This course explores methods of eliciting responses in qualitative empirical research and the significance of the researcher as a fundamental element of that which is being researched. In this course, students will focus on the research experience, the various relations and interactions that emerge between the researcher and the researched, and the fundamental impact of these relations on the knowledge that is gathered and produced. Many forms of empirical inquiry use elicitation to engage communities and places, to generate and collect data, and to uncover evidence of various kinds, and each of these forms frames the aims, content, and techniques of elicitation differently. Drawing on the wide-ranging use of qualitative research in the social sciences, we will frame the research process itself as contingent, dialogical, embodied, and emergent. Students will experiment with different modes of eliciting responses including participant observation, storytelling, silence, listening, interrupting, mediating, and tracing. Students will read, write, experiment, and collaborate to practice elicitation working toward a final multi-modal project. They will learn how to develop various embodied techniques to interrogate and understand the complex worlds of which they are a part, and that are a part of them.