SOAN Professor Chandra Russo recently posted on the blog Mobilizing Ideas, with a set of reflections on the role of race and class in the 2016 U.S. elections. Check out her post at this link.
This semester I worked with two other students, Sally Langan ’17 and Valeria Felix ’18, to study the conversation surrounding the use of trigger warnings on college campuses as a project for Professor Henke’s “Media Frame and Content Analysis” course (SOC 251). A trigger warning can be defined as a statement that comes before a piece of writing, a movie, or a speaker or discussion that alerts the audience that the material presented may be stressful or evoke a traumatic response from past experience. Proponents of trigger warnings argue that they protect students from emotionally harmful content and in doing so create spaces in which students can feel safe to engage in critical discussions and learning. Critics of trigger warnings argue that such warnings contradict the ideal of free speech, and that exposure to uncomfortable situations is an experience that facilitates learning and growth—allowing students to avoid discomfort in the classroom detracts from their educational experience.
Students in Professor Jordan Kerber’s course, “Field Methods and Interpretation in Archaeology” (ANTH 253) use a local archaeological dig site as their classroom, excavating artifacts from the Brunk site in Lincoln, NY. The site contains the remains of an Oneida village, dating to the late 1500s or early 1600s and then again during the 1750s. Over the past several fall semesters, ANTH 253 students have found several hundred Native American and European artifacts, including stone chipping debris and tools, pottery, animal remains, glass trade beads, smoking pipe fragments, and metal scraps. Students in the class focus on excavating, processing, analyzing, and interpreting archaeological objects recovered from this site, as seen in the pictures here.
Students in Prof Jordan Kerber’s ANTH 253 course work at the Brunk archaeological site, in Lincoln, NY.
Students from Prof Jordan Kerber’s ANTH 253 course, Fall 2016.
