Asher Ruck

Cultural Anthropology and Community Studies

Academic Advisor: Jennifer Grubbs and Kevin McGruder
Co-op Advisor: Richard Kraince

Co-ops: Project Vida, Antioch College, Camphill Copake
Additional Campus Involvement: ComCil

Languages: Spanish

City: Ellicott City 

Email: aruck@antiochcollege.edu
 

L’dor v'dor; A portrait of my mother

Biographies are often described using two metaphors, either as an autopsy or as a portrait. For this project, I wanted to construct the second, a written portrait of my own mother, Dorney Chesto Ruck. To do this, we explored four significant domains of her life through interviewing; Space and Place, Religion, Motherhood, and Cancer. These interviews are not merely accounts of stories, as they also include contemporary questions and conversations of identity, philosophy, politics and life itself. Not entirely a biography, not quite a memoir, and not outright an ethnographic work, the end product of this project is a written document resembling a portrait and a sort of an heirloom that can be passed down in my family to answer the question, “Who is,” or “Who Was” my mother. This, alongside the process of creation, a reflection, and advice for replication, make up my senior capstone project, L’dor v'dor; A portrait of my mother.