Amy Katz <akatz who-is-at CLEMSON.EDU>

Amy Katz (akatz who-is-at CLEMSON.EDU)
Tue, 11 Nov 1997 18:41:49

Hello! My name is Amy Beth Katz, and I'm currently teaching at Clemson
University in South Carolina. I recently returned from Bosnia-Herzegovina,
where I was teaching communication studies for the University of Maryland's
European Division. If you can imagine a tent full of uniformed students,
each carrying a machine gun in one hand and a text book in the other, or if
you can imagine escaping from the military base where most Americans are
forced to live, driving past bombed out buildings and mine fields just to
meet with Bosnian friends for conversation and cappuccino, well you have a
very good imagination, and you also have a picture of how surreal my life
has been! Actually, that was a wonderful, heart-wrenching time, and I'm
finding that my current academic research is helping me work through and
make sense of my international experiences. (Over the past seven years,
I've also studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; I worked in Seoul
teaching English communication skills to Korean business people and Secret
Service agents at the "Blue House" ; and I lived in tzfat, a mountain-top
village of orthodox Jews in the Golan Heights, known as the center of
Jewish mysticism in Israel.

I am passionately interested in the relationship between culture and
communication and the creation of mind. I've recently discovered the works
of Shweder and I'm exploring Cultural Psychology and the theorists who have
informed this philosophy. I've always believed wholeheartedly in an
interdisciplinary approach to communication and cognitive psychology and
I'm happy to discover that I'm not alone (I was alone, in this respect,
through my undergraduate and master's program.. come to think of it, with
the exception of a couple fabulous people in the psych and sociology
departments, I'm alone here at Clemson too!).

Currently, I'm researching cultural-specific mental illness, and I'm very
interested in the role of communication in the perpetuation/treatment of
phobias, and also it's role in traditional healing. (My identical twin
sister just moved to the Philippines to study with the infamous "psychic
surgeons", and I'm looking forward to visiting her soon and interviewing
many of them...often I need to experience something directly, myself,
before I can accept it's validity...that's probably why I put myself in
such unusual situations!) I'm also exploring the phenomenon that William
Condon termed "Synchronicity". It amazes me that so little is written about
the topic of how emotions are instantaneously shared and mutually
experienced.

I would love to correspond with members of xmca via e mail, so please write
me at akatz who-is-at clemson.edu. One last thing- I'm crazy about movies, poetry
and music, and I love to explore the arts in conjunction with traditional
"academic" research,(and incorporate them into the classes I teach), so if
you have any interesting ideas, please share: I'll do the same! I'm also
exploring PH D programs, and would welcome ideas and insights on any
program related to culture and communication.

Amy

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