenuity in instructional technology and instructional design. They include: 1866, The Freedman’s Torchlight (TFT) [a newspaper/textbook]; 1920-1921, The Brownies' Book (TBB) [a children’s periodical]; and 1977, Bridge: A Cross-Culture Reading Program [a reading curriculum for grades 7-12].
The data analysis of the instructional technologies combines a historical analysis and a text and context examination using critical discourse analysis. Discovered in the research process was a wealth of cultural remnants hidden in the documents. Cultural remnants are the racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, political, social, historical, educational and economic artifacts embedded in discourses. These cultural remnants were further transported into the Culture Based Model (CBM) an intercultural instructional design framework that guides practitioners through the research and development process. The CBM provides design features to be used in creating authentic culture and language based instructional technologies.
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Fall 2004
Date: December 6, 2004
Topic: Enclothing Identity: A Hmong Girl's Journey in the Politics of Identification in Thailand
Speaker: Dr. Tracy Pilar Johnson-Messinger
Dr. Johnson-Messinger is a recent graduate of the Program in Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has lived, worked and conducted research among the Hmong of northern Thailand.
Synopsis: Dr. Johnson presents a case study of the different decisions that one young Hmong girl must make as she educates herself about the politics of identification in Thailand. Familial, national and global efforts to produce the varied cultural and ethnic forms of identification operating in the Hmong village of Ban Rongrian draw on historically situated meanings and practices that emerge from particular patterns of Hmong and Thai social life. Drawing on these varied identifications and their attendant social practices Dr. Johnson embeds this case study in a wider ethnographic account of the different ways that Hmong youth are being educated into what it means to be Hmong, and consequently to be Thai, in and around an upland village in northern Thailand.
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Date: November 1, 2004
Topic: The production of pathology: The role of the news media in reporting on race, ethnicity, and gender.
Speaker: Dr. Howard J. Ehrlich, Director of The Prejudice Institute/ Center for the Applied Study of Prejudice & Ethnoviolence.
Dr. Ehrlich is the author of seven books including Reinventing Anarchy, Again. His influential book, The Social Psychology of Prejudice, has been used by many as a basis for programs of intervention and prejudice reduction. His recent works include Intergroup Tensions and Ethnoviolence in the Workplace: A Manual for Trainers (1993) --which contains extensive materials on gender harassment and modes of conflict resolution--and Race and Ethnic Relations: Contending Views on Prejudice, Discrimination and Ethnoviolence (1999, 2nd ed). Before moving to Baltimore, he was a Professor of Sociology and the director of the Graduate Program in Social Psychology at the University of Iowa. In 1994, Howard Ehrlich was named the recipient of the Sociological Practice Award of the Society of Applied Sociology. In 2004, he received a SAGES Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues to support his research on local television news and its treatment of gender, race, and ethnic relations.
Synopsis: In this presentation the speaker highlights the major techniques and structures through which newspapers and television news distort the issues of intergroup relations in the United States. The talk is based on three programs of research of The Prejudice Institute, a national think tank dedicated to policy research on ethnoviolence, Program one focuses on the rhetoric of reporting based on a content analysis of news stories. Program two reports on a national study in which editors, general assignment and beat reporters were interviewed about their knowledge, attitudes, and personal experiences. Program three addresses local TV news coverage and its depiction of race, ethnicity, gender, class and authority.
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Date: October 4, 2004
Topic: Study Abroad forum
Moderator: Dr. Edward Larkey
Speakers:
Adriana Medina: cultural learning outcomes of two groups of students who studied in Mexico for different lengths of time
Brian Souders: national identity in returned study abroad participants
Elisabeth ArZvalo-Guerrero: international student advisor (ISA) as intercultural communicator; international students in the US
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Spring 2004
Date: February 23, 2004
Topic: From Life Story-telling to Age Autobiography
Speaker: Dr. Margaret Morganroth Gullette, writer, cultural critic, age critic, memoirist, activist.
Dr. Margaret Morganroth Gullette's most recent book is Aged by Culture (University of Chicago Press, January 2004). Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife, won the Emily Toth award in 1998 as the best feminist book on American popular fiction. She has published in Ms., the NY Times, Boston Globe, American Scholar, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Representations, Feminist Studies, Journal of the History of Sexuality. Two of her essays have been cited as notable in Best American Essays. She has been the recipient of NEH, ACLS, and Bunting Fellowships. She is a member of PEN-America and a Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University.
Synopsis: This talk proposes that we can teach ourselves to write a more critical genre of life- storytelling, called age autobiography. The speaker retells two stories: one told her by a Nicaraguan woman in an adult education program, another that her mother enjoyed repeating to her teenage self. Even children learn master narratives about "aging." In age autobiography we work out in detail how each of us at any age comes to describe "aging" as a progress or a decline, whether when aging-into-adolescence, aging-into-adulthood, into the midlife, or into old age. By revealing the sociocultural sources of our autobiographies, this genre promises to replace the term "aging" in many contexts with stories about being aged by culture.
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Fall 2003
Date: November 5, 2003
Topic: Diversity Awareness and Skill Building: working and communicating effectively across cultures.
Speakers: Jeremy Solomons and Rita Wuebbeler, facilitators and trainers in intercultural business and career issues.
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Spring 2003
Date: February 25, 2003
Topic: Academic speech and academic writing: Lessons from and to corpus linguistics
Speaker: Dr. John Swales who has worked in ESP for nearly 40 years--in Libya, Sudan, England and the USA. Since 1987 he has been a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan, where he was Director of the ELI from 1987 to 2001. He is on seven editorial boards of journals, and travels quite widely giving lectures and workshops. Recent book-length publications include "Other Floors, Other Voices--A textography of a Small Academic Building" (1998), and (with Christine Feak) "English in Today's Research World: A Writing Guide". He has just finished a manuscript for Cambridge's Applied Linguistics Series entitled "Research Genres: Explorations and Applications". Since 1997, he has been involved in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE).
Synopsis: The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English consists of 152 speech-events totalling 1.7 million words. These speech-events represent both vertical and horizontal cross-sections of oral discourse in a large US research university. Vertically, transcripts range from introductory lectures to first year undergraduates to PhD defences; horizontally, MICASE covers nearly all schools and colleges, except law and business. In this presentation, he outlines what he has learnt so far about academic speech--and how it is similar and different to academic writing. He also discusses as a discourse analyst his own experiences with using concordancing programs.
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Fall 2002
Date: October 29, 2002
Topic: Deconstructing whiteness within a neoliberal context to advocate for an education as a multicultural possibility.
Speaker: Dr. Cesar Augusto Rossatto, Assistant Professor of Social Justice, Critical Pedagogy and Multiculturalism at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Synopsis: This presentation examines whiteness issues within a neoliberal context to subsequently address education as a multicultural possibility. By using critical race theories to deconstruct the phenomenon of whiteness as a growing oppressive hegemony in our midst today, this interactive and dialogical presentation gives its audience a breaking edge perspective of past and current realities.
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Spring 2002
Date: April 30, 2002
Topic: Princess and Prostitute: The Western Princess in Korean Media Culture
Speaker: Dr. Hyunseon Lee, visiting scholar at the Center for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, New York City.
Synopsis: An analysis of Korean women who have been prostitutes for American soldiers and their depiction in film and literature.
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