Terrence W. Epperson, Ph.D.

Social Sciences Librarian

Greetings! As of March 1, 2004 I am the College of New Jersey Social Sciences Librarian, serving five departments within the School of Culture and Society:

• Communication Studies
• Criminology & Justice Studies
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology/Anthropology

 

Feel free to contact me by e-mail

 

Education

Drexel University, College of Information Science and Technology, MS Degree (Library and Information Science), 2003.

Temple University, Ph.D. Degree, Anthropology, 1991. Dissertation: "To Fix a Perpetual Brand": The Social Construction of Race in Virginia, 1675-1750.

Recent Publication:

• (2006) "Toward a Critical Ethnography of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning" Library Philosophy and Practice 9(1). pdf version

Union Activity

I am the TCNJ Library Membership Representative to Local 2364, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) . Directory of all TCNJ Member Reps

Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS)

I am currently a member of the 2007 ANSS Program Committee for the Annual ALA Meeting to be held in Washington D.C.

Research Interests

As the TCNJ Social Sciences Librarian, my current research interests focus on the potentially crucial role of librarianship within the transformed curriculum, and I have a particular interest in the emerging field of computer-supported collaborative learning. CSCL has two interrelated concerns: 1) how can computer mediation support and enhance collaborative learning, and 2) how can social science research enhance our understanding of the collaborative process. This interdisciplinary research incorporates insights from diverse fields, including: design research (human-computer interaction), situated learning (education), ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (sociology), and activity theory (psychology). I am currently working on a literature review article that examines the potential contributions of critical ethnography to CSCL.

As a potential research focus, I am interested in partnering with teaching faculty in the social sciences to foster and enhance collaborative learning. Although SOCS (Simple Online Couseware System) was initially designed as a traditional instructional tool, the enhanced version currently being implemented also has untapped potential to serve as a collaborative learning tool.

As an anthropologist, I also have a continuing interest in race/class/gender issues, particularly the social construction and contestation of "whiteness" as a seemingly natural, innate category. I am also interested in intellectual property and cultural patrimony issues within minority communities. My interests in librarianship and anthropology are combined in concerns related to information equity and the digital divide.

 

Subject Guide

The USA PATRIOT Act in the Library Comments welcome.

PowerPoint Presentation "New Faculty Presentation 2/25/05

Click here

On February 25, 2005 I gave a 20-minute presentation entitled "Critical Ethnography and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning" as part of the New Faculty orientation program at TCNJ. As promised, the presentation slides are presented here. Please note that slides 19-47 present a 3.5 minute segment of a chat log. Once you get to slide 19 (which has only one line of text in green print) the PowerPoint slides should proceed in real time (i.e. timed as they appeared in the original chat). Once chat line 29 appears (pin: so whats the formula), you can manually click through the rest of the slides. As I indicated in my presentation, I am interested in connecting with teaching faculty who might want to collaborate on this type of research. I look forward to hearing from folks.

 

 

Sample Publications

• (2004) "Critical Race Theory and the Archaeology of the African Diaspora," Historical Archaeology 38(1):101-108. [special thematic issue: "Transcending Boundaries, Transforming the Discipline: African Diaspora Archaeologies in the New Millennium," edited by Maria Franklin and Larry McKee]

 

• (2000) "Panoptic Plantations: The Garden Sights of Thomas Jefferson and George Mason," in Lines That Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender, edited by James A. Delle, Stephen A. Mrozowski, and Robert Paynter, University of Tennessee Press.

 

• (1999) "The Contested Commons: Archaeologies of Race, Repression and Resistance in New York City," in Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr., Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

 

• (1994) "The Politics of Empiricism and the Construction of Race as an Analytical Category," Transforming Anthropology 5(1&2):15-19.

 

• (1991) "Race and the Disciplines of the Plantation," Historical Archaeology 24(4):29-36.