File this under “probably not news to lots of people up here.” This past week in proseminar we discussed competing historical accounts of the field of Communication Studies (recognizing that even what counts as “in” and “out” of that field is debatable). Naturally, one of the questions that arose concerned the differences between the field …
Continue reading “Hypothesis on the Histories of Communication Studies in the U.S. and Canada”
Most of the time when I return to the U.S. and attend a conference, a thread emerges some point about “the crisis of the humanities.” Sometimes it’s about Republicans defunding higher education, sometimes it’s about changing attitudes among undergraduates or university administrators, sometimes it’s about the publishing industry, sometimes it’s about curriculum, and sometimes it’s …
Continue reading “The Crisis of the Humanities; also, I’m entering “annoying Canadian” territory”
I don’t often post ads in this space, but this one is special: — The Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University invites applications for a tenure track position to begin on August 1, 2008, in the area of Media and Public Policy. Although the appointment is expected to be made at …
I feel like every other entry on this blog begins with a variation of “I’ve been very busy lately” but this one ends the sentence differently: “I’ve been very busy lately with stuff I couldn’t talk about.” Around the middle of May, the chips fell and it became clear that I was to be the …
I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything like the last week. Our department has (nominally) 14 faculty members, so it’s not a particularly big place. And yet there were three conferences in a single week, all based in our department and all exquisitely executed. I couldn’t have managed full attendance at every event given other …
I’ve always said Canadians love conferences, and this week is an intense one, with me not even leaving town. T&W: I’m at a workshop for my Augmented Reality Research Team (well, it’s not my team; I’m just on it) Th: [CTRL]: TAS : Technology : Art : Society — organized by a grad student collective …
Despite my taste for violence in fiction, I have a very limited appetite for mediatic violence when it corresponds to something that actually happened. Which is to say that I’m not particularly a news junkie when it comes to disaster and monstrosity and thus have not been following the Virginia Tech Massacre beyond reading enough …
Continue reading “A Few Thoughts on the Virginia Tech Massacre”
