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{Recting Sites: Ethonography, Performance, and (Dis) identification} class website |
Explores performance in the context of localities, and ask about the ways in which the personal meets the political in geographies of enactment. We draw from ethnography, performance theory, and theories of identify formation and negotiation.
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dr.
myron beasley |
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{teaching} |
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Teaching Philosophy.
As a communication scholar I am cognizant of the different ways in which people communicate and process messages. Students do not arrive in classrooms as empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. Hence, teachers should facilitate and teach students in a variety of styles and through diverse materials, always encouraging them to identify, challenge, and test assumptions, and to take different perspectives from which to critically encounter and evaluate their world. Learning is an active, social, and collaborative process between students, teachers, and communities. Therefore, successful teaching integrates cooperative learning exercises and individual work as vehicles for self-directed and shared learning. Consequently, students should be encouraged to take courses seriously, and that class attendance and participation are of the utmost importance in their own and other student's learning. Above all I believe in bringing a philosophy of mindfulness to education. As a lifelong activity, learning is a process that I constantly undergo along with students. Teaching, like any other communicative interaction, is not linear or one-way and thus requires respect and openness to learning as one also teaches. Successful strategies that enhance this collaborative learning process and the development of the classroom as a learning community include: relating class subject matter to student lives, making the learning process an inviting and welcome experience, cultivating mindfulness and awareness of our actions and communicative behaviors, and engaging students collaboratively in the development of class content. Having students analyze and critique class teaching materials and encouraging them to come up with alternative ways to teach and learn the material covered facilitates the development of a learning community in the classroom that respects diversity and actively takes into consideration what students themselves bring to the learning process. Teaching is a consequential social practice. My teaching is informed by Freire, Boal, Giroux and others, and by a body of thought that sees education as a critical and mindful practice. A commitment to excellence in education at all levels means not only learning as personal development, but as an integral part of our role as educators and members of our communities. Good teaching values intellectual effort, diversity, mindfulness, striving for excellence, and respect for perspectives other than our own. I am committed and dedicated to excellence in teaching, to teaching as community practice, to helping others succeed, and to lifelong learning.
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{Intercultural Communitcation} |
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{Africana Aesthetica} |
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{Communication and Culture} |
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{Reciting Sites: Ethnography, Performance, and (Dis) identification} |
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{Intercultural Communitcation} class website
This seminar examines the idea of intercultural performance through the intersections of gastronomica, cinema, and costume. We analyze performances to understand the relationship between food, film and fashion and the many variations in which filmmakers/artists incorporate food/film/fashion into their films and or inspired by it. In addition, the course develops research and writing skills, an appreciation of international and independent film, and an understanding of the importance of food and dress on the topics of identity construction, histories, and cultural literacy.
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{Africana Aesthetica Rhetoric, Performance, and Identity} class website |
A seminar that explores the modalities of rhetoric and performance in the Black Atlantic /African Diaspora. Situating “Performance” as music, art, performance art, ritual, text, politics and “the performance of every day life” the seminar with chart and investigate how such Diasporatic knowledges influence, defines, and even problematizes U. S. racial formations and identity. Special attention will be given to African and Caribbean artists and performance art as cultural workers and thinkers.
{Communication and Culture} class website
My communication and culture seminar explores cultural experience and meaning across a variety of cultural groups, including national cultures, ethnic groups, economic classes, subcultures, and genders. Communication is centralized by emphasizing several issues:
1) how communication creates cultures,
2) communication within a variety of cultural groups and
3) our own communication about others.
The objectives of the course are to increase understanding about people different from ourselves; to uncover the patterns by which we represent members of other cultures and discern the ethical cultural groups; to identify and overcome obstacles to inter-cultural communication; and to understand the historical development and nature of various contexts of cross-cultural communication. This course will engage and challenge your assumptions about yourself and others.