In this episode, we talk to Brittain Fellow, TECHStyle co-editor, and frequent Office Hour guest Anna Ioanes in order to dispel some myths about online and hybrid teaching. Are EdTech companies like Khan Academy and Minerva Schools gunning for our jobs? And what about MOOCs like the University of Pennsylvania’s ModPo? We discuss current scholarship and debates on… Continue reading
Not long before the Primitives changed their name to the Velvet Underground, the band’s singer, Lou Reed, wrote to his Syracuse University professor, poet Delmore Schwartz, I decided that I’m very very good and could be a good writer if i work and work. i know thats what ive got to… Continue reading
Applications are being accepted for a new cohort of Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellows through February 1. 2018. The job ad has been posted at Inside Higher Ed, and also appears below. The Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Tech seeks recent PhDs (dissertation successfully defended by August 2018) in… Continue reading
In The Office Hour‘s 25th episode, Dr. Ruthie Yow––former Brittain Fellow (2015-17), current Service Learning and Partnerships Specialist for Serve Learn Sustain at Georgia Tech, regular TECHStyle guest, and author of Students of the Dream: Resegregation in a Southern City, just out from Harvard University Press––returns to the podcast to talk to Andrew and… Continue reading
In this episode, Toby draws on the knowledge (and German-language skills) of former Brittain Fellow Ian Afflerbach (2016-17), currently Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia, to discuss the concept of “realpolitik.” Does it have any relevance to the current political situation, as media commentators tend to… Continue reading
In this episode, Toby draws on his professorial pedigree and Nick on his experience in the creative writing world in an attempt to find the source of the current crisis in the humanities. Have the humanities always been in crisis? Is there any other way? Our hosts do their best… Continue reading
For the first episode of our second season, Toby, Andrew, and our new co-host Nick Sturm discuss the “culture wars,” a hot button term that has been making its way back into the media and into our classes. Recorded prior to the death of Georgia Tech student Scout Schultz, we… Continue reading
Part three of our series on the history of the Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship (the finale of The Office Hour‘s first season), finds Toby and I talking to Lisa Yaszek, Professor and outgoing Associate Chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; co-editor of Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women… Continue reading
In this episode, the second of a three-part series on the history of the Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship, Toby and I talk to former Brittain Fellow and current Associate Director of the Writing and Communication Program, Andy Frazee, about where the fellowship is now, where it’s going, and where… Continue reading
In honor of National Poetry Month, Brittain Fellow Jeff Fallis returns to the podcast to discuss what may be literature’s most ill-defined, misunderstood, and maligned genre. As recipients of 2016-2017 Poetry@Tech Pedagogy Grants, Jeff and I talk about some of the ways that we have integrated poetry into our composition classrooms,… Continue reading
Toby takes over the podcast this week, in the first installment of a three-part series in which we address the past, present, and future of the Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship. In this episode, he interviews Brittain Fellow Halcyon Lawrence about her background and research in information design and experiences… Continue reading
This week on the podcast, Toby and I talk about The New Yorker magazine––which I happen to be teaching an English 1102 course about this semester. Along the way, Toby shares a cartoon by Tom Toro and reads from “Sadness Lamp F.A.Q.” by Sarah Hutto (both of which can be found in the March 13,… Continue reading
This week, Toby and I read and discuss some of our favorite poems: William Wordsworth’s “We Are Seven,” Frank O’Hara’s “Having a Coke with You,” Lucille Clifton’s “shapeshifter poems,” and George Saunder’s “Trump l’oeil.” Plus: an inordinately long intro about the Oscars and parenthood. The podcast can be played using the embedded player above or… Continue reading
On the occasion of Betsy DeVos’s confirmation as U.S. Secretary of Education, Toby takes over the microphone to school me on the history of public education. The podcast can be played using the embedded player above or downloaded as an mp3 file. Music: “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,”… Continue reading
This week, we begin with a discussion of Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which ultimately reveals itself as a sly attempt by Toby to get me to talk about my career moonlighting as a musician––and more specifically, as the frontman of the band Shouts & Murmurs… Continue reading
This week we talk to Brittain Fellow Ruthie Yow about a topic on the mind of many Americans at the moment: protesting. Ruthie’s book, Students of the Dream: Race and Inequality in the Resegregating South is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. The podcast can be played using the embedded player above or downloaded… Continue reading
In our first episode of 2017, Toby and I debate Amy Hungerford’s Chronicle of Higher Education editorial, “On Not Reading.” Along the way, Toby shares some of his expertise about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and I divulge my inexpertise about J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Special thanks to the panelists in the Modern Language Association 2017 session,… Continue reading
In our final episode of 2016, Toby and I discuss the books we’re currently obsessed with, which include (but are definitely not limited to): James Gleick’s Time Travel: A History and The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood; Daniel Clowes’s Patience; Norman Ohler’s Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany; Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories; and… Continue reading
In this week’s episode (which borrows its title from journalist David Kinney’s 2014 book), I am joined by Brittain Fellow (and fellow amateur Dylanologist) Jeff Fallis to discuss Bob Dylan, who we both saw play live on different dates of his current tour. Along the way, we touch on the… Continue reading
On this week’s podcast, Toby and I are joined by Brittain Fellows Anna Ioanes and Jennifer Forsthoefel to discuss our experiences, realizations, thoughts, and fears as teachers and scholars in the week since Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States. We begin by discussing Daveena Tauber’s “Post-Election… Continue reading
We had to take a week off last week due to some technical difficulties, but Toby and I are back with a Halloween special in which we discuss our spookiest academic fears. These include Northrop Frye’s theory of archetypes, the ongoing adjunctification of higher education, Donald Trump, and other nightmarish… Continue reading
Last week, we heard Toby reflect on his thoughts and experiences as both an academic and as a father. This week, Brittain Fellow Owen Cantrell and I (neither of whom have any children) discuss a very different kind of father: the “’90s Dick Dad,” as exemplified by Tim Allen in The… Continue reading
In this brief episode, Toby attempts to comment on academic parenting (and fatherhood in particular) . . . while academic parenting. His comments are drawn from Aviva Shen’s article on student perception and gender bias, Apoorva Mandavilli’s New York Times piece on representation in academia, Dale Edwin Murray’s Times Higher Education essay on the impossibility… Continue reading
In this episode, Toby and I discuss the controversy surrounding the publication of Italian journalist Claudio Gatti’s “Elena Ferrante: An Answer?” and “The Story Behind a Name” in The New York Review of Books this past weekend. Having never read any of Ferrante’s knowledge, we rely quite heavily on Alexandra Schwartz’s analysis in The New… Continue reading
In this highly anticipated episode, Toby interviews me about the work of filmmaker John Cassavetes using questions written by his wife, Candice Wilson, Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of North Georgia, Gainesville. The podcast can be played using the embedded player above or downloaded as… Continue reading
