Contact
Valerie Chepp University of Maryland Department of Sociology 2112 Art-Sociology Bldg College Park, MD 20742 Email: vchepp <at> umd.edu |
BioI am a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland, where I teach undergraduate courses on the Sociology of Gender, Ethnographic Field Methods, and Introductory Sociology. My primary academic interests lie in the areas of culture, art, everyday politics / social change, intersectionality, and knowledge. My dissertation research explores the aesthetics and politics of spoken word performance poetry, which I argue offers broader insight into the relationship between art and politics, particularly those performed in everyday public social spaces. From a methodological perspective, I’m interested in exploring alternative approaches to ethnography, specifically how sociologists can use sounds (such as everyday conversation, oral histories, verbal art forms, ambient sounds, music, and song lyrics) to create analyses about the social world, as well as how ethnographers and sociologists can employ different narrative and artistic strategies for documenting the social world. My work has resulted in co-published chapters on art and social change, and intersectionality and politics (forthcoming), as well as a journal article on the pedagogical utility of using commercials in the classroom.
In my free time, I like to cook and hang out with friends. I especially like to cook for my friends. As much as possible, I practice yoga and pilates. Lately, I've spent a lot of time pretending to be, and actually being, a spoken word performance poet. |
