Women and the Civil Rights Movement Document Collection
The project is to collect and edit historical documents of women's roles in the twentieth century U.S. civil rights movement. This includes newspaper sources, archival records, photographs, television news coverage, and literary and artistic works. Aspects of the project include an annotated bibliography of sources; collection of materials from published books and articles, newspapers, and from archival collections; selection of documents for inclusion in course materials and in publication projects; editing and annotation of documents for student use and for general public in published works.
Required: Attention to detail and a willingness to work not only in on-campus libraries but also in D.C. area libraries and archives.
Recommended: At least one course in 20th century U.S., African American, or women's history or studies.
Creation of a digital archive of early American texts.
Required: Basic computer skills (scanning/omni page, photo-shop, Word), English
David Branner
Chinese Program Coordinator
School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
3215 Jimenez Hall
301-405-4383 / brannerr AT umd.edu
This is a long-term project to document widely differing varieties of non-standard Mandarin, as actually used by real people. Summer work is possible, as well as work during the academic year.
Required: Familiarity with Mandarin Chinese, and the ability to transcribe it from recordings into either Chinese characters or standard Pinyin romanization. Characters may be either traditional or simplified. Native speakers of Mandarin are welcome; if you are not a native speaker, you should have finished at least Third Year with good grades.
Recommended: Background in descriptive linguistics would be useful for some parts of the work, but is not necessary.
Other: Student work for this project involves recording, segmenting, and transcription of interviews in Mandarin Chinese, and possibly also some translation and annotation. A student research assistant will get practice working with real spoken Chinese and learning about ways that Mandarin dialects differ from one another, a marketable skill for people who are interested in government and business careers using Chinese. Right now, the project is very low-tech, but I am hoping to develop on-line tools before long.
I am co-editor of a scholarly journal, Resources for American Literary Study, and need someone to help copy-edit, proofread, and prepare essays for publication, as well as occasionally check references and get information in the library.
Recommended: I would prefer someone interested in or majoring in literary study (because of the nature of the material), as well as someone with computer competence and experience in using the library.
Laura Demaria
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
2215B Jimenez Hall
301-314-2476/ldemaria@umd.edu
Mapping Argentina: Spatial (Hi)stories between Buenos Aires and the provinces
Cities and spaces exist in the plural and although they are "real"--we can walk through them--they are transversed by writing and discourses. This project focuses on the narrative maps that explore the relationship between Buenos Aires and the provinces. By reading this constructed cartography, students will be able to break away from the naive assumption of space as a mere receptacle of events. In short, they will be able to see the power and cultural relations inscribed in space.
Required: Good command of Spanish and English. Willingness to do research at the library, retrieve books and articles, and Xerox (professor will provide copy-card) bibliographical materials. Interest in literature and cultural studies a plus!
Neil Fraistat
English
4155 Susquehanna
301-405-3817 / fraistat@umd.edu
A research website named "Romantic Circles" that focuses on Byron, Keats, the Shelleys and their contemporaries.
Required: Proficiency in HTML.
Project 1: Construction of a website for an international study group of ‘cantus planus' (plainchant, Western and Eastern) with links to other sites.
Required: Imagination, good taste, accuracy, and experience constructing websites.
Project 2: Transfer of spoken interviews and musical performances on cassette tape to CD or DVD.
Required: Experience and equipment to accomplish such transfers. The tapes and CDs or DVDs will be provided.
Project 3: Research and photocopying in McKeldin library (history of certain northern French churches and abbeys).
Project 4: Transcription of various medieval Latin texts from microfilm printouts. The student will receive training in medieval paleography and credit for the work in a publication.
Required: at least two semesters of Latin.
Reading Roman Women's Writings:
A study of our surviving Latin literary texts by women from the classical Roman era and of how Roman women writers are represented in Latin literature.
Required: Ability to access and photocopy relevant bibliographical items in McKeldin and area libraries; wordprocessing; proofreading. Assistant needed to help prepare manuscripts, talks/lectures, and handouts.
Recommended: Background in Latin required. Interest in women *and* literature!
Kenneth G. Holum
Dept. of History
2116A Francis Scott Key Hall
301-405-4353 / kh22@umail.umd.edu / fax:
301-314-9399
Caesarea, founded by King Herod between 22 and 10 BC and the main port and administrative capital of the kingdom, was the headquarters city for the ancient Roman domination of Palestine, and as such it was the site from which Pontius Pilate ruled, where the Apostle Paul was imprisoned, and where the famous Jewish revolt of the first century AD began. Eventually, the site became a major center of the Christian Roman Empire. The Arab conquest of the Holy Land brought Muslim rule to Caesarea in 640/641; the Crusaders conquered the city in 1101 and they occupied the city until 1265 when it was recaptured by the Arabs. Caesarea thus embodies many of the great transitions that marked the history of the Old World during and just after the first millennium AD: the shift from paganism to Christianity, the evolution of Islam in the Middle East, the attempt by European Christianity to restrict the expansion of Islam, and the response of Islam to Christian incursions.
Archaeological excavations at Caesarea, jointly sponsored by the University of Maryland and the University of Haifa, are designed to uncover the material manifestations of these important historical events. Undergraduate researchers would work in the Caesarea excavations laboratory in Francis Scott Key Hall and would participate in the on-going analysis of the results of the Caesarea excavations and various research projects relating to the religious history of the city and its transitions through pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic times.
Required: None
Recommended: Sophomore standing or above. Some coursework in history, anthropology/archaeology, ancient art history, or classics.
Caesarea World Wide Web site: http://www.digcaesarea.org
Linda Kauffman
English
3103 Susquehanna Hall
301-405-3776 / kauffman@umd.edu
Higher Learning in an Age of Terror -combines memoir with analysis of contemporary writers on global politics: Margaret Atwood, Azar Nafisi, Don DeLillo, Ian McEwan.
Required: Seeking responsible upper-division student; primary duties
involve retrieving books & library articles, xeroxing & organizing research
materials.
A car would be helpful,but not a requirement.
Recommended: Prefer seniors with some background in contemporary literature and/or cultural studies.
It is best to reach me by e-mail.
Chicago's water resources: an environmental history
I am finishing a book manuscript that I set aside in 1999, and would like help 1) identifying new areas of sources to add descriptive breadth and 2) identifying areas of sources published since 1996. I would like the student to identify articles in databases for journals from a broad range of disciplines. The student and I would meet weekly or bi-weekly to go through what the student identified, and to identify those articles that the student should obtain (by electronic request or by paper photocopying). If the student has an interest in geography, they could choose to help create maps for the book. If the student would like to read clusters of articles and prepare a review document, I would be happy to supervise. Any publication that flows from this work would feature the student's name appropriately.
Required: Preference for learning broadly rather than deeply about a topic, use of spreadsheets to keep lists of bibliographic citations, understanding the scope of an article from words and phrases in the title and first paragraph, interest in the environment
Recommended: Interest in any of these topics (not all) would be useful in different parts of the research: geography, water, civil or hydraulic engineering, bacteriology, geology and soils, Chicago, the US frontier, history of agriculture, history of cities, law, archaeology and anthropology, natural history, ecology; if the student likes maps and geography or has any experience scanning or digitizing images, that would be of tremendous interest as part of the project involves layering historic maps on each other to interpret the way land use flowed from topographic features
Other: Because this project is broad, I am happy to tailor the research assistant's activities to meet their interests, as long as those interests fall somewhere within the scope of the book. I am an adjunct lecture, not fulltime faculty; I have been teaching spring & fall since fall 2001, and will be teaching in spring 2007, so there is opportunity for my continued commitment to the student.
Research projects vary and are ongoing. They include Shakespeare productions and adaptations; representations of Shakespeare in post-colonial theater; sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women's translations of religious reform tracts; and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century images used for center publication materials. The research assistant would help search databases, scan current journals, do library searches, and help investigate various topics related to Renaissance studies.
Required: Upper level humanities student, preferably in English, Art History, History or Theatre, with an interest in Renaissance studies.
Recommended: Some knowledge of the art, history, and literature of the Renaissance and Baroque periods; familiarity with humanities databases.
Colin Phillips
Linguistics
1413F Marie Mount Hall
301-405-3082 / colin@umd.edu
Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory
The aim of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language (CNL) Laboratory is to bridge the gap between theoretical and computational models of human language and the brain-level mechanisms that support language. The researchers in the CNL Lab pursue an integrated approach to this problem, combining the study of linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, language acquisition and psycholinguistics, genetic disorders and computational modeling. The work in the CNL Lab covers many areas of language, ranging from studies of auditory and phonetic encoding, through morphology and syntax, to studies of the semantics/pragmatics interface, and currently involves more than 40 faculty, staff, students and postdocs. Undergraduate students interested in getting involved in research projects in the CNL Lab should contact one of the CNL Lab faculty members listed on the lab website (http://www.ling.umd.edu/cnl) about opportunities.
Required: : Ability to work in a diverse team; experience in linguistics, and/or psychology, computer science, neuroscience.
Gabriele Strauch
German
1102 Francis Scott Key Hall
301-405-5646 / gstrauch@umd.edu
Representation and cultural construction of "old age" in medieval German literature. Reviewing literature; preparing annotated bibliography.
Required: Computer research.
Recommended:
Reading knowledge of German.
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