Visual Rhetoric in Tech Com

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This week we’ll cover the issue of visual rhetoric in technical communication. We begin with an article by Greenzweig  who discusses “the ways in which visual composition contributes to a user’s aesthetic experience and why such an experience is important when designing information structures.” We continue with McCloud’s chapter in… Continue reading

Remix (D-Ped 11/30)

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Welcome to Remix Culture Week! Readings/Videos Larry Lessig’s TED talk on Copyright Law Remix Theory’s definition of Remix  An excerpt from David Shields’ Reality Hunger Questions to Consider How might remix challenge traditional the structure of rhetoric?  Or is is not so much a challenge as another piece of the… Continue reading

The Rhetoric of “Occupy Wall Street”

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For my second soundbite-focused post, I’m already deviating from the original plan by covering not so much a soundbite as the name of an entire movement. I’ve been wondering lately about the awkward resonance of “Occupy Wall Street,” the way that first word “Occupy” provokes so many distinctive interpretations: it can suggest invasion, colonization, aggressive seizure of territory; less aggressively, it can simply mean occupying a position, both in the sense of physical space and a mental perspective; and of course it echoes occupation as work, employment, along with the work we do at work (on our best days), when we are intensely engaged in (occupied with) a task.

So what does it really mean to “Occupy Wall Street?” For a variety of reasons (all of them lame), I have yet to attend an OWS event in Atlanta, and certainly not in New York. I have occupied neither park nor street nor quad nor sidewalk, which makes me wonder if I can really say that I’m part of the movement, and not just an observer of its viral video. Continue reading

Notes from National Women’s Studies Association

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Normally, I would sit down to write a blog of this sort saying I’d “just returned” from a particular conference.  However, that language doesn’t really work this year as I was lucky enough to move to Atlanta just before this year’s National Women’s Studies Association annual conference.  This year it… Continue reading

World Englishes Tertulia: Wednesday Nov. 30 4-5pm

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A World Englishes Tertulia will be held on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 between 4 and 5 pm in Clough Commons Suite 447.  The workshop will address various methods of providing effective feedback to students in our contemporary multilingual and multicultural classrooms.  In particular, we will focus on the multiple perspectives reflected in student… Continue reading

Little Eureka Moments

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The final project for my ENGL1102 course “London City Comedy” is a collaborative digital edition of Tarlton’s Jests, a 17th century collection of anecdotes about the Elizabethan clown Richard Tarlton. The assignment consists of five parts: Continue reading

Material Studies

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(Seminar by Sipai Klein, Julia Munro, Michael Tondre) 1. The meaning-making process writers face has been historically determined by the “technology” of paper. The integration of electronic communication has arguably changed writers’ meaning-making processes and the discourse produced by writers. In other words, the material contexts of writing have influenced… Continue reading

Putting Students to Work: Guest hosting a “best blog” round-up

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I had an “a-ha” moment in first-year composition class last week. I was preparing for a conference, writing job letters, preparing my classes, and trying to keep up with grading. In short, something had to give. But what? And then it hit me – Blog Post of the Week! Every… Continue reading

Myth in the Classroom, take two

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I know you’ve been holding your breath for the second installment of my musings on and eternal search for effective stereotype-breaking strategies. So here goes. Today I take on the elusive term “race” as a myth that students approach rather curiously: with great resentment. And I think I’ve figured out at least part of the reason why. Let me try to explain:
I attempted to have a conversation with my students this week about white privilege. They read “The End of White America?” by Hua Hsu, published in The Atlantic in 2009. I also had them look at this hilarious video made by Smirnoff in 2006, which Hsu mentions.

So, they had read (or were supposed to have read) Hsu’s essay on the “beiging” of the white race in the United States, the increasing diversity of American popular culture, and the ensuing backlash against multiculturalism and retrenchment into whiteness. Continue reading

Tondre presents paper at NAVSA conference

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Michael Tondre presented a paper entitled “‘A Nat’ral Born Friend’: Friendship, Filiation, and Group Selection in Dombey and Son” at the North American Victorian Studies Association conference in Nashville, TN. The paper traces the complex interconnections between Charles Darwin’s theories about non-reproductive sexuality and representations of the bachelor and spinster… Continue reading

Reflections on Digital Media Archaeology: Excavating Definitions

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In this article I wish to reflect at more length on the topic of “archaeology of digital media,” which happens to be the topic of discussion this week for the weekly Digital Pedagogy Seminar for first-year Brittain Fellows. Although many literary scholars are certainly well-versed in historical approaches, myself included,… Continue reading

Stommel and Champion Produce Georgia Tech It Gets Better Video

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The Georgia Tech Pride Alliance and the Writing and Communication Program have joined the community, corporate, and collegiate movement across the country by co-producing a Georgia Tech It Gets Better video. It Gets Better is a national movement to reduce bullying and suicides among LGBTQ youth. The video was produced and directed by Jesse Stommel, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow and Julie Champion, Student and President of Georgia Tech Pride Alliance, with a musical score by Matt Morris.
Stommel and Champion were inspired to work on this project after seeing the wonderful video produced recently at NC State. Like the NC State video, the Georgia Tech It Gets Better video features personal interviews in recognizable campus locations with nearly 50 students, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni of varying sexualities and backgrounds. Continue reading

Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow Makes Bestseller List

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Second-year Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Andy Frazee’s first book of poetry, The Body, The Rooms, ranked #17 on Small Press Distribution’s (SPD) poetry bestseller list for October. Founded in 1969, SPD is currently the only distributor in the country dedicated exclusively to independently published literature, serving over 400 small and… Continue reading

Harkey Composes ‘Verbal Score’ for Artist’s Film at MOCA GA

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John Harkey, a first-year Brittain Fellow in Georgia Tech’s Writing and Communication Program, recently collaborated with artist and filmmaker Micah Stansell, whose work “The Water and the Blood” is currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Georgia (MOCA GA). Drawing equally from his own and from others’ writings,… Continue reading

Brittain Fellows–Bremm, Curtright, Schiff–to Present at SAMLA

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Brittain Fellows Doris Bremm (second-year), Lauren Curtright (second-year), and Sarah Eden Schiff (first-year) will present at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference in Atlanta this weekend, November 4-6. The theme for this year’s conference is “The Power of Poetry in the Modern World.” Former Brittain Fellow and Associate Director… Continue reading

On Soundbites and other Forbidden Fruits

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I hope this will be the first of a series of posts on a running theme: the unintentional eloquence of soundbite culture. For several years now I’ve been interested in the communicative potential of inarticulate speech and writing. It’s part guilty pleasure (I look for Sarah Palin in the news for nearly the same reasons I watch America’s Next Top Model); but a hopefully bigger part of my interest derives from a genuine fascination with the ways in which gaffes can be translated into eloquence, gibberish into poetry, nonsense into social commentary.
Such translations are already easy to find in the form of parody: here are William Shatner reading a Palin speech as beat poetry, John Lithgow performing a Newt Gingrich press release, Obama supporters combining hyperbole and understatement via a Joe Biden gaffe, and my personal favorite Twitter meme, ShakesPalin. Continue reading

Digital Humanities Show and Tell: An Emory DiSC Workshop

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Last Monday, I attended one of the Workshops on Digital Scholarship being offered through the Emory Digital Scholarship Commons this semester.  This series offers workshops on a variety of topics ranging from “Creating an Online Presence I: Take Control of Your Online Personality” to “Hack Your Theme: Customize WordPress Themes… Continue reading

A New Home for the Writing and Communication Program

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Some nine months from now, the Writing and Communication Program will move into its new home down Bobby Dodd Way. The Stephen C. Hall Building for Writing and Communications Program is scheduled to open its doors in summer 2012, and when it does it will be one of the most progressive design spaces on Georgia Tech’s campus. Continue reading