While Greg Mitchell, over at the Nation, continues his solitary quest to be the man who blogs every scrap of news ever produced about Wikileaks or Julian Assange, the rest of the press seems to have more or less moved on. ... read more »

This is a response to questions posed to me via Twitter by Shana Kimball, Head of Publishing Services, Outreach and Strategic Development at MPublishing, University of Michigan Library (http://lib.umich.edu/spo) She asked me in a tweet: “Curious about what you think authors should take notice of in the AAUP report? How should it change their publishing habits?” My immediate reaction was: great questions. ... read more »

Steven Levy “propose[s] that Facebook grant us a friend-list-do-over” in his recent article for Wired “Facebook Reset.” We might think that Facebook can “green” old hardcopy address books — or slips of paper stuck into wallets, piled on desks, or wadded up in bags. However, if we are like Levy, we “desperately need” a Facebook spring cleaning since our friend lists “[resemble] the contents of a house occupied by a hoarder.” Digital trash, green as it might be, is still trash after all.

Curator: Matt McGregor, University at Albany, SUNY.

Email: mm458181[at]albany.edu

On Friday, October 1, 2010, University at Albany President George Philip announced  the discontinuation of French, Italian, Russian, Theater and Classical Studies, as well as the elimination of 160 full-time positions.  Those working in the humanities were faced with an old and difficult question: why do the humanities still exist?  Many responses have assumed that there is no ‘point’ to humanities research; ipso facto, in an age of anarcho-capitalism, the humanities must soon disappear.  Others have celebrated the crisis as a time of ‘creative destruction,’ in which new institutional structures can rise from the ashes of an outdated model.  Most are struggling to mediate their common-sense knowledge of how the university works with the realities of administrative politicking, neoliberal ideology, public perception and consent, local government structures, and the withered public institutions of contemporary capitalism. ... read more »

Robot Butler is a successful experiment on the theme of a failed experiment. ... read more »

We’ve recently added a few new particpants to our “In Syndication” feature (which you can see in the left column). “In Syndication” aggregates the work being done in a range of media studies blogs around the internet.

Our most recent addition is Nick Mirzoeff’s For the Right to Look, a blog he’s launched in conjunction with his forthcoming book, The Right to Look. ... read more »

Having just finished a long book project, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality, I’ve started a new blog where I’m going to think about the issues raised by the book and its development for visual culture, cultural studies and the digital humanities. I’d very much welcome your opinions!

Call for Submissions

Distraction Span:
Technologies of engagement and opportunities for productive distraction

Cluster curators:
Alex Juhasz, Pitzer College <alex_juhasz[at]pitzer.edu>
Brian Goldfarb, UCSD <bgoldfarb[at]ucsd.edu>

We invite short, lively, multi-modal work that will kickstart new conversations that sidestep the panic over digital distraction: that is to say, the fear-inducing diagnosis that networked media is rewiring young minds, displacing valuable forms of engagement, and making sustained reflection a thing of the past. There is undeniably something new and challenging about the forms of multitasking and fragmented or interlaced communication that is fostered by the culture of new media. There is also something old about the panic over new forms of media and the perceived wholesale detriment they pose to learning and thinking. ... read more »

This is a real TREAT! When you all take a break from turkey, tofu, pumpkin pie, and football, you might want to check this conversation out: click here to listen/view.