Saturday, March 5, 2016
12:00-5:00 pm
AAA Library
Bring your laptop, power cord, and ideas for entries that need updating or creation.
Wikimedia’s gender trouble is well-documented. In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10% of its contributors identify as female. The reasons for the gender gap are up for debate; suggestions include leisure inequality, how gender socialization shapes public comportment, and the sometimes-contentious nature of Wikipedia’s talk pages. The practical effect of this disparity, however, is not. Content is skewed by the lack of female participation. This represents an alarming absence in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.
Join us at The Architecture and Allied Arts (A&AA) Library, 200 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd, University of Oregon on Saturday, March 5th from noon to 5pm for a communal updating of Wikipedia entries on subjects related to art and feminism. We will provide tutorials for the beginner Wikipedian, reference materials, and refreshments.
“Calling innovative new media and digital artists who have a love of travel and passion for community-driven art! We are excited excited to open the next round of applications for the following participating overseas locations: Cambodia, Colombia, Guatemala, Russia, and Thailand. One artist will be selected for each location and will be responsible for creating a public art project plus overseeing a unique “small grants” program to facilitate community-driven art in that location.
The deadline to apply is February 29, 2016 by 11:59pm PST. The Artist will receive $7,000 honoraria for participation, plus an assigned budget for workshop and public art production costs overseas.
American Arts Incubator is an international arts exchange program developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). The program sends artists abroad to collaborate with youth and under-served populations on community-based digital and new media art projects that bolster local economies, influence public policy, and further social innovation. Inspired by the “business incubator” model made popular by Silicon Valley’s technology and startup companies, American Arts Incubator is a hybrid training lab, production workshop, and tool for public engagement. It showcases artists as engaged and innovative partners in addressing social issues, in addition to creating a cross-cultural exchange of ideas.
Participating overseas locations for this opportunity are Cambodia, Colombia, Guatemala, Russia, and Thailand. One artist will be selected for each location. Download a pdf version of requirements here and read our FAQ here.
Dates of Participation Program duration is July 1, 2016 – August 31, 2017. Core dates for in-person participation include a week-long orientation in San Jose, California scheduled for late Summer or early Fall 2016.
International travel will be 4 weeks between September 2016 and May 2017 (specific dates will be determined collaboratively by the Artist, overseas embassy and partner, and ZERO1). In addition, multiple deliverables are expected in the months leading up to overseas travel and immediately following travel (e.g., project proposals, blog posts, project recaps). Artists will be expected to document their experiences and project developments before, during, and after overseas travel via the program’s website and relevant social media.
The budget will be determined during a pre-travel proposal time period, based on approval by ECA, the respective U.S. Embassy, and ZERO1. The program covers airfare, accommodations, and basic travel costs.”
With a hesitant beginning as a freshman double majoring in English and musical theater, my studies were initially motivated by a love of words and a desire to be the center of attention. I had cultivated many pieces of an academic persona over time and yet I had no idea how these fragments would come together to answer the age-old question: “What are you going to do with an English degree?” As my degree progressed I realized ways that I could integrate contemporary media into my studies and I began to see how my English degree had evolved from a love of literature into a tool capable of inciting social and political change. The pieces came together in a way that was both meaningful and cohesive.
My current research interests derive from the intersection of 20th/21st Century American film, feminist media studies, and cultural studies. My work seeks to reveal the ideological inculcations in contemporary visual texts, particularly those marketed towards young children, with the goal of understanding the ways in which systems of belief that result in the perpetuation of rape culture are reproduced within everyday images and social interactions, transmitting concealed moments of micro-aggressions and social injustices. My latest project makes a slight diversion from this objective and focuses instead on the relationship between material products (film) and industrial practices.
My latest essay “Monsters in the Closet: (Re)Negotiating Corporate Hegemony and The Death of Hand-Drawn Animation” enters at the nexus of the history of cinematic and Disney scholarship. My research focuses on the shift in the political economy of animation during the Disney and Pixar merge and I examine the 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc. as an allegory for the tenuous partnership between Disney and Pixar at various impasses during their twenty-year relationship. This allegory signals the political economy of animation and large-scale media corporations in the late 1990s to early 2000s as the medium shifted from hand drawn to computer generated imagery. It earns its significance by allowing us to not only examine how social conditions surface in material products but by also providing an avenue through which we can explore both the corporate hegemony that necessitated these contract negotiations, the Disney acquisition of Pixar, as well as the leadership that needed to shift for the acquisition to be possible, the promotion of Pixar leadership within the Disney Studios.
In my spare time I am an avid CrossFitter (which is why this photo is brought to you by athleisure)!
Discovery of NMCC:
As a film scholar, I encountered the New Media and Culture Certificate program during my media-related courses. This was a truly fortunate discovery because the addition of the New Media and Digital Culture Certificate has provided me the opportunity to expand my research past my comfort zone of film studies and enrich my knowledge of new media and emerging technologies. This quarter I am enrolled in a seminar where I have gotten to learn about the theory of games – and I even get to work with my group to create my own computer video game program!
Useful Resources for New Media Students:
I have recently found that reviewing non-academic publications can be an inspiring tool for inciting new, and innovative ideas. I think that these publications are often overlooked, but are rich with socio-political insight. Some of my favorite places to start include: The Atlantic, Slate, The Learned FanGirl, The New York Times, and Huffington Post. My interest in internet circulated media has increased exponentially as I begin to think through my next project which seeks to address the social function of fan-created adaptations.
Influential Reads:
Some of my favorite texts (books, articles, and documentaries) include –
Kline, Stephen. “The Making of Children’s Culture.” Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing. London: Verso, 1993. Print.
The Pixar Story. Dir. Leslie Iwerks. Perf. Stacey Keach, John Lasseter, and Brad Bird. Leslie Iwerks Productions, 2007. Web.
I have set two major goals for myself to accomplish this year: 1) I want to achieve a more balanced, healthy lifestyle and 2) I want to submit my first essay for academic publication. I have been working diligently towards both of these goals by incorporating both strength enhancing and mind-body fitness programs into my daily routine and also meeting with advisors and peers who can help me refine my work.
In addition to these larger goals, I have also been submitting pitches to popular Internet magazines (such as Slate, The Atlantic, and The Learned FanGirl) to increase my participation in non-academic conversations about popular media. I will be spending the majority of my summer studying for breadth exams this coming fall!
What’s on your shelf? Interested in being NMCC’s next Shelfie feature? Email us!
The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Fembot Collective, Ms. Magazine, and the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society are sponsoring a two-day event focused on feminist innovation, education, and collaboration.
“On Friday, March 11th we’ll convene at the Ms. Magazine’s offices in Beverly Hills to write historical figures that have been marginalized because of their gender, race, and sexuality into Wikipedia. Our Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon will not only contribute to the world of free and accessible knowledge, but will emphasize a conscious feminist approach so as to ensure the existence of a gender inclusive history of everything within Wikipedia’s vast database. At the Edit-a-Thon, we’ll be training people on how to navigate the content production system in Wikipedia, how to make effective and engaging entries that will outlive their creators, and how to improve on existing content with more robust citations, data, categories, infoboxes, etc. Join us as we ensure the digital legacy of women, trans, and/or gender non-conforming people in multiple discipline, fields, and periods of history!”
3 Tracks for this year’s event:
Writing the history of athletics from the margins: documenting the careers of marginalized figures in college athletics
Excavating the Ms. Magazine archives: generate Wikipedia content on-site from the Ms. Magazine, a political publication covering feminist content, archives in Beverley Hills
Producing content with your own ideas: “ensure the presence of women, trans, and/or gender non-conforming people in multiple disciplines, fields, and periods of history. Bring your ideas along!”
“On, Saturday, March 12th, we’ll head over to USC to workshop and launch the first chapters of Fembot’s forthcoming textbook on Digital Tools for Civic Engagement. The un-conference begins with a series of lightening talks that introduce six digital tools and ways to harness them for feminist scholarship, activism, and civic engagement.In the afternoon, we’ll come together and vote on our three favorite feminist tools to tackle, followed by concurrent workshops where participants are trained on the basics and collaborate on applications. All three sessions will lay the groundwork for Fembot’s open access digital textbook on digital tools for civic engagement, which will be published through Fembot’s open access platform as part of the Fembot Toolkit.”
The Symposium Committee is currently seeking submissions for the symposium next fall. Topics might include privacy, anonymity, griefing, free speech, intellectual property, hacking, scamming, surveillance, information mining, transparency, digital citizenship, or anything else relating to ethical questions and digital technology. This is an interdisciplinary symposium that welcomes all backgrounds and approaches to research.
Abstracts should propose original research that has not been presented or published elsewhere. The abstract should be between 500 and 1,000 words in length (not including references) and should include a discussion of the methodology used.
Authors of accepted papers will be eligible for up to $400 in travel funds to be able to attend the Chicago symposium. The author(s) of the top student paper will be eligible for up to $1,000 in travel funds.
Abstracts are due by midnight CST on April 1st, 2016, and should follow APA or MLA.
Authors of top papers will have the opportunity to have their work published in Proceedings from the 6th Annual Symposium on Digital Ethics. Send your submission in a MS Word document attachment to contact@digitalethics.org, and please write Digital Ethics Symposium submission in the subject line.
Listicles, explainers, memes, infographics, GIFs, Vines and many other novel digital genres and formats are now commonplace on the Internet. Despite their popularity, these vernacular modes of writing are often greeted with disdain within the hallowed halls of academe. Yet there is a long history of great thinkers making use of vernacular modes of expression to communicate serious ideas in popular ways, from the bawdy turns of Rabelais, to editorial cartoons, to the pamphlets of the 18th century. Moreover, many contemporary styles which may seem new, such as the listicle, have a long historical legacy.
Introducing: Buzzademia: Scholarship in the Internet Vernacular
This forthcoming edited collection will present a cross-section of international scholars using these new digital genres to articulate their ideas to undergraduate and general audiences. We describe this activity as Buzzademia, which we define as scholarship in the vernacular of the Internet. Consisting of a print book and digital companion, the collection will offer an archive of digital artifacts that represent the best of Buzzademia. Our aim is to contribute to the ongoing reimagining of the ways in which scholars and philosophers convey their ideas.
We welcome submissions of a wide range of digital artifacts, including but not limited to the following forms:
Listicles
From the listicle CFP: “Distill your entire dissertation into a single animated GIF”
Explainers
Memes
Vlogs; Vines; GIFs; Internet video genres (e.g., “unboxings”)
Submissions may seek to explain existing scholarly ideas or theorists, or articulate original scholarly arguments (however, they should aim to be accessible to a general audience). Topics may span across the Liberal Arts tradition, including but not limited to Philosophy, Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Race/Ethnicity Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Media Studies, Film Studies, Game Studies, Postcolonialism, Poststructuralism, Queer Theory; as well as meta-approaches that reflect on or critique Internet culture and conventions. Submitted works should capture the distinctive characteristics of contemporary Internet writing, such as concision, playfulness/humor, an emphasis on visual communication, pop culture references, colloquial language, and interactivity (not to mention emoji, cat pictures and GIFs).
We also invite the proposals for accompanying teaching materials which make use of one of the above genres. Ultimately, the published book will contain introductory essays, brief abstracts, and a compendium of classroom activities.
If you would like to submit a proposal, please send the following to buzzademia@gmail.com by April 1, 2016:
A link to your digital artifact (post); or a text, image, or video file
A brief description of your work explaining the rationale behind it (250-450 words)
For more than a century, mighty Bethlehem Steel anchored Lehigh University’s hometown, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Now that the Steel is gone, Bethlehem is experiencing the economic, social and cultural transformations of a city in transition to a post-industrial future. Lehigh faculty, staff and students have begun telling the city’s story using new digital media forms, chronicling the near universal themes of a community grappling with compelling issues of social justice and its own evolving history.
We seek a postdoctoral scholar well-versed in digital media, methods and technologies, with scholarly interest in one or more of the following areas: documentary studies, community engagement, urban studies and social justice. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in documentary film or digital storytelling. The scholar will pursue digital humanities scholarship, teach one undergraduate course each semester, contribute to workshops in partnership with the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, and work one-on-one to help faculty integrate digital media into their courses. The scholar will also take the lead in organizing a conference at Lehigh during the Spring semester of 2018 that will provide a showcase for student, faculty and community work and a forum for interaction with nationally and internationally recognized figures in digital humanities.
The goal is to drive expansion of an undergraduate humanities curriculum that engages the local community, equips more faculty with enhanced skill sets in digital humanities forms, amplifies undergraduate humanities research, and leads to the development of an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in documentary studies.
The position is open to candidates with a Ph.D. received between August 2013 and August 2016. We seek scholars from a wide range of humanities disciplines as well as the humanistic social sciences.
“The University of Alabama seeks a forward-thinking librarian with innovative ideas for learning-centered approaches to research and instructional services. Reporting to the Head of Gorgas Information Services, this position will serve as a proactive liaison to several humanities departments in the College of Arts & Sciences. Liaison assignments include instruction, outreach and selection and will be determined based on candidate’s background. The Reference & Instruction Librarian will actively participate in teaching and learning in GIS, including participation in the Freshman Writing Program. This position also participates in outreach to non-academic units to develop events and services that promote the Libraries.
Please apply online here. A letter of application, resume, and names, address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of three references should be included.
Required qualifications:
• Master’s degree in Library & Information Sciences from an ALA-accredited institution.
• Two years experience working in an academic library.
• Experience providing reference and/or instruction services in an academic or research library environment.
• Experience in collection development in an academic or research library.
• Knowledge of trends and services in academic libraries to support undergraduate and graduate education.
• Knowledge of current and emerging trends in information literacy instruction and information technologies.
• Awareness of new and emerging technologies and how they can be utilized in an academic library.
• Ability to successfully initiate, track, and manage projects.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and customer service skills and the ability to interact effectively with faculty, students and staff.
Preferred qualifications:
• Advanced degree in a humanities field.
• Record of scholarship and professional involvement.
• Experience developing innovative services to enhance research and/or teaching.
• Experience developing LibGuides, tutorials, and learning objects. Functional knowledge of WordPress, CSS, HTML, and the Adobe Creative Suite a plus.
• Advanced technological skillsets that contribute to the teaching, learning, and research environment.
Position open until filled. Applications received by February 29, 2016 will receive full consideration.
