Teacher Resources 2008
Black Paris - Paris Noir: Reflections on "Race" and Belonging in Contemporary Paris
Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Instructors:
Dr. Njeri Githire, University of Minnesota
Alexis Peskine, visiting artist
This one-day workshop encourages teachers to explore the issues of race and belonging in Paris through an artist's perspective. Artist Alexis Peskine has created images to showcase the intense racial politics that has been overtaking his native country of France for the past decade. The morning session will include a lecture and discussion surrounding the 2005 uprisings in Paris. In the afternoon, participants are invited to a gallery tour with Alexis Peskine at Obsidian Arts, where his work will be on display through February 16, 2008. This program is open to K-12 educators and free of charge, funded by a Title VI grant through the European Studies Consortium.
Location: Midtown Global Market, 920 East Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55407
The Languages of Poetry: Locating “Poetry” through words, symbol, image, and sound.
Monday, April 7, 2008, 1 to 5 p.m.
Instructors:
Ryo Yamaguchi, MFA Creative Writing, University of Minnesota
Noni Benegas, author of Burning Cartography
This one-day workshop and reading provides teachers with the resources to demystify poetry in the classroom, redefining its value as a highly intimate and immediate conveyor of thought and feeling through an examination of how the act of poetic creation is shared by both poet and recipient. The hands-on workshop will bring participants to an understanding of the barest levels of language: how sound affects mood, how word choice affects meaning, etc., and how one can use the dynamism of these elements when looking across multiple languages, searching for a universal “Poetry.” Following the workshop, participants are invited to attend a reading by the acclaimed Spanish/Argentine poet Noni Benegas, whose work embodies the above principles, creating intimate connections across a global landscape.
Location: Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55415
The Ethics of Medicine: The Power to Heal, the Power to Harm
April 11-12, 2008
The primary goal of this interdisciplinary workshop is to increase participants’ knowledge of the history of scientific research and its ethical, social, legal, and cultural consequences. It will include a visit to the Minnesota Science Museum exhibit, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” where participants can see the historical experiences of the abuse of humans that occurred in Nazi Germany.
However, in addition to the scientific experimentation carried out by the Nazis, other powerful groups throughout the world—including the United States—have used physicians, geneticists, anthropologists, and psychiatrists to target and stigmatize specific groups of people for human experimentation. This workshop will focus on these histories as well. Participants will leave the workshop better equipped to inform and instruct upcoming generations about the critical consequences of the choices they and others make in their everyday lives.
The Ethics of Medicine is sponsored by a grant from Minnesota State Colleges and Universities with co-sponsorship provided by the Center for Austrian Studies, the European Studies Consortium and the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Medieval Films: Exploring European Culture through Time and Space
June 23-27, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructor:
Ray Wakefield, Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch, University of Minnesota
The Middle Ages in the West represent a history which Europeans confront in buildings, manuscripts, and art works on a daily basis. Therefore, it is not surprising that European filmmakers are especially adept at constructing films dealing with medieval narratives and medieval history. These films often go back to the oldest continuous master narratives in the West, e.g., the Dragon-slayer narrative or the King Arthur cycle of stories. The films interpret medieval culture for modern audiences, and films intended for German, French, Scandinavian, or English audiences reveal differing approaches and priorities. Film directors also adopt differing strategies for engaging modern audiences with the otherness of medieval culture and history. In this week-long course, we will view some of the best European films on the Middle Ages: The Seventh Seal (Bergman), SiegfriedI (Lang), Perceval (Rohmer), and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Jones & Gilliam). We will concentrate our efforts on approaches to “reading” film and on various strategies for teaching film which get students beyond surface-level entertainment and into deeper levels of seeing and understanding. A capstone project will engage groups with the construction of DVD film scenes related to one of the films viewed and analyzed in the course.
Immigrant Dreams & Contemporary African Diasporic Literatures
June 23-27, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructor:
Njeri Githire, Department of African and African American Studies, University of Minnesota
This week-long institute is designed to explore themes of immigration, race, gender and culture as represented by writers of the African Diaspora who have moved to Western metropolitan centers in search of a better life. We will read short stories, novellas, personal narratives and essays, interspersed with visual excerpts from selected films and other visual representations of a world of exile, hinged at the intersection of dreams and reality. We will examine the ways in which individuals endeavor to articulate their identity and sense of belonging in the face of conflicting discourses of “otherness” and assimilation. How do experiences of racism and exclusion shape individuals’ perspectives on citizenship and social membership? How do these problems impact on transnational relations between former colonies and former colonizing centers? We will probe storytelling mechanisms using grandparents-to-grandchildren narratives to explore the ways in which human stories inform our sense of place. How do these narratives provide individuals with the tools to navigate culture shock and cross-cultural transitions and alleviate immigrant home-sickness?
Selected writers will include André Alexis (Trinidad & Tobago/Canada), Calixthe Beyala (Cameroon/France), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti/USA), Nathalie Etoké (Cameroon/France), Andrea Levy (Jamaica/England), Alain Mabanckou (Congo/France/USA), Gisèle Pineau (Guadeloupe/France), Abdourahman A. Waberi (Djibouti/France).
Documenting the Hmong Diaspora: Literary, Cinematic, and Oral Historical Approaches to Diaspora
July 14-18, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructor:
Mitch Ogden, Department of English
This week-long institute explores the burgeoning fields of diaspora studies and transnationalism by considering the case study of the Hmong diaspora. Our exploration and consideration are framed, organized, and animated by looking carefully and critically at/through some of the lenses that commonly project, reflect, refract, magnify, and obscure the experiences and culture of a diasporic community, namely literature, film (both documentary and narrative), and oral history. Special emphasis will be given to how production and consumption of these lenses—as assigned activities as well as assigned class texts—might work in a variety of classroom settings. The Twin Cities metro constitutes a vibrant node in the Hmong diaspora and is home to numerous cultural creators who work in the different modes of our framework. Several of those creators, artists, scholars, and activists will participate with us.
Content-Based Language Instruction and Curriculum Development
July 21-25, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructors:
Laurent Cammarata
Melisa Riviere
Tom Haakenson
Hakim Abderrezak
This unique institute will provide intensive professional development for French, German, and Spanish language teachers to learn how to implement Content-Based Instruction (CBI) in the second language classroom. Teachers will learn how to create content-based materials and tasks to enhance students’ language proficiency and content learning. Participants will expand their own existing curricula by weaving in content, navigating and utilizing the Content Based Language Teaching with Technology (CoBaLTT) online resources, and planning appropriate assessments for CBI. Additionally, three experts from the University of Minnesota will give special content sessions focused on music in French, German, and Spanish language contexts.
Each morning teachers will be engaged in learning about content-based language instruction. Afternoons will feature content sessions and hands-on practice in a language lab where participants can use the CoBaLTT online resources to support the development of CBI curricular units. Participants will leave the institute with well-developed CBI units that focus on music.
Contemporary European Politics and Society
July 28-August 1, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructor
Carl-Gustaf Scott, Hamline University
This course provides a thematically organized overview of the major historical developments in Europe since 1945. Above all, it will examine the political, psychological, and socio-economic (re)construction of Europe after the Second World War. The class will pay particular attention to the postwar partition of Europe, as well as to the origins and trajectory of European integration. It will also explore the postwar European retreat from empire, the advent of new social mores, the growth of the welfare state, and the emergence of an increasingly multi-ethnic society. The course will conclude with a discussion about the main challenges facing European society since the end of the Cold War.
The Worlds of Islam
August 4-8, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instructor:
G.S. Sahota, Department of Asian Languages and Literatures
This week-long institute is meant to introduce teachers to the multifaceted nature of Islam and Muslim society in general. While attention will be given to matters of scripture and religion, the emphasis will be on the cultural forms, political idioms, and social structures that have characterized Islamic societies to the present day. Over the week, we will read parts of the Quran, explore Sufi devotionalism, survey early modern Muslim empires (such as the Ottoman and the Mughal), relish Persian and Urdu poetry, consider artistic and architectural motifs, and watch documentaries and films from or about the Muslim world. We will conclude by examining various perspectives on contemporary issues. The focus here will be anti-secular movements, the predicament of Muslim women in diverse contexts, and particular controversies that have surrounded Muslim communities in Western locations. One general aim of the workshop will be to understand more precisely the modes by which religion as a general phenomenon exists in modern society. Guest lecturers will join us at different points in the course of the institute to share their expertise.