Summer 2011 ChinaVine Field School Compares Cultures, Artistic Practices

Public Culture and Heritage a field school based in Beijing and co-directed by Doug Blandy and John Fenn during summer 2011 was a first for the ChinaVine program that AAD has been developing since 2006 in conjunction with the University of Oregon’s Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy (CCACP). ChinaVine is an interactive research effort aimed at educating English-speaking/reading audiences about Chinese folk and contemporary art and village life through modern technology. The endeavor includes an interactive website – ChinaVine.org – as well as social media such as Facebook and Vimeo. The full story on the AAA blog can be found here. The field school website is available here.

Feminist Publishing in the Digital Age: a Symposium

Feminist Publishing in the Digital Age: a Symposium
October 14-15, 2011
Knight Law Center, Room 184
University of Oregon Campus

Please RSVP to: gnmt.symposium@gmail.com

The Friday plenary session from 3:00 to 6:00 pm, “Peer Review as Feminist Practice,” will feature feminist communication scholars Carol Stabile (University of Oregon: Director, Center for the Study of Women in Society; SOJC; English), Kim Sawchuk (Concordia University: Communication Studies), and Radhika Gajjala (Bowling Green State University: Communication Studies and Cultural Studies).

Saturday events from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm include sessions on: 

- multi-modal publishing

- transforming digital publications for feminist pedagogy

- developing an online presence and portfolio

 

Info page: http://csws.uoregon.edu/?p=10039

Blog: http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/newmediasymposium/

Oregon Humanities public program grants: 10/31/11

Once a year, Oregon Humanities awards Public Program Grants between $1,000 and $10,000 to nonprofit organizations in Oregon to support programs that are timely, relevant, accessible, and interactive. Oregon Humanities welcomes proposals for programs that use the humanities in the public sphere to meet our core mission of connecting Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. Programs must begin after April 1, 2012. Letters of Interest must be postmarked by October 31, 2011. Sample successful proposals are available for download below.

Join Oregon Humanities grants staff on Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. for a webinar about Oregon Humanities Public Program Grants. Register for the webinar on our website beginning September 1.

Oregon Humanities awards Responsive Program Grants up to $1,000 on a rolling basis to nonprofit organizations in Oregon. Responsive Program Grants fund programs that are not part of an organization’s regular programming. Instead, these grants support programs created in response to pressing current issues or events that the applicant is uniquely qualified to help the public explore. 2012 Responsive Program Grant activities must begin after November 1, 2011.

Sample successful proposals are available for download at the O.Hm. website here: http://oregonhumanities.org/.

Cathy Davidson (Duke/HASTAC) in Fast Company

Dear UODS:

I opened this month’s issue of Fast Company and was thrilled to see Cathy Davidson (Duke/HASTAC) interviewed by Anya Kamenetz. It is well worth reading.

….”Institutions like work and school didn’t spring naturally out of the ground. They were invented for the industrial era and honed over 120 years,” Davidson says. “Individuals and certain companies have started to develop new practices, but conceptually we haven’t even made a shift to say, ‘Whoa, this is so new. We need to pay attention and adjust supportively.’”….

….Even as she works with her students to help rewrite the rules, she’s not going to let people of her own generation off the hook for turning their backs on the new reality. “When I hear from those 40-year-old, 50- year-old Luddites, I’m thinking, What else is wrong in your life that you have to make such a wall? If you’re that worried about distraction, something else is going on.”

DEALING WITH DISTRACTION AT WORK
Tips from Now You See It, by Cathy Davidson (forthcoming from Viking, August 2011)

• Plan offline interruptions into your day, whether a walk at lunch or a face-to-face meeting. Within your workplace, colleagues should have the ability to “hole up” solo or together on a project, free from constant connection to the rest of the world.
• A tip from designer Aza Raskin: Try reserving separate screens, or even separate devices, for Facebook, Twitter, and other distractors. If they’re in separate rooms, even better.
• Get into the habit of tagging complex matters to be discussed later, in real time. Davidson sends her colleagues emails with the subject line “Agenda”; at their weekly conference call, she’ll search her email for the term and — presto! — a list of items to discuss pops up.
• If chronically distracted, look below the surface. “We complain about email interference,” she says, “but the two most distracting things in any human life are emotional upset and physical discomfort — heartache and heartburn.”

MORE >>

Media/digital tools course in AAD this fall!

Image via Wikipedia

This fall (2011), the Arts and Administration Program @UO will host a course by independent filmmaker and media arts advocate, Helen DeMichiel. As a Visiting Scholar in AAD, Helen will offer Participatory Media and Social Practice as a hybrid course: largely online delivery augmented by three in-person workshop style meetings on Saturday mornings (first, fifth, and ninth weeks).

The course is listed as AAD 408/508 (CRNs 17441/177442). Here is the course description:

When an art, media or design project touches people it can be a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. And now, as media technologies take root in new environments – both virtual and physical – they are transforming how we frame, use and think about culture.  As new digital technologies liberate us to reinvent sustained and imaginative engagement with audience/participants and allies, creativity and experimentation are now being applied at every phase of what is becoming a three-dimensional system of interlocked parts moving across distribution platforms. This is the new transmedia space – dynamic, fluid and open.
In this emerging media ecology where film is migrating to the Web and converging with interactive and mobile platforms, games and other digital experiments, the question of how we make cultural artifacts to have abiding and transformative meaning and thicken public discourse in the real places and communities where we live and work becomes more urgent than ever.
This hybrid online course explores new and emerging transmedia models of cultural practice that are connecting to public engagement and community building strategies.  From inception to dissemination, artists, filmmakers, curators, programmers and new media designers are working with organizations and coalitions in an interdependent dialogue process that is changing the way citizens engage with the great issues of our world – from local to global — and make sense of them in order to act upon them.  By examining a range of case studies, we will closely analyze how new digital storytelling modes and interactive relationships among the creative industries, communities, organizations and policymakers are being leveraged to broaden and deepen social impact.
The goals of the course include: (1) giving students a theoretical and practical foundation in understanding current transmedia practices that are breaking out of traditional exhibition and distribution pathways; and (2) understand and practice the craft of funding proposal writing and design.

For more information, please feel free to contact John Fenn (jfenn AT uoregon.edu).

George Lakoff: The Neuroscience of Thought and Language” Friday 5/27 4pm Lawrence 177

Symposium on the Future of the Humanities (archived sessions)

These presentations may be of interest to many in the UODS community. Thanks to Cliff Lynch from the Coalition for Networked Information for calling this to our attention.

Oregon Undergraduate Research (OUR) Journal: New for 2011

OUR Journal

Editorial Board Application

Submit via email*

by 5pm Friday, May 20

http://journals.oregondigital.org/OURJ/

 OUR Journal is a new student-run, peer-reviewed publication showcasing the scholarly work of senior-status UO undergraduates in all academic disciplines including the sciences, humanities, and creative arts.

Applications are now being accepted to serve on the OUR Journal editorial board from Fall 2011 through Spring 2012. We encourage students from every field to apply.

Download the Editorial Board Application here:

http://uodigschol.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/our-editorial-board-application.pdf

*If you have trouble with the Save/Send function, print your application and deliver it to the Clark Honors College office (320 Chapman), attn Lucy Gubbins.

To learn more about OUR Journal:

Recent/Relevant Reports

From UODS member and Wired Humanities Project director Stephanie Wood, some recent reports and articles relevant to digital scholarship:

The New (In)visible College: Emergent Scholarly Communication Environment and the Liberal Arts
http://www.nitle.org/live/files/34-the-new-invisible-college

Digital Librarian Initiatives at Emory (where Brian Croxall and Miriam Posner are fellows):
http://diglib.clairmontheights.org/DLI

Academic Commons, “Digital Humanities and the Undergraduate,” (April 2011):

http://www.academiccommons.org/issue/april-2011

New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report for 2011:

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf

Ed Madison: “Tween TV” 4/15 12-1:30, MCC

Friday 4/15 12-1:30pm, 175 McKenzie (Collaboration Center)

Ed Madison (School of Journalism and Communications)
Tween TV: Engaging 5th Graders in Critical Thinking
with Digital Video Production and Mobile Media

Affordable handheld video cameras and mobile media devices are flooding the marketplace, sparking intrigue as well as debate about their prospective pedagogical benefits. Students are using these new technologies for digital storytelling and to access more knowledge outside of the classroom, signaling new possibilities and potential peril, as educators grapple with how to respond (Johnson, L. et al., 2010). Do these devices provide teachers with unforeseen ways of cultivating active learners and critical thinkers, as opposed to passive consumers — or is their educational value overstated? Are handheld video cameras and mobile media devices high-priced gadgets or essential tools for students learning to navigate their way in the 21st century?

Additionally, what types of learning environments are optimal for teaching with these technologies? This study examines how the increasing use of mobile devices, such as smartphones, iPads, and digital cameras in media course curricula affects the teaching and learning of critical thinking skills. I look at an elementary school class where 4th and 5th grade broadcast journalists joined the press corps at one of President Obama’s political events, aided by mobile media. I analyze teacher-student interactions with a specific emphasis on their discursive practices, from a poststructural theoretical framework, to reveal affects on students critical thinking abilities and overall achievement. The research utilizes video documentation of student journalism activities and class instruction.

You’re welcome to pack in a lunch. Info: Sean Sharp, ssharp@uoregon.edu.