Marjorie Perloff and Poetry for the Digital Age

On May 8, I had the pleasure of recording Marjorie Perloff’s talk Reading the Verses Backward, Poetry for the Digital Age.” Marjorie Perloff is a leading scholar of contemporary poetry. She served as the president of the ACLA from 1993-95, and was the president of the MLA in 2006. Her most influential books include Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media, and Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary, which remain essential reading for those interested in poetry and poetics. Her talk took place in Gerlinger Lounge at the University of Oregon and was co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Oregon Humanities Center, the departments of Romance Languages, Comparative Literature, Latin American Studies, and the translation studies working group.

Please enjoy the recording, which has been left uncut to faithfully present the talk itself, and visit the complete blog post associated with this episode here.

Martha Nell Smith and Building an Institute

In this week's episode, I sat down with Dr. Martha Nell Smith, a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, Professor of English, and Founding Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland. Her numerous print publications include five singly and coauthored books, including —Emily Dickinson, A User’s Guide; Companion to Emily Dickinson; and Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Dickinson. She has also authored scores of articles and essays in journals and collections such as American Literature,  Journal of Victorian Culture, South Atlantic Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly,  ESQ, and A Companion to Digital Humanities. Dr. Smith is also the executive director of the Emily Dickinson Archives 2. Dr. Smith and I chat about founding the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), building the Emily Dickinson Archives 2, and diversity in DH.

DH and Social Justice with Laura Sanders and Kathi Inman Berens

This week on the DH Podcast, I sat down with Laura Sanders and Kathi Inman Berens.

 

Laura Sanders currently teaches as an adjunct for community colleges in Oregon and California. She also currently serves as teaching learning center coordinator, online English faculty mentor, and community-based learning coordinator for Portland Community College. Laura has taught composition and rhetoric at private research institutions, small liberal arts colleges, state universities, and community colleges. In recent years, she has served as co-editor of an accreditation self-study, interim grants officer, and academic department assessment coach. Combining her passions for professional development and social justice, she continues to seek the sweet spot between digital humanities and online community-based learning.

 

Kathi Inman Berens is Assistant Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities in Portland State University’s English department.  Kathi adjuncted for three years between full-time jobs, and aims to open avenues of access for adjuncts and other faculty at non-elite institutions to practice digital humanities.  As an adjunct, Kathi was appointed the Fulbright Scholar of Digital Culture to Norway 2014-15.  In addition to her work in DH, electronic literature and video games, Kathi specializes in digital pedagogy.  She authored the forthcoming: “Sharing Precarity: Adjuncts, Global DH and Care” for the Debates in Digital Humanities 2017 collection (U. Minnesota Press), and curated the keyword “Interface” for Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities, MLA’s first open access publication.  Kathi lectures, delivers workshops, and consults about digital pedagogy and online learning.

 

I asked Laura and Kathi to recount and elaborate upon some of the main themes from their recent presentation at MLA as part of “DH 101: Revisiting the Introduction to Digital Humanities Course.” We had the chance to dive more deeply into the importance of adjuncts in the digital humanities, how DH can serve as a tool for social justice, and the false neutrality of digital tools among a variety of other topics.

 

I encourage you to check out the excellent DH materials Kathi and Laura have uploaded to MLA Commons. Kathi also mentions her excellent article, “Want to ‘Save the Humanities’? Pay Adjuncts to Learn Digital Tools,” which can be found here.

 

If you’re interested in reading more on some of today’s topics, I encourage you to head over the the DH Blog, where our guests were gracious enough to provide a reading list. Happy listening!

Tanya DePass and Diversity in Gaming

Welcome back from Winter Break! Today, I'm excited to share a recording of Tanya DePass's talk "I Need Diverse Games," hosted by The University of Oregon back in November. For a more complete description of the talk, please see our blog post on the UO DH webpage. 

 

DePass’s visit to the University of Oregon was made possible by Women’s and Gender Studies, English, Environmental Studies, the Center for the Study of Women in Society, the New Media and Culture Certificate program, the LGBTQIA Scholars Academic Residence Community, LGBT Education Support Services, UO Housing, the UO Residence Hall Association. and UO Think.Play. I’d also like to extend special thanks to Tanya DePass and Dr. Edmond Y. Chang for allowing me to write about the event.

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Chandra LeGue, Oregon Wild, and Google Trekker

On this month's podcast I spoke with Chandra LeGue, the Western Oregon Field Coordinator for Oregon Wild. LeGue speaks about working with Google Trekker and using Google Street View technology to advocate for preserving Oregon’s threatened public lands.

For more on Oregon Wild’s work with Google Trekker, check out their press release, LeGue’s blog post on the project, or the Register Guard’s recent article on touring with Trekker. If you’d like to support the work being done by Oregon Wild, you can find out more about donating or participating in their guided hikes here.

For more content, check out our post on the DH Blog!

 

Introducing the DH Podcast

In my capacity as the Assistant to the Director of the Digital Humanities at the University of Oregon, I record a monthly podcast! New episodes are released the the last Monday of every month and can be found here or at the DH Blog. Every month I feature a guest and we discuss projects and perspectives in the digital and public humanities. If you know someone I should feature, I would love to hear from you!