Cross-Cultural Blog

In what is becoming a quarterly tradition, my Cultural Interfaces class is about to post its photo blogs (to use Carolyn Ross's term) on different aspects of Stanford Culture. To do so, they have been busy all weekend with their digital cameras, capturing moments of Stanford life to include as part of their visual argument.

I was thinking about this assignment all weekend, and decided to share my own insights on an aspect of Stanford culture: Stanford weekend life - the non-student edition. As a person who spends a fair amount of time at Stanford on weekend mornings, but never makes it quite past outer quad, I see a side of Stanford that many undergraduates probably are less aware of:

The weddings

The tourists

and, of course, the frisbee-catching dogs (even the short ones)

Stanford as a locale and community has a draw that transcends its role as an academic institution, one that makes it multi-versatile as a leisure and recreational space.

What I've written above would be a good starting point for one of my student group's exploration of Stanford culture. They have the added task of using both secondary AND primary sources in their photo blogs. I know that they'll be writing about four different Stanford cultures

- The Band
- Athletes
- International Students
- Late Night Studiers

I'm excited to see how they use their source material to collaborate in producing an effective visual-verbal argument.