Telling Stories: Journalists and Ethnographers

(4 Credits)

This course will introduce students to the various methods journalists and ethnographers use to explore the human condition. Using the written word, still photography, audio, and some combination of the three (slideshow, etc.), students will create portraits of communities and individuals. We will read such classic ethnographies as Mitchell Duneier's Sidewalk, as well as oral histories by Studs Terkel and narrative journalism (like Adrian LeBlanc's Random Family). We will listen to audio pieces produced by StoryCorps and Radio Diaries, and look at photographs by Diane Arbus, Gary Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander.