We're hiring a new Media Studies / Sociology professor, and the first candidate is coming to campus TOMORROW! Come hear his job talk:

"Exploding the Myth of the Black Rapist: Racial Formation and Collective Memory from the Anti-Lynching Movement to the Scottsboro Nine"

Dr. Jonathan Markovitz
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego

Monday, November 6
4:15 p.m., Carnegie 107

When it comes to First Person, I think it's interesting to discuss the structure of the book, even more so than the content... although in both structure and content, it's unlike any piece of literature I've ever read before. (Yeah, you can argue that House of Leaves is hypertextual in the same way, but that was fiction, and this is theory...) I've never seen an anthology in which another theorist responds to each individual essay, then the author of the original essay responds back, etc. As a result it feels more like a Web forum (albeit one full of extremely smart people) than a piece of literature, which is really cool (especially considering the subject matter).

I'm on the committee for hiring a new Media Studies prof, and we really need to get student feedback when the candidates visit campus. Please attend the first lecture in the series! Details below...

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THIS YEAR, POMONA COLLEGE IS HIRING A NEW PROFESSOR IN MEDIA STUDIES & SOCIOLOGY. THREE CANDIDATES WILL BE VISITING CAMPUS DURING THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER.

YOUR OPINION COULD HELP DETERMINE WHO GETS HIRED!!!

THE FIRST CANDIDATE VISITING CAMPUS IS:

Dr. Jonathan Markovitz
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego

Lecture: "Exploding the Myth of the Black Rapist: Racial Formation and Collective Memory from the Anti-Lynching Movement to the Scottsboro Nine"

Since we're on the subject of digital gaming, check out THE CONTENDER!!!
It's by Casio, "Where Miracles Never Cease."

We've come a long way, baby.

As weird as it seems, I guess this sort of calculator/game combination was a predecessor of the multi-function technologies we have today (i.e. iPods that store music yet have calculators and games on them; phones that double as cameras, alarm clocks, and calendars; etc.)

P.S. This is an ad for a calculator from the 80's, found on

Can't believe it's almost time to write a senior thesis. In lieu of actually STARTING my thesis (or my homework for tomorrow, for that matter), I've decided to search for advice on Google.

Here are few of the things that came up:

Advice from Seniors

Inspiration

Surviving the Senior Thesis

Hmm... I'm not sure if these sites will actually end up being helpful... but it can't hurt to browse through them, right?

This is an issue I hadn't heard about recently, but Congress is currently considering it, and it's important for people to know about...

"Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign." (from http://www.savetheinternet.com)

Overall, I enjoyed Hamlet on the Holodeck. Murray has a clear and effective writing style that kept me entertained, and she made some clever and relatable references, from Einstein's Dreams and Brave New World to the computer game Myst and the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. But even though the writing is brilliant, a part of me felt like it's somewhat out-of-date. So much has changed since this book was published in 1997. Now, almost 10 years later, chat rooms have gone out of style and dial-up connections are becoming obsolete. At the time that Murray wrote this text, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace had not yet risen onto the scene. Napster had not been taken to court, and television episodes had not yet been sold for $1.99 on iTunes. I'm curious to see what Murray would say about all of these occurrences. It seems that she considers the Internet to be a utopia of free exchange (at least at the time that she wrote this book), and I'd be interested to see what she thinks about the issue of copyright violations on the Web, how this might change in the future, etc. Also, she mentions that the Internet allows everyone to tell his or her story through family albums, journals, homepages, and the like, all of which are "pushing digital narrative closer to the mainstream" (252). Today, the majority of the people I know have published information about themselves on the web, whether through MySpace, Flickr, Xanga, Livejournal, or similar sites. But these don't allow for as much innovation in representation as (I think) Murray anticipated. Their prepackaged formulas for display make personal information somewhat impersonal. Even when you choose a different background for your Blogger or plug in a code to change the look of your MySpace, it's all very prepackaged and unoriginal. So although digital narrative has become mainstream, just as Murray predicted, it hasn't taken on a very innovative or immersive form. But who knows... perhaps this will change in the future, as technologies improve and people become even more comfortable interacting with and manipulating the digital world.

BACKGROUND INFO:

I hope to present evidence of how photographic truth has historically been a flawed and fictitious concept, how photographs have been manipulated for political purposes over time, and how this idea affects the present and will develop in the future. I will further investigate these issues through research at the library and consultation with Professor Kathleen Howe and Professor Sheila Pinkel (specifically in relation to the history and theory of photography) and Professor Kathleen Fitzpatrick (focusing on digital imaging).

STRUCTURE:

My thesis will consist of four chapters, each ranging from 10 to 20 pages in length, as shown in the outline below:

I love looking at old advertisements. It's one of those time-wasters that makes me feel somewhat productive, since I'm "learning about cultural history" while browsing around aimlessly...

I'm looking at this site: Adflip, the world's largest archive of classic print ads. It's nothing short of fascinating to see how tastes and styles have changed over the decades. (Yeah, I'm a bit of a media studies nerd.)

Exhibit A: this one from the 80's.

This one's pretty messed up: "Camel: Where a man belongs." Apparently a man belongs crouched in front of an airplane, lighting a cig, despite the warning below that cigarettes are dangerous to your health.

I'm leading this volunteer project weekly through Mortar Board. Leave a comment or email me if you're interested so I'll know you're coming!!

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Starting this Friday, come volunteer at the Prison Library Project on First Street in Claremont. We will meet at 12:30 at College Avenue and Bonita and walk to the PLP headquarters from there. Email lar02004@pomona.edu if you plan on coming or have any questions.

WHAT IS THE PRISON LIBRARY PROJECT?
The mission of the PLP is to provide reading material free of charge to inmates, prison chaplains and librarians, and study groups, as well as to drug/alcohol recovery groups, survivors of domestic abuse, and support groups for HIV/AIDS patients within the immediate community.