Spring 2019
Earl Brooks, Assistant Professor, English
Course: Sounds Like Social Justice
This course combines sonic studies with advocacy rhetoric to challenge students to think through issues of culture, ideology, race, class, and gender through sound. Using media and mapping software, students will create interactive, aural stories about specific locations, events, and issues related to social justice. A portion of the award will be used to train students in interviewing skills, ethnographic methodologies, and ethical concerns surrounding research practices.
Jennifer Maher, Associate Professor, English
Course: Baltimore: Race, Rhetoric & Technology
This course unravels the complex intersections between rhetoric, race, and technology that have materialized in various ways in Baltimore from the nineteenth century through today. The grant will support a collaboration with UMBC’s Choice Program for at-risk youths in Baltimore, in which students in the course will develop a multimodal archive showcasing the program’s social justice projects. They will also contribute contextual pieces using the techniques of digital storytelling and historical research.
Fall 2019
Nicole King, Associate Professor and Chair, American Studies
Course: Introduction to Public Humanities: Listening to Stories of the City
In this first course in the new Public Humanities minor, professionals working in innovative narrative storytelling and media production in Baltimore will help train and mentor students in the skills for creating meaningful public programs. Students will use these skills to begin developing long-term, community-focused projects. The course will also recruit UMBC alumni fellows to produce a podcast documenting the inaugural experience for use in future courses.