(NWI) Introduction to Documentary Studies

Documentary studies uses interdisciplinary frameworks and multiple modes of storytelling to explore individual lives and diverse cultures in the past and present.

Students will examine the history and use of documentary work in the U.S., the ethics of fieldwork, and ways to convey the lives of others. Through analysis of film, photography, audio, and print journalism, participants will look at how documentary storytelling promotes human dignity and social justice and engages communities through  collaborative projects.

Students will create a proposal for a project documenting their families, students, clients, and/or members of another culture.

This course is part of the Documentary Studies Certificate Program.

Date: Wednesdays, May 9-June 6, 2012

Time: 5:30-8:30 p.m.

Location: Lewis & Clark Graduate Campus, Conference Center Room 117 (2 of 5 sessions will meet off campus)

Instructor: Joanne Mulcahy, Ph.D., Ian McCluskey, Julie Keefe, and Dmae Roberts

Degree-applicable credit: WCM 501, 1 semester hour, $773

Continuing education credit: CELA 801, 1 semester hour, $350

Noncredit/CEU: 15 hours, $250

Registration form (PDF)

About the Instructors

Joanne B. Mulcahy teaches creative nonfiction, ethnographic writing and humanities CORE classes at the NW Writing Institute. Her academic credentials include degrees in Comparative Literature, Folklore and Folklife, and Cultural Anthropology. Mulcahy has taught workshops that combine creative nonfiction and ethnographic writing for the Association of Western States Folklorists, the New York Folklore Society, and the American Folklore Society. For over a decade, she taught courses in anthropology and gender studies in Lewis and Clark’s College of Arts and Sciences.

In addition, she has facilitated workshops in numerous other settings, including The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, Oregon public libraries, The Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, N. Ireland, and Alaska and Oregon Corrections facilities. She is an Associate of the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking and adjunct faculty for the Ph.D. program of The Union Institute.

Mulcahy’s essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her awards include fellowships from The Oregon Institute of Literary Arts, the New Letters nonfiction prize, and grants from The British Council, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Oregon Council for the Humanities.

Ian McCluskey, a seventh-generation Oregonian, is deeply rooted in the diverse stories of the region. After working for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), he founded NW Documentary, where he now teaches and produces films, using digital technology and borrowing from the traditions of photography, literary nonfiction, and documentary film. McCluskey’s independent work producing, writing, shooting, directing, and editing has led to more than two dozen national awards including NW Emmy Awards, Chicago Film Festival’s Hugo Awards, CINE Golden Eagle Awards, and Telly Awards. His work has been broadcast by PBS and featured in numerous film festivals, including Montréal’s Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA), Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and IFP in New York.

Julie Keefe is a professional photographer with twenty years experience working predominantly in the social practice, photojournalism, and documentary photography fields. She was one of Caldera’s first teaching artists in 1997, and for the last 14 years, has worked intensively with underserved youth and communities, introducing them to the fine art of photography and writing in a variety of community settings. She created the Hello Neighbor Project in 2007, a project that used interviews and photographs to introduce children to their neighbors and ultimately neighbors to each other by displaying large-scale photographic portraits with text in six cities throughout Oregon,  creating the state’s largest collaborative public art project. The project continued in 2009 in Sisters, Oregon, 2010 in Bellevue, Washington and 2011 in collaboration with Portland State University’s School of Social Work, and was named a finalist in the President’s Council on Arts and Humanity Coming Up Taller Awards, and Top 40 in the American’s for the Arts Project of Year juried competition.

Dmae Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning radio artist/writer whose work often airs on NPR. Her work is often autobiographical and cross-cultural and informed by her biracial identity. Her Peabody award-winning documentary Mei Mei, a Daughter’s Song is a harrowing account of her mother’s childhood in Taiwan during WWII.  She won a second Peabody-award for her eight-hour Crossing East documentary, the first Asian American history series on public radio. She received the Civil Rights and Social Justice award from the Asian American Journalists Association and was selected as a United States Artists (USA) Fellow. Roberts is a regular columnist for the Asian Reporter and hosts a weekly arts show called Stage & Studio on KBOO FM. She is currently working on the six-hour Shakespeare Is radio series. 

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