{"id":1393,"date":"2011-09-07T10:06:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T14:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bsuenglish.wordpress.com\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2019-04-25T15:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T19:56:00","slug":"dr-deborah-mix-introduces-her-vbc-seminar-on-vernacular-memorials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2011\/09\/07\/dr-deborah-mix-introduces-her-vbc-seminar-on-vernacular-memorials\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Deborah Mix Introduces Her VBC Seminar on Vernacular Memorials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This semester, I have the pleasure of being a fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bsu.edu\/Academics\/CentersandInstitutes\/VirginiaBallCenter.aspx\">Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry<\/a>.\u00a0 The idea behind the VBC is to create space for immersive, collaborative, interdisciplinary learning.\u00a0 The reality of being at the VBC is, well, flat-out fantastic.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only teaching responsibility I have this semester, and it\u2019s the only coursework my students have (they\u2019re each earning 15 credit hours for the seminar).\u00a0 We get to meet in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bsu.edu\/Academics\/CentersandInstitutes\/VirginiaBallCenter\/OurHouse.aspx\">beautiful house<\/a>; we get to travel to Washington, DC; and we get to work together in ways that regular classes just can\u2019t allow.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>English majors are working together with students majoring and minoring in Communication Studies, Digital Publishing, History, Sociology, Telecommunications, and other fields in my seminar to investigate what we\u2019re calling \u201cvernacular memorials.\u201d\u00a0 You\u2019ve seen them: roadside crosses marking the scene of an accident, complex tattoos honoring a friend or family member, decal stickers on a car\u2019s rear window, blogs and Facebook pages kept open in honor of someone who has passed away.\u00a0 And maybe, like me and my students, you\u2019ve wondered about the stories behind them.\u00a0 Thrillingly enough, that\u2019s just what we get to investigate this semester, and our goal is to develop a map of the memorials we\u2019ve found in Delaware County along with a catalog-style book of photographs and essays documenting them.<\/p>\n<p>In preparing to teach this seminar, I had to go outside my comfort zone.\u00a0 Usually, I read and write about twentieth-century American women writers.\u00a0 But this summer I read articles in journals like <em>Death Studies<\/em>, <em>Folklore<\/em>, <em>Material Religion<\/em>, <em>Qualitative Sociology<\/em>, and <em>Visual Studies<\/em>.\u00a0 Usually, I sit in front of a computer with a pile of books to prepare for my classes.\u00a0 But this summer I traveled to Washington, DC, to do some reconnaissance for our class trip, and I drove around Delaware County a lot.\u00a0 And now that the semester\u2019s started, my students are helping to push me (and themselves) even further outside our collective comfort zones.\u00a0 We\u2019re teaching ourselves to create an annotated map on Google Earth (we\u2019ll have a link to it in a future blog post).\u00a0 We\u2019re making our way through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bsu.edu\/About\/AdministrativeOffices\/SPO\/ResearchIntegrity\/HumanSubjects.aspx\">IRB approval process<\/a>, making appointments with the Delaware County Department of Transportation, and taking photographs.\u00a0 It\u2019s thrilling and more than a little bit terrifying.<\/p>\n<p>I invite you to check back with the English Department\u2019s blog throughout the semester to find out more about the seminar as it develops.\u00a0 And you won\u2019t have to hear about it from me\u2014English majors will be writing future posts.\u00a0 I\u2019ll also invite you now to attend our end-of-the-semester showcase, where you\u2019ll see the remarkable work I know my students will do.\u00a0 And finally, when the spring VBC fellows (or those who will be running seminars in future semesters) come a-calling, I encourage you to apply to join a seminar.\u00a0 Where else will you get the chance to throw yourself in the deep end with a bunch of sharp, creative, committed peers to create and collaborate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This semester, I have the pleasure of being a fellow at the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry.\u00a0 The idea behind the VBC is to create space for immersive, collaborative, interdisciplinary learning.\u00a0 The reality of being at the VBC is, well, flat-out fantastic.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only teaching responsibility I have this semester, and it\u2019s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1655],"tags":[158,393,1563,1573],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-community","tag-ball-state-english-department","tag-deborah-mix","tag-vernacular-memorials","tag-virginia-ball-center-for-creative-inquiry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Dr. Deborah Mix Introduces Her VBC Seminar on Vernacular Memorials - Ball State English Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2011\/09\/07\/dr-deborah-mix-introduces-her-vbc-seminar-on-vernacular-memorials\/\" 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