Diane Jakacki
Diane Jakacki received her PhD from the University of Waterloo, where she specialized in early modern printed drama, and participated in federally-funded digital humanities research projects. She has published two articles on applying social semiotic methods to early modern theatre history, an edition of Wit and Science, and co-authored an essay on developing digital image annotation tools. She is a software consultant to imageMAT and the Records of Early English Drama. At Georgia Tech she applies digital humanities methods to pedagogical solutions. Jakacki is currently developing researching the Elizabethan clown Richard Tarlton and his touring relationship with the Queen’s Men troupe.

Once more unto the breach …

Or, Why Teach Shakespeare to Georgia Tech Undergraduates? This is the third term I’ve used early moden drama as the theme for my 1102 classes. In fall 2011 I taught a course on London City Comedy (The Shoemaker’s Holiday, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Bartholmew Fair); last spring I… Continue reading

Profhacker Recommendations for Mac Apps

This week in Profhacker, Ryan Cordell itemizes some particularly valuable Mac apps to help with process and organization. I am a long-term Things user (synced on Mac, iPad and iPhone), love Scrivener, and am gradually pulling all of my various bibliographies into Zotero. What life hacks do you use? Back… Continue reading

Shetty Publishes Picture Book

Third-year Brittain Fellow Malavika Shetty’s new children’s book, The Sweetest Mango, has just been published by Tulika Books. The picture book, illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta, is written for children five years and older. and is available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, and Bengali. Continue reading

An Interview with Karen Head and Nirmal Trivedi

Assistant Professor Karen Head and Brittain Fellow Nirmal Trivedi were recognized this year with Course Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS) Teaching Excellence Awards.

Katy Crowther, Diane Jakacki, and Christine Hoffmann sat down with Karen and Nirmal to ask them a few questions about course evaluations, teacher-student relationships, and their work in the Communications Center. A transcript of this enlightening interview follows.

KC: Thank you for agreeing to sit down with us. We have some questions, but obviously we can just have a conversation. First of all, congratulations on your awards.

KH: Thanks. Continue reading

RSA Gets Schooled!

Diane Jakacki and Tom Lolis (2nd year Britts) presented on Digital Pedagogy and Early Modern Studies at the Renaissance Society of America conference in Washington DC on March 23. Three sessions, sponsored by the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies and organized by Jakacki, featured nine speakers and a roundtable… Continue reading

Former Brittain Fellow Klein Tweets w/ Times & Produces Popular Podcasts

Here is some digital pedagogy news from former Brittain Fellow Sipai Klein Tweet! Clayton State New York Times Talk on Twitter, Civic Engagement and Knowledge, March 30 Morrow, Ga., Mar. 27, 2012 — Clayton State University’s partnership with the New York Times continued on Friday, Mar. 30, with a New York Times Talk that focused on one of the… Continue reading

Munro Focuses on Photography and Racial Anxiety

Julia Munro presents at the Northeast Modern Language Association 2012 conference in Rochester, New York (March 16-18). Her paper — “‘It Tells a Story to the Eye’: Photography and Visualizations of Racial Anxiety” — is part of the panel, “Sex, Blood, and Hybridity: The Discourse of Racial Anxiety in Antebellum Writing,”… Continue reading

Nothing to See Here, Folks!

Christine Hoffmann’s paper—”Nothing to See Here, Folks: Milton’s Art of Disappearance”—explores the ways in which disappearance gives the impression of vitality in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton broadly realizes the possibilities of fallibility, failure and fallenness through his own illegible posture as the poet vainly presuming to write Eden, and he… Continue reading

A Midwinter Night’s Teaching Assignment

This term Tom Lolis and I are jointly teaching an 1102 course entitled “#DigitalBard: New Media Approaches to Shakespearean Drama”. By jointly I mean that we each teach three sections, but we are both focusing on the same plays (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Richard III, and Titus Andronicus); while we bring our own research background and interests to class lectures, several major assignments are shared across all six sections. These assignments are all rooted in some form of digital media: blogs, wikis, suites that incorporate several tools and platforms (I’m thinking specifically of Google here). But media as we are applying the term also refers to performance and video. One of our goals is to break students of the tendency to shy away from Shakespeare because they believe the plays are hard to read and therefore boring and a waste of their time. Continue reading

Michelle Gibbons published in journal Philosophy of Science

Michelle Gibbons has a recent publication, “Reassessing Discovery: Rosalind Franklin, Scientific Visualization, and the Structure of DNA,” which appears in the current issue of Philosophy of Science.

Gibbons, Michelle G. “Reassessing Discovery: Rosalind Franklin, Scientific Visualization, and the Structure of DNA.” Philosophy of Science 79 (2012): 63-80.
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Shed some light on conspiracies!

Bob Blaskiewicz’s article “Engineering Truth” was published in the magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, in September 2011. An expanded version, “You Can’t Handle the Truthiness: A Night Out with the 9/11 Truth Community” appears on their website. Also read Bob’s new regular column — “The Conspiracy Guy” — for Skeptical Inquirer‘s website. Continue reading

The creativity on display is not just student work!

Congratulations to our colleagues who designed and taught the classes in which students developed the artifacts selected for the Student View exhibition, now in the Ferst Center for the Arts (until January 31) and then moving to the Woodruff Art Center (1280 Peachtree Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30309) for one… Continue reading

Course Blogs: Commenting Privately on a Student’s Post

Rebecca Burnett and I had a conversation about the nature of commenting on student blog posts. As instructors, should we have the option of making a private comment – viewable only to the student author, or should all comments be viewable to all students? There is an argument to be… Continue reading

Little Eureka Moments

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

Stommel and Champion Produce Georgia Tech It Gets Better Video

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

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

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