Abstract
This paper showcases the experience of coteaching a multidisciplinary travel course designed to prepare students to document their ethnographic encounters with food cultures through film and photography in Israel and the West Bank. Much of these ethnographic experiences entailed direct exposure to local cultures of hospitality involving the sharing of food. Some of the questions we address are: the role of ethnographic documentary filmmaking and photography in highlighting the diversity of local cultures and their different approaches to hospitality; its role in fostering understanding of societies with entwined politically fraught histories yet asymmetrical present-day embodied experiences; whether prior academic exposure prepared students for these encounters; students’ reactions to cultures of hospitality encountered; whether more reciprocal engagement, such as their participation in food preparation, as opposed to the more passive reception of food from our hosts, influenced their relationship with local cultures and interlocutors; students’ engagement in the ethics of hospitality, despite their different cultural backgrounds and language barriers; and whether these relations were captured through film and photography. This study also examines how this course prepared non-filmmaking students to document their ethnographic encounters, their creation of final media projects, and their incorporation into an interactive-documentary showcasing their experiences and interviews with local interlocutors. Some of the shared techniques include: exposing students to various videos on social media platforms and critiquing their content and delivery, from basic breakdowns of online video journal entries and travel videos to longer documentary-form pieces and exposing them to visual storytelling techniques and practices.
Presenters
Nevine AbrahamAssistant Teaching Professor of Arabic Studies , Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, United States Ralph Vituccio
Teaching Professor, Entertainment Technology Center/English Dept, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, United States Michal Friedman
Carnegie Mellon University
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Culinary Hospitality, Israeli and Palestinian Food Cultures, Ethnographic video
