Free & open to the public, light refreshments provided.

Session One
November 28, 6-9pm
Room 2202 (Prechter Lab), School of Education
610 E. University


Ellen Myers
Facebook and Indonesian Youth Culture: Identity Performance in the Digital World

Indonesia is a country that has consistently ranked within the top five users of Facebook in the world for several years The culture surrounding social networking is a new concept for the social sciences to tackle. While there are some commonalities throughout the world concerning this topic, there also exists a unique set of challenges, benefits, and implications that are culturally specific. From wall posts to statuses, the agency that Facebook and other social networking sites allows people to have over what, when, and how they perform their identities can provide useful insight into functionalities of online activities within this platform. In the context of the performance of identity in everyday life, Ellen's lecture will explore her summer research study on young adult Facebook users in Indonesia as a means of examining the various ways in which people are utilizing the growing digital ecology as a platform from which they perform their identities.


Fabiola Torralba
Mexico Negro: Culture, Identity and Politics of Afro Mexicanos

This presentation will highlight some of the cultural workers, artists and organizers of the Afro Mexican movement in the Costa Chica. Through stories featuring the local leadership of Guerrero and Oaxaca, this presentation will share diverse perspectives that reveal the complexity of Afro Mexican identity, culture and politics.


Alyssa Wells
"This is My Family": Toward an Understanding of the Culture of Drum and Bugle Corps

In this presentation, Alyssa explores the creation of close relationships among drum and bugle corps members. Her research with the Tokushima Indigoes Senior Drum and Bugle Corps (Tokushima, Japan) and the Jubal Drum and Bugle Corps (Dordrecht, Holland) allows her to ask the question of how cultural practices and the norms of a particular society influence the creation of relationships among drum and bugle corps members.


Laura-Ann Jacobs
Talking Lei

Talking Lei is a performance-based storytelling installation centered around flowers. The installation features a community of women talking story while creating lei kūpeʻe (wrist lei) in the wili (wrapping) style and includes a gallery of autoethnographic work by LA Jacobs. This project explores the process of lei making as a metaphor for the embodiment of the connectedness of storytelling in physical space.​

Session Two
December 5, 6-9pm
Cady Room, Stearns Buidling
2005 Baits Dr.

Kiran Bhumber
"Phulkari"

This presentation will be on an interactive multimedia performance called Phulkari, which involves wearable electronic textiles, dance, music and visuals. This interdisciplinary project aims to envelop South Asian cultural identity, tradition, and memory within the present digital realm. The electronic textile, Phulkari, is based on a technique of weaving practiced by women in Punjabi villages -- one that is passed down from mother to daughter and from bride to new village. Inscribed in the practice are processes of cultural change and continuity, the transmission of memory, and nostalgia.

AJ Covey
Perspectives on Teaching and Learning World Music

How can educators account for the radical shift in cultural context when teaching a foreign musical tradition in the Western conservatory, and how can students get the most out of learning world music? AJ will draw on his experiences abroad as student and ethnographer in India and Indonesia as well as his time teaching world music as a GSI in the School of Music. Theatre and Dance.

Sydney Schiff
What is Brazilian Zouk?

Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Zouk is a partnered social dance that is practiced in local communities and international congresses all over the world. This summer, Sydney set out on an exploratory ethnographic research project to identify international influences on the dance movement and culture in Canada and Europe. Unexpectedly, she learned as much about herself as she did about basic steps, virtuosic movements, dance floor etiquette, and stroopwaffles.

Adam Shead
The Present is Present: Amsterdam

Adam Shead will present and live score a thirty minute documentary he has developed in attempt to showcase concepts of cultural memory, political activism through Improvisation, the relationship of Improvisation and composition, and consciousness within the creative Improv community of Amsterdam, NL.