Athens Faculty Awarded Grant

Elena Mamoulaki, an anthropology professor at the Arcadia Center in Athens, has been awarded a grant to cover the costs of a camera and video equipment to use during her course, Contemporary Greek Society, which runs as a part of the Arcadia in Athens program. Her proposal was submitted to the Instructional Technology Committee at Arcadia with the hopes of using the equipment to engage her students in digital storytelling and, in the process, introduce other faculty in Athens and possibly throughout the Mediterranean to this pedagogical approach

Mamoulaki looks to expand and explore the knowledge of Greek society and culture with students by gathering video, sound, and still images. With this equipment, students will team up to create short documentaries and experience the real producing and editing processes by also gaining a deeper insight of the creation of a narrative.

Not only will it help students learn about Athens and the unheard voices of its inhabitants, this knowledge will also give students the tools to be more insightful and critical of visual representations they encounter daily in the media. Mamoulaki is very experienced with the production of ethnographic documentaries, and plans to help students acquire the skills necessary to produce their own short documentaries.

The camera and video equipment will be used while the class is being taught, and is to be available for other faculty members in the future. Mamoulaki hopes that documentary production is eventually a part of many other classes, as it encourages many other colleagues from diverse fields to incorporate this technology into their teachings.