Cross-Cultural Blog

Over the next five weeks, students from my sophomore-level Cultural Interfaces class will be posting blog entries about their research topics. More specifically, they have been asked to share their reflections on one particular source, research experience, or epiphany that they experience during the research process.

The projects themselves are fascinating -- my students this quarter are engaging with a variety of issues about cultures and subcultures, both in the real world and online. There are projects on Fast Food culture (marketing to children), La Comunidad on Stanford campus, Women in Computer Science, and Vietnamese- American Activism, on and offline. This week, the students posting on their projects will be focusing on American Expatriates in China, Updating the Turing Test for the 21st Century, and Autism communities in the Virtual World Second Life.

I know that the students would welcome feedback on their research and their ideas, and I'm sure any reader would enjoy seeing how the students have moved from the general assignment (pursue a research project on an subject related to how cultures and subcultures operate in the real world or online) to their own rich, fascinating projects.