On November 2 and 3, George Mason University convened a forum on the Future of Higher Education. Alternating between plenary panels and keynote presentations, the forum brought together observers of higher education as well as faculty and administrators from Mason and beyond. I was invited to appear on a panel about student learning and technology.… Continue reading Remarks on Social Pedagogy at Mason’s Future of Higher Education Forum
Author: Mark Sample
Digital Humanities at MLA 2013
What follows is a comprehensive list of digital humanities sessions at the 2013 Modern Language Association Conference in Boston. These are sessions that in some way address the influence and impact of digital materials and tools upon language, literary, textual, and media studies, as well as upon online pedagogy and scholarly communication. The 2013 list… Continue reading Digital Humanities at MLA 2013
On the Predominance of Cupcakes as a Cultural Form
One cannot help but observe the predominance of cupcakes in modern America. Why the cupcake, and why now, at this particular historical moment? What the fuck is up with all the cupcakes? Within five minutes of my home there are two bakeries specializing in cupcakes. Two bakeries two hundred yards from each other. They sell… Continue reading On the Predominance of Cupcakes as a Cultural Form
Reading List for 21st Century Literature (Fall 2012)
This fall at George Mason I’m teaching a special topics course called ENGLISH 442: 21st Century Literature. My department reserves the 442 course number for “American Literary Periods” and this usually means some recognizable—not to mention canonized—era of American literature, comprised of works that share certain stylistic and thematic characteristics. Nineteenth century naturalism. Twentieth century… Continue reading Reading List for 21st Century Literature (Fall 2012)
5 BASIC Statements on Computational Literacy
(This is the text of my five minute position statement on the role of computational literacy in computers and writing. I delivered this statement during a "town hall" meeting at the annual Computers and Writing Conference, hosted at North Carolina State University on May 19, 2012.) I want to briefly run through five basic statements… Continue reading 5 BASIC Statements on Computational Literacy
Scholarly Lies and the Deformative Humanities
I recently described a new mode of scholarship that I called the deformed humanities. The idea is simple: take apart the world, deform it, and make something new. Or, as Donna Lanclos summarized the deformed humanities in a tweet: “Break things, leave them broken, learn stuff.” As an example of the deformed humanities I offered… Continue reading Scholarly Lies and the Deformative Humanities
A Digital Hornbook for the Digital Humanities?
The hornbook was not a book, but a small wooden board with a handle. A sheet of vellum inscribed with a lesson—typically the alphabet and the Lord’s Prayer—was attached to one side and covered by a thin, transparent layer of horn or mica. Historians don’t know much about hornbooks, other than they were important tools… Continue reading A Digital Hornbook for the Digital Humanities?
Notes towards a Deformed Humanities
I've gone on record as saying that the digital humanities is not about building. It's about sharing. I stand by that declaration. But I’ve also been thinking about a complementary mode of learning and research that is precisely the opposite of building things. It is destroying things. I want to propose a theory and practice… Continue reading Notes towards a Deformed Humanities
10 PRINT “10 PRINT SOON IN PRINT”
I've had a sneak preview of MIT Press's Fall 2012 catalog, and I'm delighted that the boldest project I've ever worked on is in there. The title is 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 and it just gets crazier from there. Ten authors. Working by wiki style collaboration. Studying one line of code. For a… Continue reading 10 PRINT “10 PRINT SOON IN PRINT”
Be Weird and Other Game Design Tips
Instead of writing papers at the end of the semester in my videogame studies class, my students are building videogames. After all, what better way to understand games than to make one, a notion Ian Bogost calls carpentry. My students aren’t designing merely any kind of game. They are designing metagames, by which I mean… Continue reading Be Weird and Other Game Design Tips
Videogame Studies Panels at SCMS 2012
Later this week I'll be heading to Boston for the annual conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. I'm delighted to be presenting on a panel organized by my frequent conspirator Zach Whalen on code studies and videogames. I'm also delighted that there will be an abundance of other panels devoted to videogames.… Continue reading Videogame Studies Panels at SCMS 2012
Serial Concentration is Deep Concentration
A Chronicle of Higher Ed column by the former Idaho State University provost and official Stanley Fish biographer Gary Olson has been making waves this weekend. Entitled “How Not to Reform Humanities Scholarship,” Olson’s column is really about scholarly publishing, not scholarship itself. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Olson conflates so many issues and misrepresents so many points of view that it’s difficult to tease out a single coherent argument, other than a misplaced resistance to technological and institutional change. Nonetheless, I want to call attention to a troubling generalization that Olson is certainly not the first to make.
Strange Rain and the Poetics of Motion and Touch
Here (finally) is the talk I gave at the 2012 MLA Convention in Seattle. I was on Lori Emerson's Reading Writing Interfaces: E-Literature's Past and Present panel, along with Dene Grigar, Stephanie Strickland, and Marjorie Luesebrink. Lori's talk on e-lit's stand against the interface-free aesthetic worked particularly well with my own talk, which focused on Erik Loyer's Strange Rain. I don't offer a reading of Strange Rain so much as I use the piece as an entry point to think about interfaces---and my larger goal of reframing our concept of interfaces.
Building and Sharing (When You’re Supposed to be Teaching)
These are my notes "Building and Sharing (When You're Supposed to be Teaching," a lightning talk I gave on Tuesday as part of CUNY's Digital Humanities Initiative. Shannon Mattern (The New School) and I were on a panel called "DH in the Classroom." Shannon's enormously inspirational lightning talk was titled Beyond the Seminar Paper, and… Continue reading Building and Sharing (When You’re Supposed to be Teaching)
Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2012 MLA Conference in Seattle
This is a comprehensive list of digital humanities sessions scheduled for the 2012 Modern Language Association Conference in Seattle, Washington. The 2012 list stands at 58 sessions, up from 44 last year (and 27 the year before). If the trend continues, within the decade it will no longer make sense to compile this list; it'll… Continue reading Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2012 MLA Conference in Seattle