I am a second year PhD student in Anthropology (Historical Archaeology). Currently I am in the process of getting my dissertation research off the ground. My research focuses on the Irish pub as a social institution, as a locus for community maintenance and identity. More specifically I am interested in how the pub operated historically in Ireland in these regards, but also I will investigate how this social space was encapsulated, formally or informally, and carried over to the United States during the 19th century mass emmigrations from Ireland - serving as a means of maintaining community and identity in a new world. To this end, my research will likely focus around material culture studies, landscape archaeology, architectural archaeology, ethnoarchaeology/ethnography and pretty much anything else that crosses my path.
My MA research was on a midling elite Protestant Anglo-Irish family lving in northwestern Ireland (Co. Sligo) during the late 17th-mid19th century. This research focused around ideas of identity, nationalism, and ethnicity to examine the means by which the family maintained their existence as a Protestant Anglo-Irish family in a very Catholic Native-Irish area of the country.
Let's see... Thats about it for the moment...
Perhaps more to come later
The Virtual Pub Project
link
My proposed final project is a exploration of various means of representing and interpreting the pub experience through different forms of media and representational techniques. The final format of this project will most likely be a public wiki of some sort. I am interested in essentially taking a single existing pub/bar and looking at it in any way I can think of/ have time for. The hope is that this project will reveal different ways of looking at how pubs function as lived places. I know how I experience a pub, but I know that this is not how "everyone" experiences a pub. By seeing how pubs exist in multiple ways in the now, my dissertation research will be better informed (a sort of ethnoarchaeology, if you will). Furthermore, if this is successful, I would be interested in exploring this project further in the form of public outreach in connection with the communities in which I will be working.
Now, to get down to the meat of it. This is just a brief list of ideas I am mulling over for inclusion in the project. Nothing is final yet and I may add or loose some of these. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. This project is all about being informed by lived experience. And as people who have ever been to a bar, or had a drink even, your input is invaluable.
- simple digital photography to represent the pub, nothing fancy
- Digital audio recordings of the pub, likely at various levels of business - I haven't decided which anaylsis I would do of this
- focused examination of a few items of material and visual culture (tables, taps, how bar signs are used, graffiti, etc)- text and visual, perhaps a stratigraphic sort of analysis
- time-lapse photography to show movements, pathways, particular places of interest, etc.
- GIS analysis of pub placement within the landscape/in relation to other pubs/bars in the area/in relation to housing areas, drunk walk algorithm, viewshed analysis- we'll see where it goes
- Digital photos from different perspectives, such as feet level examination of the experience
- interviews with pub patrons/workers/owners
- presentation of any sort of historic documentation available (photos, anything...)
- macro level phots of surfaces to explore the touch experience
I have to run, but there may be plenty more I still have in my head. This project is always shifting around and getting new ideas whenever I allow my brain to think about it. Thanks for the input!
Other Course Projects
- Micro-Project 1: Anthro Grad Student Wiki
- Micro-Project 2: Guinness Moments
Interesting Books
- Showalter, Elaine 1998 Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media, Picador.
- Standage, Tom 1999 The Victorian Internet, Berkley.
Interesting Links
- The Event and the Image, Fused by the Viewfinder - Michael Kimmelman
- NY Times article discusses the role that five historical moments - the Crimean War, the introduction of paid holidays in France in 1936, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the 'conquest of the air' - all impacted (and were impacted by) the development of photography.
- More information is available at the Je de Paume website.
- Conference on campus April 19-21: Open Source History: Making History Public
- Annual conference for the American Association for History and Computing, really seems to align well with the interests of this class (e.g. Chris Witmore presenting)
[email]
Posted at Mar 16/2007 01:37PM:
jules: Hey, Michelle. Jane Jacobs (I think that's right...) has some interesting stuff to say about pubs/bars and their effect on urban life. You may already have this resource, but thought I'd mention it just in case.
sample.JPG
Posted at May 16/2007 05:52PM:
chris witmore: Wonderful work Michelle with the The Virtual Pub Project. The layout works well. The specification of key questions with every page is particularly effectiive. Great job!
