Society for the Study of Social Problems, Teaching Social Problems Division Newsletter, Fall 2018 (page 01)

Highlights of This Newsletter
1. Teaching Visual Sociology with Jerome Krase, PhD (p. 2)
2. TSP Division Student Paper Competition Announcement (p. 9)
3. SSSP 2019 Call for Papers - TSP Sponsored Sessions (p. 10)
4. More sociology teaching resources (p. 16)

Here at last is the Fall 2018 Teaching Social Problems Division Newsletter. Within these pages you will find that I have devoted a fair amount of space to visual sociology. While pictures and videos have long been a kind of data in sociological research, sociologists have also begun thinking more carefully about how to effectively use these visual artifacts to teach sociological concepts. Thus, I have included an essay from Jerome Krase, about his use of visual media to teach students about the way cities change (page 2). I have also included two calls for visual media, one from ASA, and the second from CAMRA at Penn (pages 13 and 14). 

On another note, I am excited to announce the SSSP 2019 "Call for Papers" (page 10). The Teaching Social Problems Division will be hosting a number of interesting sessions and critical dialogues in 2019, including "Pedagogies for the Marginalized: Teaching Strategies that Include Socially Marginalized Students" and "Teaching #MeToo: Illuminating the Social in Patterns of Sexist Abuse." Please consider submitting!

Last but not least, be sure to check out our growing list of teaching resources (page 16). I have added links to 11 new videos, which are useful for teaching on matters related to race and racism.

Lester Andrist
les.andrist@gmail.com

(page 02)
TEACHING HOW CITIES CHANGE, VISUALLY
Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College CUNY

Sociologists are increasingly using visual media in the classroom and including images of one sort or another as part of their collection and presentation of their research. However, sometimes the connection between the “visual” and the “sociology” is tenuous. Images are mostly used to illustrate concepts or make a finding more interestingly than using a boring pie chart or multi-columned table. As a visually-oriented social scientist, I use moving and still images of many types in my teaching, research, and writing about how urban change, such as the process of gentrification, is expressed in streetscape appearances. As much as possible I try to make firm connections with the not-so-visual discipline. 

For example, while discussing the city’s demographic data in my urban sociology classes I take my students on field trips through geographically defined census tracts. After they have read the most recent data from sources such as Social Explorer, I ask them to relate the numerical data to what it is they saw on the street and what they expected to see from the numbers. This simple approach gets students to think about, and then discuss, the dynamics of everyday social life that take place, often unremarked, in front of their eyes. For example, when they notice someone who looks like they are sleeping rough, they are led to contemplate what it is about the world in which they live that stages this scene.

[Image 1: My visual workshop students; This was taken during our “walking method” tour of Kazimiersz. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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Last May, I co-led, with my UJ colleagues Malgorzata Bogunia-Borowska and Anna Sarzynska, a Graduate Visual Sociology Workshop at the Jagiellonian University, in Krakow, Poland. It was entitled “Seeing Krakow Change: 1997-2018” and was a welcome return trip for me. In the Spring of 1997 I had lectured there on "Multiculturalism in American Urban Life" in the American Studies Department, during which my eager students viewed and discussed Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing; a world very foreign to their currently almost mono-ethnic worlds. With a grant from the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Polish Ministry of National Education to "Explore Polish Vernacular Architecture" I also photo-surveyed much of the city. 

Before the workshop started, the students (SEE FIGURE 1.) read from a selection of my publications which I had sent about my theorizing and methodology as to Seeing Cities Change. Prior to my arrival, these were discussed in class by Professors Bogunia-Borowska and Sarzynska. The entire collection from my 1997 photo-survey of Krakow was also shared via the Internet and saved in an archive for future studies. For their final assignment, students were to choose images from the 1997 collection and go out to see if they had changed. 

[Image 2: Krakow notes with map; In 1997, I often created maps and notes of my walks and related them to printed maps. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 3: Krakow drawing notes, 1997; Sometimes a building or street feature caught my eye and I sketched it to remind me of its visual impact.(photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 4: Street scene, Krakow, 1997; I was especially drawn to this scene in that it appeared as if the building had been neglected as private ownership of property didn’t exit during the Socialist Period in Krakow.(photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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On my first day, I gave a lecture/discussion, enhanced by a PowerPoint of a sample of the 1997 images and my field notes (SEE FIGURES 2, 3 & 4) taken at that time in preparation for an evening field trip the next day in the nearby Old City (Stary Miasto) (SEE FIGURES 5-7) which luckily survived World War II intact and is one of the best examples of 15th Century urban forms. During the session I demonstrated my street photography techniques while looking for and re-shooting specific scenes from 1997 for comparison. On the third day, we assembled and went out to see and record the visual changes in Krakow’s rapidly globalizing and gentrifying Jewish Ghetto of Kazimiersz.  (SEE FIGURES 8-10) Most readers of this essay might recognize scenes of Kazimiersz from the film Schindler’s List, where most of Kazimierz’s Jews were collected and transported to Nazi death camps such as nearby Oswiecim (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and murdered. The students felt it was important for me to visit what the called Krakow’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn that had quite a number of visually similarities including indications of Polish Hipsterdom. (SEE FIGURE 11.)

The last day in the classroom was entitled "Picture Postcards of Krakow" and "1997 Krakow Revisited." Professors Bogunia-Borowska and Sarzynska, had asked the students to select one of their own images and talk about it as a touristic “postcard.” My job was to critique, comment, and make suggestions about their work. The first thing I realized was that they were much better photographers than I. Finally, they presented and discussed their findings from the “revisiting” They had chosen one or more images from my 1997

[Image 5: Stary Miasto, (Old Town) Krakow, 2018; This is most famous and visited section of Krakow. Since the end of Socialist Period the square (Rynek) has been undergoing more and less rapid commercialization. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 6: Hardrock Café, Krakow, 2018; In this photo you can contemplate the tourist appeal of St. Mary’s Basilica (1367) with the Hard Rock Café (2008). (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 7: Stary Miasto, Poland, 2018; Corleone Restaurant, Krakow, 2018; The Upscaling of Krakow’s Old Town attracted strange newcomers such as the caricatures in front of the Corleone Restaurant. Among Starbucks, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Swarorski, it is a perverse indication of globalization. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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work to reshoot. Deep discussions ensued about the changes, or lack thereof, and connections between the images and the social, economic, and political forces that might account for them. Our hope is that this project will result in a publication and future collaborations. Independent of the visual workshop, I used much of my limited “spare time” during the week to retrace and reshoot as many as possible of my visual walks through the city in 1997 to add to my collection for future research and archive-building.

Following my week-long visit to Krakow, I travelled to Prague for a two-week-long Fulbright Specialist Scholarship Assignment at the Charles University. There I was honored to give the Ernest Gellner Nationalism Seminar, Sponsored by the Czech Association for Social Anthropology and the Czech Sociological Society, in Cooperation with the Institute of Sociological Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. I presented my ever-evolving visually-enhanced lecture “Seeing Cities Changed.”

[Image 8: Kazimiersz Square, 2018; The collection of sightseeing touring carts in the square where Jews were once assembled for transport to Auschwitz is only one example of how even the Holocaust can be commodified. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 9: Remnant of Business Sign on Deteriorated Building in Kazimiersz, Krakow, 1997; I noticed this fading sign in 1997. Kazimierz was once a bustling working-class Jewish neighborhood filled with many businesses. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 10: Remnant of Business Sign on Building undergoing Upscale Renovation in Kazimiersz, 2018; I recaptured the fading sign, that I hope will be preserved, on a building undergoing upscale development, while revisiting with my visual sociology Workshop students.(photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 11: Polish Hipsterdom, 2018; This is one of the scenes pointed out by my students that they thought was like Greenpoint in Brooklyn, New York, which incidentally still has a significant number of recent Polish immigrants.(photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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My assignment also included giving a lecture, "Auto-ethnography and Legitimacy in Local Urban Government" in Professor Zdenek Uhurek’s graduate class on course on Nations and Nationalism. After this lecture, one of his students, David Platil, approached me and asked for advice concerning his thesis topic “Palmovka - A Rupture in The City Structure” in which he said “The important concepts of my work are public space and place identity.” He also wished to include a visual component to the work and invited me to take a tour led by him of the neighborhood. On the tour he pointed out what he called the good, bad, and ugly of new government office buildings as well as privately- and publicly-funded housing. Other highlights was an overgrown vacant lot that had been a cemetery for Palmovka’s once-thriving working-class Jewish community whose synagogue now served as a local history museum. Most intriguing for me was a section that once was informal housing for railroad workers that subsequently was regularized. (SEE FIGURE 12)  As is true around the globe, professors at all levels can learn a great deal from their students. 
As might be expected, I had photographed much of Prague’s Old City in 1997 (SEE FIGURE 13) while on sabbatical in Poland, especially the Jewish areas for I have a special affinity.  Although I have a few thousand more or less “normal” photos of Prague from both excursions, I thought to include a few from the collection that were less so. (SEE FIGURES 14-16)

[Image 12: Palmovka Regularized Informal Housing; This part of Palmovka is very steep and was a wasteland upon which workers were allowed to build while building local railroad improvements. Even though now regularized with electricity and public water supplies, it continues to have a somewhat “hard” appearance. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 13: Franz Kafka Café, Old Town (Stary Miesto), Prague, 1997; The café is on the edge of the Jewish neighborhood and in 2018 was undergoing renovation as was much of the very touristy area. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 14: Golem Bake Shop, Josefov, Prague, 2018; This ironic bake shop, is almost dead center in Prague’s Oldest Jewish Ghetto. Like, Kazimiersz in Krakow it is fast become what I refer to as an Ethnic Theme Park.(photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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Teaching Visually Note:
Since I’ve been doing this kind of visual data collection for decades, most often, I use my own “before” photos, but faculty and students can easily find equivalent images in local municipal or historical archives as well as via on-line searches. It is of the utmost importance for the instructor however to connect the “then” and “now” images, to other sources of sociological data and, when available, historical and ethnographic studies of the locations. Beyond gentrification, as represented in some of my publications below, visual connections can easily made in reference to globalization, im/migration, as well as economic up- and downturns. Giving your students the opportunity to, as Michel de Certeau wrote, create the city in the act of walking (1985), with a camera in hand would be (excuse the pun) sociologically “eye opening.”

[Image 15: Entrance to SAPA Market, Prague, 2018; The Sapa district is sometimes referred to as “Little Hanoi.” Although SAPA serves primarily as a wholesale Vietnamese market, it offers many restaurants as well as retail outlets that attracts thousands of non-Vietnamese visitors. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]
[Image 16: Construction Workers, Prague, 2018; Like Krakow, Prague has become a relatively wealthy city as “foreign” investment and residents have poured into the Capital. One result has been the restoration of exquisite Art Nouveau Buildings in Downtown Prague. (photo credit: Jerome Krase)]

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References
Krase, Jerome. 2017. Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class. London: Routledge.

Krase, Jerome and Timothy Shortell. 2017. “The Visual Impact of Islam: A Special Focus on Turkish Migration to the United States and Europe,” Urbanities, 7, 1: 22-41.

Krase, Jerome and Timothy Shortell. 2013. “Seeing New York City’s Financial Crisis in the Vernacular Landscape,” in Crisis and Cities: New Critical Urban Theory, edited by Kuniko Fujita, London: Sage: 188-217.

Krase, Jerome. 2009. “Contested Terrains: Visualizing Glocalization in Global Cities,” in Home, Migration, and the City: Spatial Forms and Practices in a Globalising World,” edited by Ayona Datta, Open House International, 34,3: 65-73.

De Certeau, Michel. 1985. “Practices of Space,” in On Signs, edited by Marshall Blonsky. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press: 122-45.

TSP DIVISION ELECTIONS
My two year term as the Teaching Social Problems Division Chair ends with the start of the SSSP annual meeting in 2019, and we are seeking nominations for a
replacement. Serving as Chair has been a fantastic opportunity to promote the pedagogical side of sociology, and I recommend the position to anyone
who sees the value in teaching people how to think like sociologists. Please send nominations to les.andrist@gmail.com (self nominations are welcome!).

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AWARDS! - STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION
The Teaching Social Problems Division announces its 2019 Outstanding Student Paper Competition. Examples of paper topics include innovative teaching methods, service-learning courses, innovative uses of technology, and assessment of learning. The winner will receive a plaque of recognition, one-year membership to SSSP, waived conference registration fee to attend the 2019 meeting, and an additional cash prize of $100. The winner also receives an opportunity to present their winning paper at the 2019 SSSP meeting. To be eligible, a paper must meet the following criteria: (1) the applicant must be a graduate student at the time of the 2019 SSSP annual meeting (or graduated in 2019); (2) the paper must not be co-authored with a faculty member or a colleague who is not a student; (3) the paper must have been completed between January 2017 and January 2019; (4) The paper may not have been submitted or accepted for publication (papers that have been presented at a professional meeting or that have been submitted for presentation at a professional meeting are eligible); (5) The paper must be 30 pages or less, including notes, references, and tables; (6) Please note that any paper submitted for consideration for the Paper Award must also be submitted to be presented at the 2019 meeting of the SSSP. Double submission to other SSSP award competitions will disqualify the submission. Self-nominations are welcome and highly encouraged. Please submit the paper electronically as a Word-compatible file, along with a letter of nomination, to the Outstanding Paper Competition Committee Chair: Lester H. Andrist at les.andrist@gmail.com . The winner will be announced prior to the 2019 SSSP Annual Meeting in New York, NY.

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SSSP TEACHING SOCIAL PROBLEMS SPONSORED SESSIONS - CALL FOR PAPERS! - New York, 2019
1. Interactive Learning: Pedagogic Games for the Classroom
Panel Session
Organizer/Presider: Penny Harvey (pharvey5@gsu.edu)
2. Trigger Warnings and Politically Correct Speech: Challenges and
Perspectives on Teaching Sensitive Issues
Critical Dialogue
Organizer/Presider: Christopher M. Vidmar (cvidmar1@gsu.edu)
3. Pedagogies for the Marginalized: Teaching Strategies that Include
Socially Marginalized Students
Critical Dialogue & Thematic
Organizer/Presider: Penny Harvey (pharvey5@gsu.edu)
4. Teaching #MeToo: Illuminating the Social in Patterns of Sexist Abuse
Critical Dialogue & Thematic
Organizer/Presider: Lester Andrist (les.andrist@gmail.com)
5. Community Engaged Teaching about Youth, Aging, and Matters of Life
and Death
Critical Dialogue & Thematic
Organizer/Presider: Perri S. Leviss (Perri.Leviss001@umb.edu)

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6. Teaching in a Hostile Climate: Pedagogical Strategies for Addressing
Climate Change Denial
Critical Dialogue
Organizer/Presider: Anya Galli (agallirobertson1@udayton.edu)
7. Approaching White Fragility in the Classroom
Critical Dialogue
Organizer/Presider: Mikayla Mitchell (mmitch41@uic.edu)
8. Social Responses to Police Brutality
Critical Dialogue & Thematic
Organizers/Presiders: Stephani Williams
(STEPHANI.WILLIAMS@gmail.com) and Meredith Brown
(mb2862@nau.edu)
9. Community-Based Learning and Community Partnerships
Critical Dialogue
Organizers/Presiders: Sarah Stanlick (ses409@lehigh.edu)

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CENTERING THE MARGINS: ADDRESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION GAP OF CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY - CALL FOR PAPERS!
Eastern Michigan University, April 12-13, 2019
For more information: emich.edu/sac/conference/index.php

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ASA 2019: CALL FOR VISUAL MEDIA PRESENTATIONS - CALL FOR...FILM?
A visual media presentation consists of an exhibit of materials reporting research activities or informational resources in visual form. We welcome a wide variety of presentations including mini-documentaries, visual sociology photo essays, interactive applications, video presentation of more standard research findings, and short performances. Production quality is less important than the quality of the research and creative content. Anyone wishing to propose a visual media presentation should submit a 1-2 page abstract with an outline and links to online materials or the display presentation itself (including the visual media to be utilized). If the proposal is a live performance, please submit a video of the planned performance. These materials must be submitted online via the online submission system on the ASA website. A presentation in the visual media presentation session is classified as an authorship under the participation rules. Presentations titles with authors’ names and affiliations will be listed in the online preliminary and printed Final Program. For more information, visit the ASA call for submissions (http://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2019/2019-call-submissions), or contact Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College-CUNY; jkrase@brooklyn.cuny.edu

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THE SCREENING SCHOLARSHIP MEDIA FESTIVAL - CALL FOR...FILM?
CAMRA at Penn is pleased to announce the call for submissions for the 7th Annual Screening Scholarship Media Festival which will take place on March 30-31, 2019 at the University of Pennsylvania. The Screening Scholarship Media Festival (SSMF) provides a creative, collaborative space to explore the affordances and challenges of multimodal strategies in research and to interrogate their social implications. SSMF is a hybrid between a traditional academic conference
and a film/ media festival fostering the intersection of art and science across disciplines since 2013. Rendering Matters of Concern and Present Histories is the theme of SSMF2019, and scholars, educators, artists, activists, visual legal advocacy and digital humanities groups are welcome to participate. This year, SSMF will feature works rendering matters of concern and the present histories of indigenous people, persons under any form of detention, diasporic communities, LGTB+ collectives, and environments in conflict. Categories for submission are film, audio, photo essay, panel-style, performance, and immersive media (VR, AR). For more information, go to www.camrapenn.org. Deadline for submissions is November 30, 2018, noon (EST). Submit at www.camrapenn.org/ssmf.

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MEMBER PUBLICATIONS
Duenas, Maria D. 2018. "Four Social Situations: A Class Activity to Teach Goffman’s Impression Management Through Inductive Learning." Class Activity published in TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology (http://trails.asanet.org/Pages/Resource.aspx?ResourceID=13625).

Krase, Jerome. 2018. “Undermining Governmental Legitimacy: Failed Expectations of Community Accountability,” Urbanities. 8, Supplement 1, Ethnographers Debate Legitimacy, 2018: 42-48. With Kathryn Krase. http://www.anthrojournalurbanities.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/11-Krase-Krase.pdf

Krase, Jerome. 2018. “Ethnography: Bridging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide,” in Placing Urban Anthropology: The Production of Empirically-based Knowledge and its Significance to Society, edited by Giuliana B. Prato, Italo Pardo, Walter Kaltenbacher. Diogenes. Sage.

Dennis Zuev and Jerome Krase, 2018. “Visual Sociology,” SOCIOPEDIA.ISA, International Sociological Association, http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/researchnetworks/working-groups/wg03-visual-sociology/r

Krase, Jerome. 2018. In the Name of the Mother: Italian Americans, African Americans, and Modernity from Booker T. Washington to Bruce Springsteen, by
Samuele F. S. Pardini. REV: Italian Americana. 28 (2): 115-17.

Krase, Jerome. 2018. “The Multitude of Approaches to Urban Ethnography: Blessing or Curse?” in The Palgrave Handbook on Urban Ethnography, edited by Italo
Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, Palgrave-Macmillan: 71-91.

Jerome Krase and Kathryn M. Krase. 2019. “Undermining Governmental Legitimacy at the Grass Roots: The Role of Failed Promises and Inflated Expectations of
Community Accountability,” In Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights, edited by Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2019:
169-92.

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RESOURCES
USEFUL SITES
SSSP Teaching Social Problems Division https://www.facebook.com/SSSPTSP/  @SsspTeaching
Sociology Toolbox https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/sociology-teaching-tools/  https://www.facebook.com/sociologytoolbox/ @SocToolbox
The Sociological Cinema https://www.thesociologicalcinema.com  https://www.facebook.com/TheSocyCinema/  @TheSocyCinema
Teaching with a Sociological Lens https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachingsoc/

HIGHLIGHTED VIDEOS
"History and Legacy of Reparations in America," Dr. Rashawn Ray | https://youtu.be/MeHBlS0QBL4
"Should We Pay Reparations for Slavery," BBC The Big Questions |https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/07/01/black-woman-correct-ignorantenglish-
man-harsh-aftermath-slavery/
"The Nations Biggest Collection Of Racist Objects Are All In A Michigan College Basement," Vice News | https://youtu.be/jP92cqTxG7I
"8 Videos for Teaching about Race and Racism," Dr. Tanya Golash Boza | https://vimeo.com/user85226246?fbclid=IwAR3qVCkbECkYWojL6HSAiq
YOiUAY255iQ5Eyc0FVVcHiK4BFVQ2LRS-lmEc

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A Singing Lecture by Corey Dolgon
The Event: Focusing on the role folksongs play in the U.S. labor movement, Dolgon’s words and music bring both history and theory to life. This singing lecture covers labor history from a multicultural perspective and examines the function of folk songs in workers’ lives, labor, and organizing. The lecture can be tailored for specific needs and time periods, but generally runs about an hour to an hour and a half depending on format. The Program: SSSP welcomes applications from those interested in hosting this event. SSSP will make four $500 grants to cover performer’s honorarium. Applicants commit cover travel expenses. The Performer: Dolgon is a Sociology Professor at Stonehill College and a long-time labor activist and community organizer who has used folk songs to build solidarity on the line and engage students in the classroom. He is adept at gaining audience participation and provides an object lesson in how the collective acts of singing enhance the feelings of solidarity and create new possibilities for collective identities.

Here’s what students, faculty and labor folk have to say about Corey’s performances:

“I learned about the importance and power of strikes and labor unions. He made the period come alive.”
--student, Stonehill College

“Corey’s work weaves together a coherent and accessible narrative about labor struggles with a tour de force of labor songs that move an audience with workers’ own articulate descriptions of their conditions and inspiring visions of movements to improve those conditions.”
--Chris Dale, Sociology Dept., Bentley University

"Faculty and students were blown away by this unique method and message. Dolgon’s ability to weave stories through song was powerful and thought provoking. Personally, I was mesmerized by his musical ability and with the material. My students agreed that it was by far the most interesting colloquium they ever attended."
--Scott Carter, Sociology Dept. University of Central Florida

“Imagine an event that attracts from every campus demographic: international students, faculty, staff, undergraduates, emeriti faculty, and community activists, and has them all standing together enthusiastically singing songs about solidarity. We have never had an event like this!"
--Melinda Jo Messineo, Sociology Dept. Chair, Ball State University

"Corey Dolgon’s “singing lecture” is a hit. Those who attended his presentation--from union retirees to active members to academics and management--were entertained and enlightened. A good time & good learning."
 --John Ralston, Asst. Director, University of Louisville Labor-Management Center

"Corey’s wonderful voice, abundant energy, and great knowledge about folksongs, the labor movement, and other social movements were entertaining, very informative, and inspiring. He made a major impact on WPUNJ, performing in front of almost 300 students and faculty."
--Kathleen Odell Korgen, Sociology Dept, William Patterson University
 
“Dolgon’s singing lecture had breadth and depth. It captured an extensive history of the labor movement in narrative and song, brought students, faculty and labor union members to their feet to sing together, and left people smiling, feeling good, and recognizing the importance of solidarity in efforts to change the world."
--Timothy Black, Director, Social Justice Institute, Case Western Reserve University

Please contact Corey for applications or more information at 617-852-7237 or cdolgon@stonehill.edu