You will be split into groups;
Each group will prepare a presentation that will examine a tourist site within the greater Atlanta area
Examples can include, for example:
Coke Museum; Atlanta Jewish Center; MLK Heritage site; Civil Rights Museum; Stone Mountain Park
(students from different countries have option to examine site from your own home if you prefer)
You will need to
- Consult site’s web site
- Summarize how site presents itself –what does it strive to do and how
- Prepare some historical context, which will require some research into newspaper archives online at Emory
- Then conduct analysis of specific constructions of place and/or identity that the tourism site promotes
For this latter stage you can look for academic articles for guidance but the basic questions you want to ask are
- What sort of cultural narrative is being generated? Is it centered on a place, like the US South, or it global, like Coke?
- Is it premised on a shared commitment to an ethical ideal, like racial/religious tolerance? Or is the presumed commonality among museum-goers an investment in identity formation via consumption?
- And what about zoos and aquariums: are these spaces in which he are inspired by a common sense of dread and terror, as with sharks and snakes, or rather a sense of kinship with less threatening animals, such as the primates, or dolphins?