News
Talk: Smithsonian Material Culture Forum
On February 18 at 4pm, I’ll be giving a talk titled, “The Status of Objects in the Digital Age” for the Smithsonian’s Material Culture Forum. I’ll be comparing objects like Aboriginal message sticks to our contemporary mobile devices. The event will take place at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Here’s a blurb about the event:
The theme “Material Culture 101” situates digital technology within various definitions of material culture. Forum Speakers included Jason Farman, Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies, University of Maryland; Gwynne Ryan, Chief Conservator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Jonathan Coddington, Director of the Global Genome Initiative, National Museum of Natural History; and Masum Momaya, Curator, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. The program included a tour of Suspended Animation, a Hirshhorn Museum exhibition that brings together six artists who use digitally generated images as a tool to question conceptions of reality. TBMA Working Group member Gwynne Ryan discussed Time-Based Media Art Conservation at the Hirshhorn Museum. Read more
Kaleidoscope Article: NYTimes “Essential Reading” and Boing Boing
My article, “The Forgotten Kaleidoscope Craze In Victorian England,” was named “Essential Reading” by the New York Times and was reposted by sites like Boing Boing! Read more
Kaleidoscope Article Published in Atlas Obscura
For the past many months, I’ve been working on this piece that traces technological distraction back to the rise of the kaleidoscope in 1816 and 1817. This article was just published in Atlas Obscura, an amazing online magazine! If you’re interested in finding out how kaleidoscopes were once just as distracting to the general public as our current smartphones are to us, please check out my article! Read more
Published Scholarship in 2015
2015 saw the publication of several works ranging from articles on cultural geography to storytelling with mobile media. Please click on the links to view the articles. Also, below are forthcoming articles that will be published in 2016.
New Grant to Study War Letters
I was just awarded the Research and Scholarship Grant to write a chapter for my forthcoming book on the history of waiting, technology, and intimacy. This grant is for my project, “Waiting for Word: Tracing the Experience of Waiting in War Letters, 1847-1920,” and will take me to the Center for American War Letters in Southern California. I’ll be the first researcher to be able to work through this corpus of over 98,000 war letters! Read more
Recent Conferences and Talks
2015 has been a busy year for talks and conferences! It’s been amazing getting to interact with a range of audiences. I have several talks coming up, so please check back here or follow me on Twitter for the latest news about these presentations!
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Privacy and Surveillance Panel with Kojo Nnamdi!
Today I’ll be a panelist for an event hosted by NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi titled “Full Disclosure: Creative Responses to the Digital Privacy Crisis.” It begins at 6:45pm at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Please join us!
Nancy Smith Distinguished Lecture at Coastal Carolina University
I have been invited to present the 2015 Nancy Smith Distinguished Lecture at Coastal Carolina University. My talk, “Stories, Spaces, and Bodies in the Age of Mobile Media,” will be given on January 22 at 5pm in Edwards Recital Hall. If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there! Read more
Interview in Outlook Magazine
I’m interviewed in Outlook’s 19th anniversary issue. Outlook, one of India’s largest English-language magazines, was started the same year that mobile devices came to India. I talk with one of their editors about the global impact from mobile technologies, issues of access/equity, and the role of mobiles in social protests around the world.
Here’s the link: http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Mobiles-Are-Part-Of-A-Long-Lineage/292313
“Manifesto for Active Learning” Published in The Chronicle
As a result of the opportunity to work as a Lilly Fellow with the Center for Teaching Excellence, I revised my teaching philosophy. The result is my piece, “A Manifesto for Active Learning,” which was just published in The Chronicle for Higher Education. Click here for the article: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-manifesto-for-active-learning/52705