Date Thesis Awarded

5-2019

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

Interdisciplinary Studies

Advisor

Jonathan Glasser

Committee Members

Tanya Stadelmann

Charles Palermo

Abstract

For this year-long project, I set out to produce a film that would capture the energy and community of the Meridian Coffeehouse on the campus of the College of William & Mary. For three years, I have played an active role in the management of the space, from booking, managing, and recording live music events to hosting various shifts to watch films and create music. Being a double major in Anthropology and Film & Media Studies, and having been further inspired by a Visual Anthropology course that I took at the University of St Andrews in Spring 2018, I decided to attempt a visual ethnographic approach to document the Meridian. I focused on my own relationship to the space and the people within it as a participant observer, pondering the ethics of the camera as a documentary tool and considering various stylistic and ideological approaches to representing a space and the people in it through a visual medium. The primary product of this Honors Thesis is the film, which is available on YouTube under the title Meridian - A Film by Ben Fox. This paper serves as a reflection on the process of filming and editing the documentary, and includes some context about the space and my own experiences to aid in the viewing of the film.

The link to the film is here: https://youtu.be/ibKYapZr1D8

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