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Live, online via Zoom
23–24 January / 12:00–5:00pm ET
6–7 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
20–21 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
27 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
28 February / 12:30–3:30pm ET / Hearing Collective listening event
This live, online listening seminar unfolds across four intensive weekends. Grounded in audioethnography (oral history remix), layered storytelling, and critical study, Discourses of Difference examines how race, power, and history shape the stories people tell about themselves and others. The seminar asks participants to consider how American cultural values, norms, and beliefs sustain the social, economic, and political systems that shape perceptions of self, other, and difference.
The seminar is for those already engaged in these conversations as well as those who want to deepen how they listen across difference, think carefully, and enter difficult work with integrity, humility, and dignity. Participants examine how power constructs and depends on whiteness, masculinity, and notions of difference in order to sustain itself.
Through writing, close listening, critical study, digital remixing, and creative production, participants move between personal narrative and broader historical and structural contexts. The seminar includes guided work with recorded speech, a live interview conducted by the facilitator with a special guest, and instruction in editing and remix. It culminates in a public Hearing Collective.
Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, PhD, founding director of The Ed Factory.
Featuring a live oral history interview with a special guest and readings by award-winning documentary poet Mark Nowak and poets from the Worker Writers School.
—
Young People’s Archive & Hearing Collective
Oral history remixes and pocket films produced by participants during Discourses of Difference may become part of the Young People’s Archive, a digital collection of collaborative media—audio, images, text, and video—that examines and reframes American experience through the voices of everyday people. The seminar culminates in a public Hearing Collective where narrators and participants listen together and reflect on what the work reveals.
—
Because Discourses of Difference depends on shared presence, careful listening, and a willingness to participate in reflective and oral-history-based work, registration is by application. The application helps us understand whether the seminar is a good fit at this time and what level of support, if any, would make participation possible.
You can also use the application form to apply for a full or partial fellowship.
→ Standard tuition: $550 beginning 19 December 2026.
→ Early registration discount: $100 off standard tuition for accepted applicants who register by Friday, 18 December 2026. Use code DODSPRING27 at checkout.
→ Partial fellowship tuition: $225
→ Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please contact us to discuss options.
Tuition supports seminar instruction, a field guide, guest honoraria, and the sustained guidance required for interviews, editing, and listening sessions.
—
No prior experience is required.
For participants who want to become more comfortable with basic technology or are new to Zoom, Google Drive, or working online, a live online tutorial will be offered on Tuesday, 19 January, 6:00–7:00 pm ET. Tutorial registration ends 4 January at 11:59 pm ET. Participants must be registered for the seminar to attend.
—
Graduate-Level Extension Credit
Discourses of Difference has been validated through the University of San Diego Credit Validation Program to offer Graduate-Level Extension Credit. For an additional fee of $79 per unit, paid directly to USD, participants may elect 1–3.5 units applicable toward license renewal, professional development hours, salary advancement, and credentialing. A USD certificate is also available. Credit is optional and separate from seminar tuition. Participants are responsible for confirming acceptance of credit with their employer or institution.
Contact us for more information.
—
All texts will be provided.
Participants will need:
A quiet place to join the seminar on Zoom
A smartphone with basic voice and video recording capability
Access to Google Drive
A laptop or desktop computer
Audio editing instruction will be provided for both Mac and Windows users. A list of free audio and video editing tools will be shared during the seminar.
—
“I think your work is really brilliant and strongly support your program. It is one of the only approaches I’ve seen creating the conditions for a respectful, equitable, democratic civil society that seems like it might actually produce real change.”
“Coming from the background of the Marines, you are taught that being vulnerable is a weakness. This seminar helped me realize that I am better than acting like a still body, strong on the outside, and hiding my vulnerability. I choose to be a vessel of good and compassion.”
© Analog Collage by Vanessa Small Harrigan, 2022
Live, online via Zoom
23–24 January / 12:00–5:00pm ET
6–7 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
20–21 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
27 February / 12:00–5:00pm ET
28 February / 12:30–3:30pm ET / Hearing Collective listening event
This live, online listening seminar unfolds across four intensive weekends. Grounded in audioethnography (oral history remix), layered storytelling, and critical study, Discourses of Difference examines how race, power, and history shape the stories people tell about themselves and others. The seminar asks participants to consider how American cultural values, norms, and beliefs sustain the social, economic, and political systems that shape perceptions of self, other, and difference.
The seminar is for those already engaged in these conversations as well as those who want to deepen how they listen across difference, think carefully, and enter difficult work with integrity, humility, and dignity. Participants examine how power constructs and depends on whiteness, masculinity, and notions of difference in order to sustain itself.
Through writing, close listening, critical study, digital remixing, and creative production, participants move between personal narrative and broader historical and structural contexts. The seminar includes guided work with recorded speech, a live interview conducted by the facilitator with a special guest, and instruction in editing and remix. It culminates in a public Hearing Collective.
Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, PhD, founding director of The Ed Factory.
Featuring a live oral history interview with a special guest and readings by award-winning documentary poet Mark Nowak and poets from the Worker Writers School.
—
Young People’s Archive & Hearing Collective
Oral history remixes and pocket films produced by participants during Discourses of Difference may become part of the Young People’s Archive, a digital collection of collaborative media—audio, images, text, and video—that examines and reframes American experience through the voices of everyday people. The seminar culminates in a public Hearing Collective where narrators and participants listen together and reflect on what the work reveals.
—
Because Discourses of Difference depends on shared presence, careful listening, and a willingness to participate in reflective and oral-history-based work, registration is by application. The application helps us understand whether the seminar is a good fit at this time and what level of support, if any, would make participation possible.
You can also use the application form to apply for a full or partial fellowship.
→ Standard tuition: $550 beginning 19 December 2026.
→ Early registration discount: $100 off standard tuition for accepted applicants who register by Friday, 18 December 2026. Use code DODSPRING27 at checkout.
→ Partial fellowship tuition: $225
→ Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please contact us to discuss options.
Tuition supports seminar instruction, a field guide, guest honoraria, and the sustained guidance required for interviews, editing, and listening sessions.
—
No prior experience is required.
For participants who want to become more comfortable with basic technology or are new to Zoom, Google Drive, or working online, a live online tutorial will be offered on Tuesday, 19 January, 6:00–7:00 pm ET. Tutorial registration ends 4 January at 11:59 pm ET. Participants must be registered for the seminar to attend.
—
Graduate-Level Extension Credit
Discourses of Difference has been validated through the University of San Diego Credit Validation Program to offer Graduate-Level Extension Credit. For an additional fee of $79 per unit, paid directly to USD, participants may elect 1–3.5 units applicable toward license renewal, professional development hours, salary advancement, and credentialing. A USD certificate is also available. Credit is optional and separate from seminar tuition. Participants are responsible for confirming acceptance of credit with their employer or institution.
Contact us for more information.
—
All texts will be provided.
Participants will need:
A quiet place to join the seminar on Zoom
A smartphone with basic voice and video recording capability
Access to Google Drive
A laptop or desktop computer
Audio editing instruction will be provided for both Mac and Windows users. A list of free audio and video editing tools will be shared during the seminar.
—
“I think your work is really brilliant and strongly support your program. It is one of the only approaches I’ve seen creating the conditions for a respectful, equitable, democratic civil society that seems like it might actually produce real change.”
“Coming from the background of the Marines, you are taught that being vulnerable is a weakness. This seminar helped me realize that I am better than acting like a still body, strong on the outside, and hiding my vulnerability. I choose to be a vessel of good and compassion.”
© Analog Collage by Vanessa Small Harrigan, 2022
