Toward Excellence
Hospitality Pedagogy: Incorporating Aspects of Chinese Hospitality in the Language and Culture Curriculum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sue Mei Wu
Hospitality plays a large role in Chinese culture. Not only is it important to be a good host, but also to be a polite guest. These hospitality behaviors show kindness and appreciation to others, and also provide ways to give and save face and nurture relationships. Learning the subtleties of being a good host and polite guest can lead to better interpersonal interactions and intercultural understanding. For language learners, topics related to hospitality, table manners and etiquette are among the most motivating and interesting cultural artifacts. Investigating these topics can not only enhance learners’ language skills, but also inspire their critical thinking, inclusive thinking and respect for others. This paper explores an innovative way to incorporate the Chinese hospitality theme into the curriculum with digitalized materials that combine instructor presentation of aspects of Chinese hospitality with hands-on immersive experiential learning experiences, culminating with the students applying and showcasing their learning through community engagement. This process helps make the learning experience more practical, meaningful and impactful. Next, some examples of student participation in hospitality cultural events, community collaborative activities, or other community engagements are described. Finally, the paper provides some examples of how AI tools can be utilized in the hospitality curriculum. Not only for educators of Chinese, the study should also be useful for educators in other fields who may be interested in applying these techniques in different contexts.
Eve's Sedgwick's Paranoid Reading vs. Reparative Reading in the Pedagogy of the Critique: Re-thinking How the Critique Format Can Create a Space of Radical Hospitality in the Collegiate Context
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Karah Lain
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick identified two opposing approaches to critical analysis in her 2002 essay “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re so Paranoid, You Probably Think this Essay is About You”. For Sedgwick, a paranoid reading involves reading/looking with the intention of finding cracks or flaws in a work that can be defined and attacked. Conversely, she loosely defines a reparative reading as one in which criticism involves a rigorous search for imaginative edification and expansive knowledge through analysis. My paper takes this dynamic that Sedgwick proposes and examines how these two types of readings might come into play in the pedagogy of the critique, specifically in the college classroom. While a paranoid reading is generally praised in academia as highly rigorous, I propose that a reparative reading might be a more effective educational tool towards empowering students to activate their most authentic selves in order to produce their richest artworks. My questions: how exactly does Sedgwick define a reparative reading, and how might this manifest in a critique setting? How might a reparative critique mode operate to generate and occasion a high level of academic rigor? How does a practice of reparative critique change a student's approach to making? Using my own experiences in higher education, along with Sedgwick’s captivating theory, I articulate an inventive approach to critique that pushes against colonial notions of academic achievement, towards an understanding of critique that fosters students' wholeness as a path toward creative excellence.
Understanding Another Person’s Story: Narrative as an Alternative to Chronology in Teaching Arts and Humanities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Cochran
Narratives help situate arts and humanities, exploring the creation, interpretation, and appreciation of artifacts as well as making sense of the world, especially for students who find chronology and history challenging and alienating. The majority of introduction to arts and humanities textbooks use chronology as the primary way of teaching about art; however, this study argues that narratives as an alternative to chronology can help students’ engagement, comprehension, and retention. Narratives can explicate original historical contexts as well as recontextualize art in light of contemporary political and social issues, emphasizing multiple perspectives and encouraging students to develop alternative ways of seeing and knowing. Such issues need to be at the core of introduction to arts and humanities courses taught in many community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. The application of the narrative approach in classroom practice is illustrated using four artifacts across periods and cultures: Piero della Francesca’s The Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, John Everett Millais’s Ophelia, and Wangechi Mutu’s Water Woman. These artifacts are contextualized through personal, community, global, and universal narratives that help students become active learners demonstrating (in both their discussion and writing) art’s meaning and relevance. Narratives help students understand art, retain that understanding, and make meaningful connections with their personal, academic, and professional lives. De-emphasizing chronology and emphasizing narrative should become common practice in introduction to arts and humanities classes so that students can connect arts and humanities to their everyday lives.
