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Scholars have long praised the ways in which film can provide students with an opportunity for deep intellectual and emotional connections to classroom material. With contemporary technology, however, instructors are instead turning toward shorter audiovisual material that can be accessed with little preparation, take up less class time, and cater to an instructor's needs. But what has been lost? Are film's established advantages now irrelevant? Here we aim to begin a conversation about the continued use of film in the classroom. We do so through an analysis of surveys sent to students who have previously taken a class that used streaming services to assign over a dozen films as homework assignments over the course of the semester. Results show that films remain an immersive and reflexive complement to course readings and often continue to have an impact on students after the class has concluded. Nevertheless, instructor guidance remains essential.

Scholars have long praised the ways in which film can provide students with an opportunity for deep intellectual and emotional connections to classroom material. With contemporary technology, however, instructors are instead turning toward shorter audiovisual material that can be accessed with little preparation, take up less class time, and cater to an instructor's needs. But what has been lost? Are film's established advantages now irrelevant? Here we aim to begin a conversation about the continued use of film in the classroom. We do so through an analysis of surveys sent to students who have previously taken a class that used streaming services to assign over a dozen films as homework assignments over the course of the semester. Results show that films remain an immersive and reflexive complement to course readings and often continue to have an impact on students after the class has concluded. Nevertheless, instructor guidance remains essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout his life, W.E.B. Du Bois actively engaged the scientific racism infecting natural sciences and popular thought. Nevertheless, he also demonstrated a sophisticated and critical engagement with natural science. He recognized that the sciences were socially situated, but also that they addressed real questions and issues. Debate remains, however, regarding exactly how and why Du Bois incorporated such natural scientific knowledge into his own thinking. In this article, we draw on archival research and Du Bois' own scholarship to investigate his general approach to interdisciplinarity. We address how and why he fused natural scientific knowledge and the influence of physical environs into his social science, intertwining each with his broader intellectual and political aims. This investigation will offer a fuller understanding of the scope and aims of his empirical scholarship. At the same time, it will illuminate a sociological approach to natural science that can still inform scholarship today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth machine theory has provided an influential foundation for thinking about the political economy of place-making and related environmental transformations. It remains silent, however, on how such dynamics can connect through time and space to influence subsequent growth machine dynamics elsewhere. I address this gap by advancing a modified "incorporated comparison" of the Asian carp invasion, an invasive species event generating significant social turmoil in the American Midwest. Empirics draw from document analysis and 71 semi-structured interviews. Results illuminate how local place-making and landscape transformations can connect in contingent ways to render nature a powerful force in subsequent growth-machine battles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]