They are many ways one can develop a community-engaged learning component to a humanities course. A helpful starting point is to explore what other faculty have co-created, seeing how their own academic backgrounds and research interests have helped form unique learning opportunities on and off campus.
Noir·e en France: Racism and Antiracism in Contemporary Metropolitan France (Marion Tricoire)
This class was funded through the HIA grant.
This course acquaints students with contemporary debates and issues around racism and various anti-racist efforts in metropolitan France today. Topics include but are not limited to: color-blindness and universalism, (the cultural translation of) white privilege, black masculinities, police brutality, afro-feminisms, and the aftermath of colonization, in a contemporary context that echoes that of the United States while bearing distinct differences. This course draws from a variety of media sources: new articles, opinion pieces, essays, podcasts, documentaries, book chapters, poems and other art forms and will adapt to the most recent events and uprisings in France. Two of the most important tenets of understanding and fighting racism are education and action. Students will therefore commit to a form or forms of civic engagement throughout the course, the specifics of which will be determined by each student’s circumstances and interests. Finally, this course will intentionally uplift and amplify Black voices which have too often been excluded from debates about their own lived experiences; students will be asked to do the same thing when they select supplementary readings and within their civic engagement.
LGBT Oral Histories of Central Iowa (AJ Lewis)
This class was funded through the HIA grant.
Oral history is often described as a “people’s history” method: it can be used to gather first-hand accounts from communities that wouldn’t otherwise be captured by the historical record at all. As a result, oral history has long been a preferred method for documenting histories of marginalized groups, and it’s been used prominently by queer historians, since little LGBT community life is preserved by traditional written sources. But oral history is a “queer” method in a less literal sense too: it recurrently blurs distinctions between history and memory, fact and fiction, and narrative and documentary forms. So beyond being a practical strategy for preserving a record of the past, oral history also raises basic questions about what history is.
In this class, students become acquainted with the robust scholarship on LGBT oral history. However, beyond reading scholarly work, this is a practice-oriented seminar, focused on learning how to actually do oral history interviewing. Students learn interviewing techniques, a host of related practical skills, and throughout the semester, plan and conduct interviews with LGBT community members in the central Iowa region. Students begin by interviewing individuals with ties to the College (mainly as practice) but the majority of the course work is dedicated to identifying, recruiting, and interviewing LGBT Iowans beyond campus. These interviews will be archived publicly as part of the LGBT Oral Histories of Central Iowa project, established by Grinnell students last year.
Latinxs in the US: Issues for Social Change (Dr. Carmen Valentín)
Professor Valentín’s interdisciplinary Spanish-language course brings knowledge about issues that Latinxs face in the US and helps develop cultural awareness and humility to effectively interact with this population. Class discussions focus on the areas of health, law, immigration, and education. Within a cultural context, students also learn specialized vocabulary that is useful in professional settings. Community experts in different fields share with students their professional and cultural experiences working with Latinxs. In addition, the course provides different community service opportunities that allow students to connect academic learning to unique experiences working with community members. For the 2019-2020 academic year, engagement was centered in Marhsalltown, IA, working closely with Woodbury Middle School, Immigrant Allies (a local non-profit supporting immigrant rights), and St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Applied Research for Community Development (Dr. Montgomery Roper)
This courses trains students in anthropological methods and explore the roles of anthropological research outside of academia, particularly those associated with local-level policy and community needs. Students will learn how anthropologists design, carry out, and present ethical research. Much of the learning is done through experiential education, as students plan and undertake needs assessments, program evaluations, or some other research in coordination with and on behalf of a Grinnell community organization.
