Welcome to Next Gen sound studies! In the month of November, you will be treated to the future. . . today! In this series, we will share excellent work from undergraduates, along with the pedagogy that inspired them. You’ll read voice biographies (Kaitlyn Liu’s “My Voice, or On Not Staying Quiet,”) check out blog assignments (David Lee’s “Mukbang Cooks, Chews, and Heals”), listen to podcasts, and read detailed histories that will inspire and invigorate. Bet.  –JS

We are thrilled to bring you today’s utter gift from Dr. Nic John Ramos (Drexel University) and Laura Garbes (Brown University) who team taught this tremendous course in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University called African American Health Activism from Colonialism to AIDS  that used podcasting as a critical venue of knowledge production and a pedagogical tool. The introductory paragraph of their syllabus explains the class as follows:

This historical survey course examines African American activism and social movements from Colonialism and Emancipation to the contemporary period through the lens of African American access to health resources. The course also explores how marginalized peoples and communities are using new digital technologies, such as podcasting, to represent and intervene on historical inequalities. Thus, the course aims to produce public historians who are well versed in the history of medicine from the perspective of African descended peoples AND can produce social justice-oriented digital content based on their knowledge of history and marginalized communities.

In other words– theirs wasn’t a radio or a podcasting themed course, but instead, Professors Ramos and Garbes introduced podcasting to students as a mode of critical thought and expression. As they reflect:

Like many educators, we see podcasting as an opportunity to enter students on the ground floor of an increasingly popular social medium that many conceive of as a potentially more democratic sound space. We firmly believe spaces of sound, such as podcasting, however, cannot truly be democratic unless more people have the knowledge and know-how to enter their voices and the voices of their communities into the fray. In these troubling times, we especially see podcasting as an opportunity to share and tell stories often misheard, untold, and unheard in history and on the radio. It was important to us that our students recognize that the voices of the communities they come from and/or the histories rarely hear elsewhere have a legitimate place in the academy and on the airwaves.

Today, via the form of a podcast, Ramos and Garbes go fantastically meta- on us, introducing one of the final projects from their course–an audio story entitled “Shadows in Harriet’s Dawn” by Brown Undergraduates Mali Dandridge, Sterling Stiger, and Amber Parson— giving us rare insight and commentary on the process. The student work understands Harriet Jacobs (activist and author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl) in the context of enslavement and childhood trauma.  The full transcript of their “Behind the Podcast” podcast follows this introduction. Here’s the students’ podcast description:

Through the re-telling of American author and former slave Harriet Jacobs’s girlhood from her autobiography ​Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ​there is an opportunity to learn about the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) of children of American slavery. Harriet’s 19th-century trials of navigating complicated family dynamics, emotional abuse, and sexual harassment at a young age are analyzed in the lens of the modern science supporting the clinical ACEs questionnaire tool. This podcast will hopefully mark the beginning of creating more discussions that uncover the social determinants of well-being and trauma in a way that could be helpful even for the struggles of modern day youth.

You may also download the syllabus for their course (African American Health Activism Syllabus 1.25.2018 ), along with their Podcast Pitching Assignment (AFRI 0550 Pitching Assignment for Webpage),  a process assignment they named the “fieldwork summary prompt” (AFRI0550 Fieldwork Summary Prompt), and the grading rubric for this assignment (AFRI0550 Podcast Grading Rubric). In addition, Ramos and Garbes have also generously documented this experience via their collaborative website: Case Study: Afri 0550, A PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH TO STORYTELLING AND TECHNOLOGY that you absolutely MUST check out. We all have so much to learn!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: SO! Podcast 79: Behind the Podcast: deconstructing scenes from AFRI0550, African American Health Activism

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Behind the Podcast: deconstructing scenes from AFRI0550, African American He