This will be the the sixth time this course AN450 Anthropological Field School has been offered in Romania.  However since the April 7, 2011 course listserv announcement, some significant changes in course content and structure have been made.  

If you are interested in the visual/digital representation and analysis of culture and cultural information, this course is an opportunity to consider.  This summer Robert Mugge's interests and experise, along with some of his students, will integrated into this summer's research cycle as well into the writeup/representation/presentation of this summer's data and its analysis.  Mugge is the university's endowed professor in telecommunications: For more on Mugge, 

see http://www.robertmugge.com

In the past, LIS graduate students from Drexel, Emporia, IU, Bloomington, Pratt, USF and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have taken part.  

This summer we will look village sites whose information infrastructures were recently "modernized" by NGOs and take up some issues related to information/knowledge exchange, globalization and modernity.
Last summer this experiential experience was funded in part by
Bilbionet, a project International Research & Exchanges Board (REX)
is implementing in Romania with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation money.
It is possible that IREX will fund part of this summer's work too.

The course is designed to build competence and confidence in qualitative research methods, particularly ethnography and related visual/digital forms. There will be opportunities to conduct collaborative (small group) qualitative research in areas of one's interest and to publish from the data streams collected in the field. The course is intended to provide students with an analytical toolkit which they can apply to subsequent projects of their own.  These are a few of the publications that emerged from this course.

2010 Cheryl Klimaszewski, Gail Bader and James M. Nyce.  Who Wins? Who Loses?: Representation and “Restoration” of the Past in a Rural Romanian Community.  Library Review, 59 (2):92-106.

2009 Catherine Closet-Crane, Susan Dopp, Jacqueline Solis and James M. Nyce.  Why Study Up? The Elite Appropriation of Science, Institution and Tourism as a Development Agenda in Maramureş, Romania.  Advances in Library Administration and Organization 27:221-238.

2009 Cheryl Klimaszewski and James M. Nyce.  Does Universal Access Mean Equitable Access?: What an Information Infrastructure Study of a Rural Romanian Community Can Tell Us.  New Library World 110(5/6): 219-236.

This study visit is sponsored the Rinker Center for International Programs and the Department of Anthropology, Ball State University. For details about previous visits to Romania, please go to

http://www.bsu.edu/news/article/0,1370,7273-850-64867,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/romania/737677/Saxon-corner-of-a-Romanian-field.html

For a student's perspective, see 

http://www.onehandlaughing.com/viscri

Students from any discipline may apply.  Students are welcome to email me re: this research/study visit.  Class dates are May 12-June 6.  This summer  the cost is estimated to be $5050.  This includes airfare, food/ lodging, car rental/gas, translators and 6 credit hours. 

JM Nyce