Professor: Allison Taylor-Adams

credits 4.00

• CRN 16729: Monday & Wednesday, 4:00-5:20pm @ GSH 132

Interviews are so ubiquitous in scholarship and in popular media that we can easily take them for granted, assuming that we know how they work and what they tell us (Atkinson & Silverman, 1997). In this class we will look at interviews with fresh eyes, and critically (re)consider interviewing both as a method for researching human experience and as a site of interaction between those asking questions and those answering them. 
The course is especially relevant to students interested in using interviews in their own research projects, but is also broadly applicable for any student who wants to think more deeply about language and about the dynamics of human relationships. Students in this class can expect to add to their methodological as well as their theoretical toolkit. We will develop practical skills such as creating interview questions, transcribing interview recordings, and analyzing interview data. We will also cultivate the ability to examine and critique social science theories and the ability to translate a theoretical point of view into a practical application. At the end of this course, students will have a fully developed Research Plan for a project built around interviewing as well as a clearly articulated statement of their own theory of the interview as talk in action.