Musical Interludes and Teaching Laboratory: Learning and Student Engagement in an Economic Anthropology Classroom

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22582/ta.v13i1.693

Abstract

We report on two exercises, musical interludes and the teaching laboratory, we developed for use in Economic Anthropology courses. The Musical Interlude asks students to present a song to the class (typically using a music video) and responding to a series of questions, summarizing the ways it reflects course themes. For the teaching laboratory, students are organized into working groups and collectively analyse and present their selections during the last week of class, addressing specific themes including altruism and selfishness. These assignments embrace the concept of musicking introduced by Christopher Small (1998), as students capture what he describes as music’s social value in understanding ourselves and others.

Author Biographies

Jeffrey H. Cohen, The Ohio State University

Jeffrey H. Cohen is a professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on three areas: migration, development and nutrition. Since the early 1990s, Dr. Cohen has studied the impact, structure and outcome of migration from indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico to the US with support from the National Science Foundation. He has also conducted comparative research on Mexican, Dominican and Turkish migration. His work on traditional foods, nutrition and migration was supported by the National Geographic Society. In addition to ongoing work in Oaxaca with concerning toasted grasshopper (or chapulin), he is currently studying the migration of Mexicans to Columbus, Ohio.

Andrew Mitchel, The Ohio State University

Andrew Mitchel is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology. He received his BA from the University of Michigan in Anthropology and Spanish, and his MA in Latin American Studies from University of California, Los Angeles. His MA thesis concerned the Dominican academy system run by Major League Baseball, to which young Latin American baseball players are recruited and signed at sixteen years old in their first step toward potential major league stardom. His dissertation will focus on how American versions of Mexican food impacts Oaxacan chefs as a form of symbolic violence in Columbus, Ohio, Los Angeles, California, and Oaxaca City, Oaxaca.

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Published

2024-03-27

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2024): Teaching Anthropology

Section

Developing Teaching: Reports and Reflections

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Copyright (c) 2024 Jeffrey H. Cohen, Andrew Mitchel

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