tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128518472012-01-09T16:06:29.720-06:00I used to aspire to 10 minutes a day; now I blog conference presentations and the occasional reflection.Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.comBlogger2981100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-23409540599195584082011-06-09T22:17:00.001-05:002011-06-09T22:20:16.547-05:00

My "blog" of late (two years?) has been a place for conference notes. This year at Computers and Writing, I retreated to the privacy of "Evernote" as I have cut back on laptop use, added an iPod, and am looking for a new and perhaps more effective way to organize my knowledge. I am inspired to blog tonight, however, by Alex Reid's recent post on the ontology of composition and a latent desire

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-89948519857259597312010-05-23T09:29:00.000-05:002010-05-23T09:29:50.611-05:00

Lindsay Sabatino, "Improving Writing Literacies through ... ". Fb claims people spend 55 minutes a day on Fb; Lindsay got resistance from reviewers who didn't think fb games should be considered games. Embrace and change the way we teach, engage with generation that plays fb games. Walks through Mafia Wars; nice analysis of the critical thinking skills needed. General thoughts: Games are

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-82533719703507620402010-05-22T17:22:00.000-05:002010-05-22T17:23:32.479-05:00

Matt BartonInfluenced by Wayne Booth’s rhetoric of fiction, applied to games. Features of vws: 1. Connected set of objects and individuals. 2. Habitable environments3. Reasonably intelligible totality for external observers. 4. Field of activity for its members. Marie Laure Ryan. Castanova (sp?): most advanced form of communication. Maybe Burke’s pentad:Act: situation, obstacle, puzzle.Agent:

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-873691372823721172010-05-22T12:16:00.003-05:002010-05-22T13:13:40.036-05:00

Website for presentation: http://www.machinimaguild.com/Luna McMillian (sp?) a recommended builder. Check out virtualmcluhan on Youtube.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-14560890830532779822010-05-22T07:46:00.003-05:002010-05-22T17:22:40.059-05:00

Walter Bender, from Sugar Labs, provided an overview of Sugar. Great line about how the desktop metaphor was designed for 1970s workers, not children learning; our children have little in common with 1970s office workers. The homepage is colorful and iconic; the limited language on screen makes the operating system easier to translate. Each icon represents a learning activity. Showed the sugar

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-1858710729986904232010-05-21T15:16:00.002-05:002010-05-21T15:46:42.880-05:00

I presented first. I could have been worse. "The Electracy of Second Life: Thinking Through Second Life." Adam Pope: "i c wut u did thar: identity in WoW-related forums." Nice clear argument about the WoW forums as dynamic writing space, conventions that need to be learned, ethos building, etc.. Good example of a post that misunderstood the purpose of a thread, and the response that followed."

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-73046640400202046722010-05-21T13:11:00.002-05:002010-05-21T14:04:10.644-05:00

Vicki Callahan, "Asynchronous Real-Time: The Temporality of Networked Aesthetics." Collaborative, distributed, authorship; historical art examples (Dante Hotel), no explicit narrative except what the visitors bring with them. Hershman (artist) took on second identity simultaneously. Citing Bourrioud (? Post production aesethtic) and Elizabeth Grosz "Thinking the New." Remixed one more time,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-691823916501384462010-05-21T10:19:00.003-05:002010-05-21T11:28:49.749-05:00

Team from Purdue Calumet talking about their student-driven approach to Second Life. Students earn experiential credit by coming into Second Life. Group has faced typical problems of funding, development, sustainability. Wanting to measure affective state of learning: accuracy of affective state detection by facial expressions is 70% accurate. Using single-source camera to gather data; doing

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-73470023165343332942010-05-21T08:45:00.002-05:002010-05-21T09:42:03.569-05:00

I attended a couple of workshops yesterday, but didn't get around to blogging. I've used my blog for conference notes more than anything else in the last couple of years--might as well keep up the tradition. Madeline Sorapure, "Seeing Writing: Interactive Text Visualization in Pedagogy and Research." She is continuing her research on data visualization. She started with Worlde, but showed us

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-63098794714897598742010-04-17T21:43:00.001-05:002010-04-17T21:45:06.029-05:00

Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees by Caroline MooreheadLooking forward to this book as it seems to seek out refugees shortly after they leave their home country and wind up in various places. Starts with the Liberians in Cairo; very interesting! View all my reviews >>

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-41007127030722848282009-12-13T11:13:00.002-06:002009-12-13T11:43:52.631-06:00

Went to a screening of One Peace at a Time last night; great "database" of innovative solutions currently being implemented to address problems like lack of clean water, lack of opportunity, lack of education, absence of peace in the world. Watch for it in a theater near you. One of the most interesting programs I learned about from One Peace was Kiva.org--microlending that any of us can

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-38158391304994408942009-10-24T14:53:00.002-05:002009-10-24T15:33:16.720-05:00

Andy: still teaching high literate practices in electrate world. Authentication: a way that we certify ownership. How do we authenticate in electronic cultures? Passwords? Electronic signatures? Identity theft = stealing words that authenticate people. What's wrong with teaching literate notions of property boundaries in an electronic world? They don't acknowledge the shift to digital,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-9343378095998503582009-10-24T13:51:00.003-05:002009-10-24T14:41:26.194-05:00

John has been researching and using XO, including this article: http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/journal/11-1/madden.htmlJohn has been running the laptop through its paces. Creates and share documents via email or mesh. Help document now available on wiki, and built into newer versions. Sees a great need for teacher training; notes the tension between the constructionist

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-24129870922555707292009-10-24T11:04:00.003-05:002009-10-24T13:50:59.400-05:00

Abram:45% of employers research potential employees; computer-mediated careers are the standard, not the exception. Great ideas for encouraging students to own their real-estate, own the first page of Google, use Google Analytics, keep content fresh, etc. Dan has his presentation available: http://drop.io/B8cQyxEU (pw: gpacw). I am wondering if drop.io would be a good way to share class plans:

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-25641166295608771132009-10-24T10:12:00.002-05:002009-10-24T10:46:17.838-05:00

GPACW 2009 is starting with Keith Dorwick's keynote address, "Come Out, Come Out, Where Ever You Are! LGBTQ Teens and Twentysomethings' Self-Identification in MySpace and YouTube." Fascinating research project; Keith is collecting videos and analyzing them from various angles: coming out stories, homosocial rough-housing, and other topics. He is planning a book with a DVD that collects

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-36612942768324497752009-10-02T13:45:00.000-05:002009-10-02T13:47:24.751-05:00

Book orders are due soon, so I need to commit to some materials for a graduate seminar formally titled "Rhetorics and Poetics of New Media;" the actual course focus will be the "rhetorics" and "poetics" of OLPC.I'm debating whether or not to assign some broad, background readings like Larry Cuban's Oversold and Underused: Computes in the Classroom, Banks' Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, even

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-20703207757193254582009-09-28T16:17:00.001-05:002009-09-28T16:19:35.062-05:00

I just had an interesting talk with Niles Haich, fellow MEmorialist. He showed me some new pages on his MEMorial, which links Teddy Roosevelt (existing monument) to the contemporary environmental movement (disaster-in-progress). His new pages include a teaching philosophy, in which he realizes that "speak softly and carry a big stick" is an appropriate image for his developing identity as

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-4603162090816850312009-09-22T09:38:00.003-05:002009-09-22T11:54:29.484-05:00

I've been sitting on a parcel of land in SL since February. Sarah M (Valerie Danes) has done some wonderful building in that location for me: she built a "Virtual Peace Chapel" as a sanctuary, placed messages of peace, put up a bulletin board so visitors can leave their own message, and she scripted an interactive memorial for victims of stoning. She is still working on streaming some video.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-88746553389674992082009-09-14T14:18:00.004-05:002009-09-14T14:57:18.518-05:00

Attending good presentation about online research. Presenter walking through the complications and frustrations of seeking participants online; also covering 3rd party storage complications like the use of Survey Monkey. SM data not encrypted, link not secured, etc.. Importance of this depends on research being done. Also good perspective on the technical features: how do you skip a question?

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-16592216614956640452009-09-06T15:27:00.004-05:002009-09-06T15:52:00.649-05:00

Not much time for blogging, twitting, or status updating lately, but I did come across two "must blog" media events last week. 1. "The Ethics of Aid" on NPR's Speaking of Faith challenges all of us who think we might be doing good in Africa to think again. This caution, however, feels like a cliche at this point: of course everyone doing aid work in Africa needs to think carefully and ethically

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-82686850201702788692009-08-13T09:03:00.000-05:002009-08-13T09:04:41.331-05:00

In the Hour of Signs by Jamal MahjoubFascinating weaving of tales from multiple points of view: the Sudanese temporary ousting of the British in 1885, followed by British re-capturing of Khartoum in 1898. Interesting echoes with Iraq invasion--the easy fall of the city, followed by disaster. Mahjoub really knows how to pull threads together with great lines like "he [Kadaro--a boy who grew to a

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-32594512241350101142009-08-04T13:26:00.000-05:002009-08-04T13:27:45.200-05:00

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Alphonsion Deng My rating: 4 of 5 stars Interesting weaving of three stories; key moments told from three points of view. Many readers seem to prefer They Poured Fire to What is the What because readers don't seem to trust Dave Egger's narration, but What is the What covers a lot more ground: extensive stories

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-70190448509718944572009-08-04T13:17:00.000-05:002009-08-04T13:18:33.026-05:00

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael BeahMy rating: 4 of 5 starsCompelling narrative; would have appreciated a bit more political / historical contextualization. I'm interested in the discussion of authenticity and craft around books like this; some nice weaving of flashbacks into the book, especially after Beah got away from the fighting. View all my reviews >>

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-82308620861426792142009-08-01T09:55:00.003-05:002009-08-01T10:09:26.945-05:00

As I have been immersing myself in the memoirs, fiction, films, and work of the southern Sudanese, I'm always (by necessity, by training?) trying to craft an article, an argument, for a paper. For a long time I have been stuck: sure I could do a kind of bibliographic or survey article, which might be useful, but I don't see pieces like that getting published in the journals I read. Perhaps I am

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-2120791553771252072009-07-13T09:03:00.000-05:002009-07-13T09:04:33.092-05:00

The Uncertain Business of Doing Good: Outsiders in Africa by Larry Krotz My review rating: 4 of 5 starsTotal impulse buy of a book that apparently nobody else has read. University of Manitoba Press probably doesn't have a bit marketing arm. Krotz recounts various stories from his experiences working in Angola, Tanzania, and Kenya. I know woefully little about Angola, so Krotz has at least

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-53537546097819335142009-07-01T21:02:00.002-05:002009-07-01T21:36:30.964-05:00

I see that Alex Reid has already responded to (or alongside) Elizabeth Wardle's CCC article on "Mutt Genres and the Goal of Fyc." I am sure this essay will get a lot of people thinking hard, again, as she and Doug Downs wrote a much discussed piece on "writing about writing" that came out in the much read June issue of CCC two years ago. Heck, I blogged about that piece, too. I'm very sympathetic

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-1313609055573526772009-06-29T15:06:00.002-05:002009-06-29T15:29:31.433-05:00

I bet the June issue of CCC is its most read number; definitely the one I always have the most time for. I boldly claimed to Betsy that June 2009 might be the greatest issue of all time--all the pieces are of interest to me, anyway. I have started with Haswell, Haswell, and Blalock's "Hospitality in College Composition Courses" because I have been reading and thinking about hospitality with my

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-61288672672732881892009-06-20T13:35:00.004-05:002009-06-20T14:14:09.912-05:00

Bill Cope just outline his talk about new media: will he really be able to get past McLuhan? He sees learning as being about design and synaesthesia, very McLuhan. Agency is new, he suggests; once tidy distinctions are blurred. McLuhan said this. First and second order differences, a new dynamics of difference, sees an increase in divergence due in part to increased opportunities for agency.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-70960590110247289322009-06-20T11:19:00.002-05:002009-06-20T13:00:00.427-05:00

John Walter "Database Rhapsody: From Database to Geek DJ." Refashioning memory for digital age. Drawing on medieval tradition of not strongly distinguishing between internal and external memory; we don't really understand medieval rhetoric because we understand the history of rhetoric through the handbook tradition, and medieval rhetoric's emphasis was memory. Memory not as rote, but (

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-71815142898497117292009-06-19T18:40:00.003-05:002009-06-19T19:39:00.940-05:00

Yukiko Nishimura presenting on Japanese phone novels; showed a video of a novel being read and written. Providing good description; reporting on criticism of amateurism; Nishimura is a linguist, so she is more interested in language complexity. Shows that Keita novels linguistically look a lot like traditional print novels. Grade readability, 6-8; sample novels grades 5-9. Famous Japanese

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-34187974400728485432009-06-19T18:29:00.002-05:002009-06-19T18:32:43.993-05:00

Sustaining Peace: Nancy Barron and Sibylle Gruber. Teaching a course called “Rhetorics of Peace” as an UDW course. I wonder if we could develop an UDW class called “Writing for Change” that would be promoted as action-oriented, lots of business, project management, etc., etc. Could be pitched to “Engineers without Borders, teachers without Borders, etc.” PoliSci students? Zinn, Buddha, Day,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-5906186501339198952009-06-19T13:26:00.003-05:002009-06-19T14:17:35.198-05:00

Attending the 2009 CW conference. Attended the morning town hall, but didn't have my laptop out. Some good ideas from Michael Day about encouraging adjunct faculty to more formally share their own ideas and practices. Other good ideas. I presented at 9:30; we got a late start so things were rushed, but Kris Blair offered a compelling vision for bringing the whole English department along with

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-29090600377340114852009-06-07T00:10:00.002-05:002009-06-07T00:13:41.268-05:00

I've been working on a manuscript for a while now, and I am ready to try out a pitch. Let me know what you think; lots of room for revision. Holding on by a Thread: The Lives of Refugees (and what individuals can do to welcome them). Holding on by a Thread is an account of the complicated lives of three refugee families in Fargo, North Dakota. Author Kevin Brooks unexpectedly found himself

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-64032092107671777242009-05-08T09:43:00.002-05:002009-05-08T09:55:23.303-05:00

I'm listening to a psychologist, Toni Schmader, report on situational cues that affect student performance, and human performance generally. She just showed a slide that summarized a research study in which boys and girls in middle school wrote 3 types of letters to younger children: an anti-drug message, a learning is incremental message, and a learning is difficult for everyone message. The

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-21535920515874990312009-04-26T09:56:00.002-05:002009-04-26T09:59:42.934-05:00

I heard about this guy who is trying to photograph "every dot" on the North Dakota map. He has also done quite a few photos in Manitoba, Minnesota, and elsewhere.http://www.afiler.com/everydot/Scrolling through his list, I discovered Griffin (my son's name) North Dakota. Good example of "a dot."http://www.flickr.com/photos/afiler/tags/griffinnorthdakota/show/If you go to Google Maps, you can

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-81789491485347356532009-03-24T08:53:00.001-05:002009-03-24T08:55:33.380-05:00

Gouge, Catherine. “Conversation at a Crucial Moment: Hybrid Courses and the Future of Writing Programs.” College English 71.4 (2009): 338-62. This articles is one of those pieces that I can’t believe hadn’t been written already, which of course made me kick myself for not writing it earlier. It is basically a call to pay attention to hybrid classrooms, to start a conversations and research on it

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-2367889456972670462009-03-15T22:44:00.003-05:002009-03-15T22:58:14.604-05:00

I stumbled up on E. Gordon Gee (prez Ohio State)'s recent call for reforming all of higher education. He articulates what I thought we have been trying to do, but perhaps OSU just isn't as cutting edge as NDSU. He did hit a few particulars that resonated with me, some problems that I have not tackled. 1. He singles out things like the "solar car" competition, involving not only teams from a

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-85814629792459399912009-02-28T12:30:00.002-06:002009-02-28T12:37:10.229-06:00

I put together a short video of peace quotations that line the walls of the International Peace Garden's chapel. I hope to get this video streamed into the Second Life Peace Chapel I am building.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-69336053942763764732009-02-15T12:09:00.002-06:002009-02-15T12:29:14.694-06:00

Just read an article almost 14 years old but newly relevant to my interests in global collaborations. Muchiri, Mulamba, Myers, and Ndoloi's "Importing Composition: Teaching and Researching Academic Writing Beyond North America" (CCC 46.2 1995: 175-98) ends with a provocative set of questions: Imagine you could pack something of the world of composition, just enough to fit in a small box that

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-66929023942902831102009-01-29T23:10:00.004-06:002009-01-29T23:33:19.606-06:00

Just skimmed the Praxis article in the new issue of Kairos, "A Productive Mess." The article reports on an interesting classroom collaboration: four classes extended their f2f discussions not by going online in a discussion board, but by putting the four classes together in a drupal site. Smart. Students resist simply carrying conversation online when they talk to the same people all the time.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-37050785250705477052009-01-23T20:42:00.003-06:002009-01-23T20:47:01.902-06:00

I just learned about The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, a documentary that looks visually stunning and emotionally disturbing. A contemporary artist--part Mappelthorpe, part Pollock, but (post?) feminist--tries to make the first western adoption of two southern Sudanese Twins. She does all this in front of the camera--is it life or art? Is art anything you can get away with, Mr. McLuhan?

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-69389070339152208572009-01-11T19:22:00.002-06:002009-01-11T19:32:23.045-06:00

I came across Tony Schwartz in Arthur Berger's Seeing is Believing the other day; Berger referenced Schwartz's notion of "the responsive cord" to explain what McLuhan would call "media intensification." The responsive cord seems to be that "shock of recognition" that we get when we see intertextuality and allusions at work, when we see the revisionist history, the gender, race, or class revision

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-39414426896520958642009-01-07T09:00:00.001-06:002009-01-07T09:01:59.658-06:00

Be sure to check out where you tank in the world. I wasn't surprised at all to find out that I am pretty darn rich compared to the rest of the globe, but I was surprised to find out that even with my modest salary, I am still in the top 1%. How rich are you? >>I'm loaded.It's official.I'm the 57,087,865 richest person on earth!

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-54515432776190314372008-12-29T10:12:00.000-06:002008-12-29T10:13:06.904-06:00

I just finished Slavoj Zizek's Violence and am wondering where it fits into my thinking war and peace in the global village. Zizek argues that the correct response to violence is to "learn, learn, learn;" he thinks that language, which is often seen as the medium of reconciliation, is actually the medium of division and conflict (he surprisingly doesn't deal with the Tower of Babel); he thinks

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-32379365584705124522008-12-27T21:56:00.002-06:002008-12-27T21:56:49.682-06:00

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky My review rating: 3 of 5 starsOkay book, but I keep looking for him to acknowledge and work with the Joyce reference in the title ("Here Comes Everybody" is the "hero" of Finnegan's Wake), and / or acknowledge the McLuhan influences that show up everywhere. The curse of being an academic--I am interested in the

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-60734825316553518332008-12-27T21:50:00.001-06:002008-12-27T21:50:18.176-06:00

Violence: Six Sideways Reflections by Slavoj Zizek My review rating: 3 of 5 starsFinally finished Zizek's Violence after having started it late summer or fall. Zizek offers the provocative arguments that instead of acting in response to global crises and violence, we need to "learn, learn, learn" and not perpetuate "our" academic activism of dialogue and critical inquiry. Seems a little

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-7413015046979464352008-12-27T21:40:00.000-06:002008-12-27T21:41:06.667-06:00

The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community by Mary Pipher My review rating: 5 of 5 starsFascinating book; heart-breaking stories; need to keep reading but wanted to see what others have said. Dec. 28, 2008 update. I finished this book back in August but forgot to update my thoughts. I enjoyed the broad view, but am thinking about a book that might follow three

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-43645619864783684542008-12-05T15:07:00.002-06:002008-12-05T15:10:08.018-06:00

A Library Project for Southern Sudan is dropping a money bomb on Dec. 14; please visit their site and donate what you can. But first, check out their video.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-50531164508705424812008-12-04T22:08:00.000-06:002008-12-04T22:09:19.734-06:00

A nicely crafted piece of rhetorical video.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-76150777316005577062008-11-30T23:16:00.003-06:002008-11-30T23:22:12.772-06:00

I published a personal essay, "A Trip of a Life Time Doesn't Need to Come to an End," in the NDSU Magazine. The hard copy has many great pictures, not just the one at the top of the page. Here are the first two paragraphs: When I told friends and family members I was going to southern Sudan as part of a documentary film crew and humanitarian aid project, many asked me in different ways, "Do you

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-33440207958826522042008-11-21T11:24:00.007-06:002008-11-21T11:52:10.636-06:00

I am attending a Study Abroad meeting, learning how I might set up and run a faculty-led short-term study abroad program. I just learned that I need to start working with International Program Office 9-12 months in advance; also learned that I could have gotten emergency evacuation insurance much more cheaply through the IP Office than I did commercially last year! Costs are likely to be

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-4192246230677498902008-11-17T19:29:00.002-06:002008-11-17T19:39:54.800-06:00

Many project thoughts of late; wondering which ones I should pursue. Wondering if anybody wants to help. 1. A "global development / connections" initiative for the 7CS. Been thinking a lot about how to develop better connections with universities around the world, but why limit such projects to a pair of schools; let's get a lot of fish swimming!2. Wondering about "Teachers without Borders."

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-76553934936114106832008-11-09T22:43:00.001-06:002008-11-09T22:43:15.139-06:00

I should have been much more active blogging the lead up to our documentary film premiere, but I can at least report on a very successful day. We had over 300 people attend 2 showings; we had great questions from our audience, and lots of interest in our project. More photos on Flickr. More news to follow.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-23867093766292269512008-11-08T09:52:00.000-06:002008-11-08T09:54:00.845-06:00

The Modal Divide: It will pass, but we still have lots of work to do.Quick answer to the prompt: how will the modal divide by decided? The modal divide is largely generational and will become moot.I don’t worry much about the modal divide—our program has room for teachers who want to explore with their students what it means to compose, but more traditional instructors can also stay within their

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-23907709447176014602008-11-08T08:36:00.003-06:002008-11-08T09:52:45.582-06:00

Karl Klint from St. Cloud State ("A Position for Millennial Written Language within Education Settings") developing an argument for thinking about text messaging contextually. Running through a short history of communication adaptations to technology (i.e. the telegraph's effect on the production of minimalist prose). Text messaging a by-product of the technologies; sees the likely movement of

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-44261113567730687092008-11-07T23:59:00.002-06:002008-11-08T00:10:38.319-06:00

The very talented and creative students in my graduate course, "War and Peace in the Global Village: Rhetorical Acts Post 9/11," showed off their excellent work. Jenn Roos started with the paper, a very interesting "tri-modal" essay in which she juxtaposes Baudrillard (body text), McLuhan (marginal text), and images (including font experimentation) in a way that does not negate some of

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-69386233104429238962008-11-07T19:48:00.002-06:002008-11-07T20:24:56.660-06:00

Kathy Yancey delivered her usual stellar talk about composing in the 21st century. She argued for a writing curriculum, not just a first-year writing class or program, that would engage students in broadly conceived notions of composition. Her proposal recommends:--three spaces of composing: print, screen, network.--a choice of technologies so that composers develop proficiency in many.--

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-6474894990398904352008-11-07T10:41:00.003-06:002008-11-07T11:21:00.872-06:00

Les Loncharich from MSU is revisiting the issue of "from analysis to design." Arguing for "visual composition" as distinct from "visual design;" we are concerned with rhetoric; designers less so. Les is sketching a research agenda for himself; looking for feedback from us. Geoff Sauer's "Teaching with Databases and (Against?) the Textbook," draws on his experience working with Intro to

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-635745874515757142008-11-07T09:13:00.005-06:002008-11-07T10:10:24.212-06:00

Attending the St. Cloud presentation on new media center development. Kevin Moberly is providing the historical context for university disciplinarity, and the challenges that presents for new media scholars and centers. Judy is taking a systemic approach: talking about the administrative support for new media, but how even that level of support came into conflict with the germanic university

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-25444754696981277942008-10-30T16:26:00.002-05:002008-10-30T16:31:50.532-05:00

I've seen Marcel O'Gorman's name around, but finally read his chapter "From Mystorian to Curmudgeon: Skulking Toward Finitude" in The Illogic of Sense. Really enjoyed reading about his process, his working through of Ulmer and related ideas. Then I checked out his website: http://www.marcelogorman.net/portfolio.htmlOh Canada!! He says in the essay that he was frustrated by Ulmer's theory-heavy

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-30644152019541110282008-10-19T21:09:00.002-05:002008-10-19T21:16:24.508-05:00

The NYT ran a story on the terrible problem of rape in the Congo. The story doesn't mention it, but this is "Breaking the Silence: Congo Week 2008." On Wednesday, anybody can participate in The Cell Out.At NDSU, we are running a general "Refugee Experience" simulation on Thursday. I've never tried to organize a simulation; should be interesting. On Friday, I am participating in a more focused

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-12242252879129684812008-10-11T22:11:00.002-05:002008-10-11T22:28:21.116-05:00

One point that came up a few times at the Human Rights Conference I was attending this weekend was that some American Indians had been acculturated into the emerging American culture and economy, but from 1890-1940, most were stripped of their property and wealth and sent to reservations. African Americans on the path to the middle class often lost their jobs to the European immigrants of this

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-31842634917960465192008-10-11T09:59:00.002-05:002008-10-11T10:11:18.214-05:00

Participating in Greg Gordon's "Brining Human Rights to Life" session. Referenced to movies of interest: The Interpreter (a Syndey Pollack film) and The Ghosts of Rwanda (a PBS Frontline documentary). I should also comment on James Loewen's keynote last night. Covered some of the same ground as his workshop, but made a really compelling argument that the South won the Civil War in 1890, 35

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-67666652671993748322008-10-10T14:12:00.003-05:002008-10-10T15:15:14.438-05:00

I'm attending the North Dakota Human Rights Conference this afternoon. Listening to James Loewen, author of Lies MY Teacher Told Me and Sundown Towns. This afternoon he is talking about how to do local research, and specifically how to ask "what written and unwritten laws did your hometown devise and practice to discriminate based on race and sexual orientation." Loewen identified the period

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-45063581364339718582008-10-05T08:22:00.003-05:002008-10-05T08:37:21.621-05:00

I've been away from this blog most of the semester because my online time is spent at The Virtual Peace Garden. My students are responding to the course material, their projects, the world, which seems like a formula for a decent course, but some Sunday morning anxiety hit me--I've really abdicated my responsibility to give focused, detailed feedback. Flash back: I was engaged by my

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-86740430831960634582008-09-27T07:56:00.004-05:002008-09-27T08:34:43.773-05:00

Attending a session on teaching diversity. Cynthia Ho from UNC Asheville is talking about her pre-modern women's writers class, in which she realized that she had been teaching literature like this without deeply teaching diversity. She had submitted the class for UNCA's "diversity intensive" requirement, but had been told that the course, as originally planned, did not meet the diversity

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-13608229167709932122008-09-26T12:59:00.003-05:002008-09-26T13:26:08.529-05:00

I am attending the annual Assoc. of General and Liberal Studies Conference, and attended a session on low stakes writing. Reminded me how much more I get out of conferences when I blog them, and for all the reasons Richard Burke identified--makes me engage with the material, helps me retail, make connections to my own interests,etc. In addition to Burke's fine presentation--a really great

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-89519834888991451412008-09-14T22:37:00.003-05:002008-09-14T22:56:48.803-05:00

I've anxiously been waiting for a chance to see Guy Maddin's new film, "My Winnipeg" because:a) I am, more or less, a Winnipeger (and I as I found out, that means I will always be a Winnipeger).b) I was pretty sure that the piece would be a brilliant instantiation of Ulmer's "mystory" genre, even though Maddin, I am sure, has never heard of Ulmer. It fulfilled my expectations on this count, more

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-36220082512636275072008-09-09T10:37:00.002-05:002008-09-09T10:52:28.278-05:00

My new/old issue of Explorations in Media Ecology arrived the other day, and Eric McLuhan's "Concerning Media Ecology" arrived just in time to give me a tetrad on terrorism to work with. Obsolesces: order, law, planning, security, borders, nations, armies.Retrieves: chaos, nomadic warrior, guerrilla, vigilante, Enhances: Dread, paranoia, fear, uncertainty Flips: War. He also offers a "effect of

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-56547251059301083232008-09-01T22:20:00.000-05:002008-09-01T22:21:06.825-05:00

War and Peace In the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan My review rating: 4 of 5 starsI'm still puzzling over this book, but after three or four times threw it, and considerable readings of the secondary scholarship, I am finally starting to make sense of it. I think it might have been McLuhan's attempt at his great attempt at a synthesizing work in the artistic mode, as he tries to write

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-35244694062788963032008-08-29T21:55:00.003-05:002008-08-29T22:04:28.578-05:00

Saw the documentary Up the Yangtze tonight; predictably disturbing to see the Yangtze rising, disrupting the lives of the poorest and most disenfranchised, American tourists oblivious to the realities beyond the simulacra created by the journey into "old China," the simulacra of the "farewell tour." Nothing very surprising, but a compelling film none the less: cliches as archetypes? The family

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-17041118245665443582008-08-26T21:51:00.003-05:002008-08-26T22:08:07.901-05:00

I'm starting to get my head into my fall seminar titled "War and Peace in the Global Village: Rhetorical Acts Post 9/11." The first assignment asks students to remake McLuhan's WPGV for 2008 (40 years later). The topic / issue / theme (whatever you want to call it) obviously has not gone away. The text itself is a bear, but I found a few gems the last time through it, and now I am trying to

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-68123892305555787332008-08-26T14:16:00.001-05:002008-08-26T14:17:35.749-05:00

I just came across Jeff Rice's comments from a "Town Hall Meeting" at the 2001 Computers and Writing conference. This meeting would have been in the summer of 2001, before 9/11, but I am not sure that much has changed in the world of computers and writing since then. Jeff's final point in the talk is this:I could suggest that in the future we will all have wireless hand held computers, use

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-28365598007770437762008-08-22T00:22:00.001-05:002008-08-22T00:23:37.386-05:00

Leverette, Marc. “Writing (After Derrdia [After McLuhan] After Joyce).” Communication and Critical / Cultural Studies.” 4.4 (2007): 343-62. Leverette’s article is the most sustained comparison of McLuhan and Derrida that I have read, and he quite reasonably sees Joyce as the lynch-pin for the two. Leverette does a nice job of framing them both as medium theorists, although working from Joyce in

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-6652548609723061152008-08-15T22:34:00.002-05:002008-08-15T22:38:56.725-05:00

Wow, not exactly what I expected when I went looking for Zizek on YouTube--he is a wild man! In this clip, he comes to the conclusion that love is violent, love is evil, which isn't so different from McLuhan's argument that education is violent, education is war and war is education. I did some database searching today, and very few scholars are making a McLuhan-Zizek connection, which may or

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-49265738879303277522008-08-13T22:58:00.002-05:002008-08-13T23:12:30.080-05:00

Douglas Kellner has an essay, "Baudrillard: A New McLuhan?" I'm reading Zizek's Desert of the Real and hearing echoes of McLuhan everywhere, from Zizek's approving use of G. K. Chesterton to his use of Laws of Media like language (the obsolescing of the soldier) to a Medium is the Massage kind of phrasing about the real impact of the 9/11 attacks. I see that others have tred this path before me,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-90790134208496616962008-08-13T11:40:00.002-05:002008-08-13T11:53:23.340-05:00

I looked up "affordances" on Wikipedia because I want to ask a student an exam question about "affordances;" Kress isn't mention, but James Gibson is identified as the psychologist who coined the term. Started digging around for info on Gibson, who wrote books like An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception and I started to think that Gibson must have been reading McLuhan, or vice versa. I've

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-81008229435052572942008-08-10T23:18:00.002-05:002008-08-10T23:22:03.648-05:00

Mia Farrow and others have organized an alternative olympics, a darfur olympics, encouraging people to pay as much attention, and give as much time, money, and energy to stopping genocide as "we" people tend to give to the olympics and sports more generally. Farrow is delivering a daily video cast from Darfur; other videos can be found here.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-453205899260493952008-08-09T14:13:00.001-05:002008-08-09T14:14:57.560-05:00

Navigation of a Rainmaker by Jamal Mahjoub My review rating: 4 of 5 starsThis book was written just as the second civil war was breaking out in Sudan, mid to late 1980s. The main character is a lost soul who finally finds himself by killing a mercenary-type American who has come to Sudan to stimulate the instability, rather than work towards peace. The American's moment of revelation

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-79960391586302574692008-08-07T09:20:00.001-05:002008-08-07T09:20:22.462-05:00

The US flag bearer at the Olympics is a Lost Boy of Sudan. The story gives a lot of the general history of Lost Boys--not much about the runner himself.The Sudanese track team got coverage in the NY Times. They train in a half-built facility in Khartoum, they lift paint cans full of rocks instead of weights, but the team is made up members from different tribes who eat and train together. Jackie

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-39579759509860834102008-07-28T09:23:00.001-05:002008-07-28T09:40:50.071-05:00

I wrote an essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education that just appeared online today and will only be available at this URL for non-subscribers until August 1 or 2, I think. Send me an email if you see this post after Aug. 2 and want to read about how much I learned from one of my students, Joseph, and the refugee community I met in Africa.The article is permanently available for subscribers.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-80886898489669028082008-07-27T13:51:00.002-05:002008-07-27T14:28:04.483-05:00

I am sure the rhet-comp-literacy blogosphere is going to be buzzing in response to the literacy-technology-society series of articles that the NYTs kicked off today. As a once avid reader now frequently distracted by the Internet and its various acoutrements, and as the parent of a 9 year old who would really rather not read, just happily consume information in various forms, yet is still able

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-48369703721658386932008-07-20T14:22:00.001-05:002008-07-20T14:22:48.642-05:00

I just got back from the Lee Friedlander photo exhibit at the Minnesota Art Institute. I knew nothing about Friedlander's work, but was drawn to the description of his interest in popular culture and photography as a medium. I was most pleasantly surprised by Friedlander's interest in American Monuments; his work seems potentially instructive for the Visual Culture and Language class and my

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-43802875481026563712008-07-19T23:14:00.004-05:002008-07-19T23:28:36.263-05:00

Just read an interesting article in College English by Lisa Eck, "Thinking Globally, Teaching Locally: The "Nervous Conditions" of Cross-Cultural Literacy" 70.6 (2008):578-98. Eck provides a classroom report of taking her students through three stages of response to Tsitis Dangarembga's 1988 novel Nervous Condition. The stages are:1. This is about you: (auto)biographical connections to this

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-6105859816371637772008-07-19T21:33:00.004-05:002008-07-19T21:58:34.164-05:00

John Walter pointed to an art show running this summer in New Paltz, NY. Chris Lingren is thinking about McLuhan, too, always. Great example from his daughter. The blogosphere was buzzing a while back about "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" but of course Google used metonymically for "the web" and, perhaps not surprisingly, the article argues that the medium (the web) is changing our thinking,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-2460010189766624112008-07-17T09:15:00.003-05:002008-07-17T10:01:37.528-05:00

I was searching for "Richards and Speculative Instruments" last night, and as is the case with many of my searches, I ended up on Derek Mueller's blog. After reading the Richards entry, I visited the blog's home page and saw a call for a CCC carnival about Karen Kopelson's "Sp(l)itting Image; or, Back to the Future of (Rhetoric and?) Composition" 59.4 (2008): 750-80. Here's my contribution.I'm

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-2351084327061601262008-07-08T16:18:00.003-05:002008-07-08T16:26:46.632-05:00

My friend Martin, who is studying International Relations at the United States International University in Nairobi, sent me a link to The Age of Nonpolarity, which he is reading in his PoliSci class. The articles does a nice job of explaining the decline of American influence globally, the rise of multiple sites of power (countries, regions, cities, NGOs, corporations, etc.), and all of this

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-75173283062041051372008-07-01T23:24:00.003-05:002008-07-01T23:56:21.271-05:00

Finished HCE. I was looking for some ideas, some insights, into how to leverage the power of social networking in support of the African Soul, American Heart film and aid project that I am working on, but my "take away" is that we are close to doing about as much as we can do. One of the ideas / concepts that Shirky comes back to over and over again is that a few people contribute most of the

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-77182638764233194652008-06-28T10:35:00.001-05:002008-06-28T10:35:43.978-05:00

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky My review rating: 3 of 5 starsOkay book, but I keep looking for him to acknowledge and work with the Joyce reference in the title ("Here Comes Everybody" is the "hero" of Finnegan's Wake), and / or acknowledge the McLuhan influences that show up everywhere. The curse of being an academic--I am interested in the

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-47225076032997643812008-06-27T08:45:00.003-05:002008-06-27T09:00:21.095-05:00

Ben Affleck has made 3 trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past year; footage and commentary from his trips aired last night on Nightline. Affleck was pretty careful in framing his report--called it fact finding, educating himself before acting, claimed no particular expertise. He provided some nice commentary about the people he met in a refugee camp: teachers, business

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-69509147692798809672008-06-23T20:41:00.002-05:002008-06-23T20:45:23.037-05:00

I haven't seen Guy Maddin's new film, My Winnipeg, yet, but I suspect:1. It will be a rich MyStory for all Ulmerites out to check out.2. It will be a intriguing probe of film-as-medium, in honor of one of Winnipeg's most famous citizens, Marshall McLuhan. 3. It will be seen by about 1,006 people, my seven blog subscribers pushing the total into 4 digits. Good review with footage at the LA

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-56608857908083813892008-06-21T21:07:00.001-05:002008-06-21T21:07:14.688-05:00

I've been working on a Google Map of aid projects in southern Sudan, attempting to illustrate where in Sudan various American foundations are building schools, clinics, orphan centers, and other aid projects. This map is by no means comprehensive, and would benefit from further additions and probably some refinement of the pin placement. View Larger Map

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-50439339242583217362008-06-20T08:54:00.002-05:002008-06-20T09:03:16.105-05:00

Angelina Jolie has become the highest profile spokesperson for the UNHCR, and her short video address for World Refugee Day surprised me. Her image is not the first image, and I did not recognize her voice, but I was immediately struck by the weightiness, the resonance, of her voice. She does make an appearance, as her image and star power are obviously important to the UNHCR's campaigns, but

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-25475115244491956052008-06-19T09:17:00.001-05:002008-06-19T09:17:30.084-05:00

This video announces a photo exhibit opening in Brazil today, June 19th, in conjunction with World Refugee Day. Photos consist of images from a handful of UN campus in Africa, including Kakuma and Dadaab in Kenya, the two I am most familiar with. Next year, I hope there is an official World Refugee Day tag used on YouTube so all projects like this one, the one I posted, official UNHCR videos,

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-87789710654539632062008-06-18T09:14:00.002-05:002008-06-18T09:18:19.381-05:00

The UNHCR's photostream at Flickr has a number of photographs of refugees and UNHCR staff holding their hands above their head, with hands meeting to form the image of a roof. The World Refugee Day theme for 2008 is "Protection," and the UNHCR provides shelter for as many as 40 million refugees world wide on any given day.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-83136744022842073982008-06-17T22:21:00.001-05:002008-06-17T22:21:22.101-05:00

Another reminder of World Refugee Day, June 20th--EVERYWHERE. Fargo's two events: 1. Lutheran Social Services Celebration: 1-5 pm. 2. ASAH Celebration, 6:30-8:00 pm at Zanbroz. Short video from UNHCR embedded: lend a helping hand.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-66910710329790961042008-06-16T09:01:00.002-05:002008-06-16T09:19:25.875-05:00

I watched Lagos: Wide / Close (2005) over the weekend. I'm not sure if I should call it a documentary, just a "film," an "interactive" film, although the interaction is limited, or an essay. It felt more like an essay, or even just an interview. Lagos consists of Koolhaas talking to a couple of different interviews about his research in Lagos Nigera, part of the the Harvard Project on the City.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-32070698406327641992008-06-14T20:13:00.004-05:002008-06-14T20:24:00.781-05:00

This blog is called "Ten Minutes a Day," a reference to Peter Elbow's free-writing advice; Tim Lindgren, Fargo native and all-around great guy, posted a Peter Elbow inspired entry back in February that I just came across. The Elbow material, via Tim, is:1) No thinking without writing."Think of writing not as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message. Writing is a way to

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-66526712809150952982008-06-14T08:44:00.001-05:002008-06-14T08:44:55.241-05:00

I put together a video in response to the World Refugee Day 2008 theme of "Protection." The video shows and explains some of the ways that the United Nations High Commission on Refugees has protected the southern Sudanese from 1988-2007, although I should clarify that the UNHCR continues to provide support and protection in 2008. Most of the original video comes from 2007, however.

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12851847.post-32720303059781398752008-06-12T13:07:00.000-05:002008-06-12T13:08:27.043-05:00

My friends in are Winnipeg putting on a fundraiser for the displaced of Abyei, Sudan on June 14th.NEWS RELEASEFor immediate release:June 11, 2008SUDANESE OF WINNPEG UNITE IN NAME OF SUFFERINGWinnipegger’s join in solidarity with City’s Sudanese to RaiseFunds for War-torn AbyeiWINNIPEG: An emergency Sudanese cultural event will take place onSaturday, June 14th 2008 to raise money for the 12,000

Kevin Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09587202724486827943noreply@blogger.com0