“Formations of Cultural Studies,” University of Washington Bothell, Bruce Burgett and Ron Krabill

Assignment: Keywords Collaborative Project
Class: Formations of Cultural Studies
Institution: University of Washington Bothell
Instructors: Bruce Burgett and Ron Krabill

Note: This course used the Keywords Collaboratory as its platform for the collaborative composition of keywords projects among the students. The same type of assignment could use a different digital or non-digital means of collaboration.

Project Description:
This assignment was part of the 10-credit introductory core course in the Master of Arts in Cultural Studies (MACS) at the University of Washington Bothell. MACS is a community-engaged degree designed for students who want to pursue cultural studies projects and careers either inside or outside the academy. The assignment was intended to focus students on three keywords within MACS: culture, public, and community. The 18 students were asked to work in clusters on one of those three keywords as they tracked usages of the terms in the course readings, public events related to the course, and everyday conversations they had participated in or overheard, among other possibilities. This portion of the assignment asked the students to act as participant-observers across a variety of situations.

The two written assignments—one at the midterm and one at the final—asked the students to craft a keyword essay or project that drew on the archive of usages they had assembled as a cluster by responding to a standard set of questions: 1) What kinds of critical projects does your keyword enable? 2) What are the critical genealogies of the term and how do they affect its use today? 3) Are there ways of thinking that are occluded by the use of this term? 4) What other keywords constellate around it? This assignment could be completed either individually or collaboratively. The option of working individually took pressure off the group work, even as it encouraged students who opted to work alone to view their fellow students as resources.

Instructor Comments:
What worked: The mix of individual and collaborative possibilities (released pressure at due dates); midterm and final assignment (allowed for feedback early on); focus on the three core concepts in the course and degree; opportunity for students to publish their essays or projects on the site.

What needs work: More discussion of the process/method of participant-observation; more discussion of the generic and intellectual differences between a keyword project and a more typical academic essay; clarity about the site as the host of the assignment (versus the course).

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BCULST 500: Formations of Cultural Studies
Professors Bruce Burgett and Ron Krabill, University of Washington Bothell
Keywords Assignment

OVERVIEW:
The goal of this assignment is to allow you to develop a sense of the intellectual and institutional formations and orientations of the field of cultural studies by tracing three of its keywords over the course of the quarter: community, culture, and public. These three terms are not chosen arbitrarily. They are, indeed, keywords of cultural studies, in America or elsewhere, but they are also and more importantly keywords of the emphasis in our Master of Arts in Cultural Studies (MACS) on community-engaged forms of public cultural work.

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT:
Throughout the quarter, you should post a minimum of two references to one or more of these keywords each week as they emerge in course (or non-course) readings (articles, books, websites, newspapers, etc.); public lectures or presentations (class discussions, talks, political debates, etc.); everyday life (comments overheard on the bus or at a bar, dinner table conversations, etc.); among other sources.

We will use the “article” wiki to archive these references; while the “discussion” or “talk” wiki will allow you to comment on individual references or connections among them. The goal is to create a rich archive of materials that will serve as the basis of the keywords projects that will be due at the midpoint and end of the quarter.

Here’s an example of a posting on the “article” wiki: “The MACS program is dependent on a community-based learning network” (UWB Professor Bruce Burgett at the 2008 IAS Graduate Convocation, 23 September 2008). Here’s an example of a posting on the “discussion” or “talk” wiki: “I wonder what Burgett really means by the term “community” here? Does it include any off-campus organization or is it restricted to community-based non-profits? Is it limited to organizations? It seems a little vague to me, especially in contrast to the usage by the person on the bus who talked about….”

MIDTERM ASSIGNMENT (due in class and on-line on Tuesday, November 4):
This writing assignment asks you to make a midterm attempt at mapping and, if possible, synthesizing the diverse materials that have been archived in the collaboratory of the keyword on which you have chosen to work. The form of your response to this assignment is up to you and it may be completed individually or collaboratively. But it should begin to address the questions listed in the introduction to Keywords for American Cultural Studies:

1) What kinds of critical projects does your keyword enable?
2) What are the critical genealogies of the term and how do they affect its use today?
3) Are there ways of thinking that are occluded by the use of this term?
4) What other keywords constellate around it?

We are asking you, in other words, the same questions that Joseph, Yudice, and Robbins addressed in their entries. But we are not asking you to imitate either the content or the form of their response. You are welcome to think and work digitally by using hyperlinks, and including images, video, or sound. Please note that this assignment can be longer than your final 700-900 or 1500-1700 or 2400-2700 word keyword project.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT (due in class and on-line on Tuesday, December 9):
This writing assignment asks you to complete your individual or collective keyword project by taking ownership of the term: what it has meant and what it can, could, and should mean, particularly in the context of BCULST 500 and MACS. As in the midterm assignment, the form of your response is up to you and it may be completed individually or collaboratively. Please choose a length of 700-900 or 1500-1700 or 2400-2700 words, or their equivalent (knowing that the shorter essays are often more difficult than longer ones).

Once they are done, these projects will be posted to the Keywords site and archived there for further discussion, comment, and revision.