📢 Attention all researchers and scholars! Do you use qualitative methodologies in your research? Do you want to learn about qualitative research methodologies or share your passion about qualitative research with others? The Center for Middletown Studies is initiating the Qualitative Research Interest Group to bring together scholars across academic disciplines and colleges to learn […]

Dr. Debbie Shang, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middletown Studies, will discuss her research on local homeschooling practices on Feburary 28, 3:30 PM, in Burkhardt Room 222. Shang will discuss the ways in which homeschooling is disembedded from school space but deeply embedded in the local community. Homeschooling in […]

We’ve had a busy fall term at the Center.  A few updates: Support Student Research!  The Center, which has a long history of supporting hands-on student research experiences, is now raising funds to support those efforts.  Learn more here. Deep Mapping Middletown.  We completed the project’s initial brainstorming workshop in September with support from the […]

The Center and the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA) Lab will host a workshop devoted to the Deep Mapping Middletown project. The aim is to devise a framework for a set of “deep maps” on Muncie derived from the extensive archive of research materials generated through research on the city as “Middletown.” Deep maps […]

Dwight Hoover, the founding Director of the Center for Middletown Studies, passed away last week at the age of 95.  He served as Director of the Center from 1983 until 1991, when he retired from Ball State.  Dwight published widely over the course of his career on subjects ranging from Black History to his early […]

Another semester is in the books and we have a few exciting developments to report: First and foremost, the Center welcomes Dr. Jennifer Erickson as its new Assistant Director.  Jen is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Ball State.  You can read more about her here and here.  She is the author of Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, […]

  Cornell University Press has published Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy, and Practice in Small Cities.  The book draws together scholars from a broad range of disciplines to consider the present condition and future prospects of smaller American cities.  It argues that struggling smaller cities in the U.S. face a distinctive mix of challenges and opportunities […]

Work related to Everyday Life in Middletown continues on a few fronts.  First, and most important, we’ve scheduled our next Diary Day for Friday, October 22, 2021.  It represents the third set of contributions collected during 2021 (two diaries and a directive).  Look for one more Diary Day before the end of the calendar year. […]

August, 2021 And we’re back.  The Fall 2021 term has begun, so we’d like to update you on our summer work.  A few highlights: At the end of the spring term, we wrapped up the NEH-funded Library Circulation Histories Workshop.  For Covid reasons, we had to reformat it, turning it from an in-person gathering to […]

Welcome to the Center for Middletown Studies Research Website.  Here you’ll find notices about the Center’s projects and publications, including our plans for new initiatives, as well as ideas and commentary derived from the Center’s work.  Although the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed a few of our initiatives down, we’re still forging ahead.    In April, 2021 we will […]