Announcements

Hello! I missed you all yesterday.

Here's a primer on what to expect/prepare for the next few weeks:

1. August 21-24, Tuesday to Friday
I'll be making myself available for consultations from Tuesday to Friday. You can sign up for Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday consultations HERE. Email me at bertiebott@hotmail.com if you wish to schedule Wednesday consultation. I recommend that you start talking to me about your creative projects.

2. August 24, Friday (Class)
Instead of continuing our discussion on identity, we will hold our Case Study Presentations this Friday. Treat this like an informal proposal presentation. Each group is expected to prepare around a 10- to 15-minute presentation (preferably on Powerpoint), telling the class about their motivation for the research (the research problem), their research questions, the key concepts (from our class) that they wish to explore and problematize in the study, and the methods to be used. The group is also expected to have done a cursory review of the materials that they wish to analyze and give initial speculations of what they expect to find. I.e., For representations case studies, you can bring the videos or articles that you want to analyze, show them to the class, and give a "working argument/analysis" about it. For audiences case studies, you can tell us about an informal chat that you had with a respondent and what key issues came up. Initially, I wanted to give 10% of the grade for the presentation; I am lowering this to 5% since we lost a session yesterday where we could have discussed this further. I just want to see that the groups are prepared and have a good (but not perfect) plan.

The last hour will be devoted to discussions about MediaTalk@admu and Creative Projects. I am expecting Creative Project proposals to be submitted on Friday. This can be a one-paragraph description of what you wish to do. Important to note the length of your production if it's a video or event.

3. August 31, Friday
No classes. August 31 will apparently follow a Monday schedule. I may schedule a briefing for volunteers for the MediaTalk@admu seminar this week, however.

4. September 5, Wednesday (Seminar)
MediaTalk@admu: Media and Morality--Seeing the Other in the News; Escaler Hall; 430PM. All students are required to attend. Please bring your friends!

5. September 7, Friday (Class)
Lecture: Identity Politics and Resistance.

6. September 14, Friday (Class)
Creative Project Presentations. Depending on what you wish to do for your creative projects, we may all hold them on one day (or maybe over two meetings). I am even open to moving this to September 21, but again it depends on the type of projects being planned. Again, the objective is to "play with" a concept/argument/issue discussed in our class. We want to provoke debate and critical thinking using a creative product, such as a video, website, media event, etc. Examples: 1) a Philippine AdBusters-type of blog, 2) a fashion show that exhibits the homogenization vs heterogenization debate, 3) a documentary that represents distant suffering using the concept of proper distance, 4) a reality TV program that tries to find the “ultimate cosmopolitan,” 5) a non-Orientalist tourism ad for the Philippines.

7. Remaining weeks
Lectures on Cosmopolitanism, Media and Morality.