New Text: The Low Acuity for Blue: Perceptual Technics and American Color Television

(coauthored with Dylan Mulvin) “The Low Acuity for Blue: Perceptual Technics and American Color Television,” Journal of Visual Culture 13:2 (August 2014): 118-138. This piece is the first of a pair of articles on colour television that Dylan Mulvin and I wrote together (the second has been accepted to Television and New Media and will appear in 2015 …

What Is Music Technology For?

(x-posted on the Social Media Collective Research Blog) In late March and early April, I attended three events that together signal some interesting shifts in thinking about music technology and sound.  The first, a day-long symposium on March 24th I co-organized with Nancy Baym, was entitled “What Is Music Technology For?”  It came after a weekend-long …

Trigger Warnings Are About Violence: An Open Letter to James Turk (and the Montreal Gazette)

Dear James Turk: Faculty can either take a stand against sexual violence and intimidation on campus, or we can passively promote such a climate, but there is no neutral position to occupy. That is why I was surprised to read your very dismissive-sounding remarks in this morning’s Montreal Gazette article on the subject of trigger warnings …

And now, an academic paperback for over $1500

So I went to Amazon to pick up Constance Classen’s The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, which I’m looking forward to reading.  This is what I found:   While I’m definitely interested in picking up the book, and while it is clearly eligible for super saver shipping, this is the first over-$1500 academic …

“Look! Now you can…”: Gadget Logic in Big Data and the Digital Humanities

One of the problems with the move to digital humanities and big data is a kind of “gadget logic” taken from the advertising rhetoric of consumer electronics.  Lots of the reportage around digital humanities work on the big data side of the field focuses on what computer could do that people couldn’t.  By that I …

Writing: Tools of the Trade

A Facebook conversation started by Tara Rodgers got me thinking about the tools we use as writers.  Obviously, the creative process is highly idiosyncratic and personal at some level even though none of us are as unique as we think we are.  Try everything; select what works.  The proliferation of new tools is exciting but it …