Four professors awarded information literacy grants
The professors are Il Hyun Cho (government and law), Douglas de Toledo Piza (international affairs) Hafsa Kanjwal (history), and Timothy Laquintano (English). They will collaborate with librarians and explore different aspects of information literacy in their spring classes.
In Professor Il Hyun Cho’s GOVT 419 Global Governance, students will complete a series of assignments, including a literature review, an analytical response paper, and paper drafts. They will identify the latest scholarship on their topic, situate their own research in theoretical debates, and organize existing scholarship into several competing groups against or on which students can build their own arguments. The culmination of the semester-long research will be their presentation at the end of the semester, during which students will assume the role of political scientists at a mock scholarly conference. Ana Ramirez Luhrs will be the librarian for this class.
In Professor Douglas de Toledo Piza’s IA 200 Globalization and Its Critics, students will unpack the influence of power and privilege on the production and circulation of knowledge about globalization. They will examine what makes a work canonical and compare and contrast whether and how the author’s position on a given topic has changed over time. They will also look at the publishing process and how it might favor Euro-American centric views. Students will present on a topic from an underrepresented perspective as well as reflect on the role they can play in elevating such perspectives. Lijuan Xu will be working with this class.
In Professor Hafsa Kanjwal’s HIST 355 Global South Asia, students will complete a historical research paper and practice how to intervene within a scholarly conversation or debate. They will analyze the historical context in which primary sources were written and discuss the types of “voices” they have access to. Students will research the kinds of research questions and arguments other scholars are making about the related topic. They will consider whether their own primary sources might shed a different light on their topic or develop and refine existing arguments. Benjamin Jahre will be the librarian for this class.
In Professor Timothy Laquintano’s ENG 350 Reading and Writing in Screen Culture, students will conduct research on the decline narratives related to reading and literature and trace the evidence used in these narratives. They will assess how research findings get morphed, distorted, and shaped as they are cited by scholars and the popular press. Students will document the sources of their distractions in their attention journals and turn these sources into quantitative data. Students also will conduct a case study of the writing and research processes of Lafayette seniors. Angela Perkins will be working with this class.
The grant program is jointly sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the College’s libraries. Interested in incorporating information literacy into your class? Contact Lijuan Xu.