Week 8

Week 8 Presentations

Jason Hsu

ASA 150E

Presentation 1

            I thought that your presentation was one of the best so far. I thought that you did a tremendous job with the interviews. The quality of the interview was great for several reasons; the subjects interviewed were very knowledgeable about your topic, the questions they responded to were well chosen and their responses were very helpful. It was also important because it was original research.

            I think your choice of video clips on House and popular culture was very helpful. You answered questions thoroughly and it showed your depth of knowledge about the topic.

After looking through your article I wonder if there was another article that could be used where the author of the article is Hmong. You did state however that it is hard to find such articles. I think this is another reason why your original research was so compelling.

My question is, what is your research question? Was it the comparison among first generation and second generation Hmong Shamanism? I wasn’t completely clear.

            I think since you relied heavily of video and images that you could have also provided significant images from Shamanism.

Presentation 2

            It was helpful that you clarified the research question during the presentation because I wasn’t sure what it was. I thought your personal experience on the topic offered important insight. I thought the flow of the presentation was good. I also think that you were clearly passionate about your research and that made your presentation interesting and easy for the audience to stay engaged. I do think most of your evidence was from firsthand accounts and did not use enough research articles, and studies.

            I was confused about some of the statements on the powerpoint. I think the conclusion that a hierarchy is needed (for the most part) is difficult to argue in a short presentation. I think the idea of punishment being positive for children could have been developed more as well.

            Regarding the example of pokemon being an example of how American culture negatively affects Hmong children, but isn’t pokemon a cultural product brought from Japan? What evidence do you have that the type of traditional punishment is helpful? What evidence did you find on corporal punishment?

            Since your thesis is about male Hmong college students, how does gender effect them? you stated that after reading the article you did not agree with much of the arguments in it. I think it would be helpful to use an article that either directly discussed your thesis or was more supportive of your conclusion about your thesis.