Talk: StoryCorps and the Expansion of Oral History to the Masses

Since it’s 2003 founding, StoryCorps, a nonprofit, has collected more than 50,000 interviews. Recently, the founder, David Isay, created an app to allow anyone to record an interview an upload it to the Library of Congress instantly.

While this is a boon to future historians, there are several academic questions. Is there more to oral history than turning on a recorder and talking? How much preparation should go in to preparing an interview? When does an interview become an oral history? In terms of feminist critiques of historical methods, does this answer the demand for more perspectives from more people, or does it substitute quantity for quality?

In this session, we would review the specs of the app, perhaps play with it a bit, and discuss the potential impacts of this app on feminist history and other disciplines. You would not need to download the app before the session.

Here is an article for more reading:  www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2015/03/17/with-one-new-app-the-entire-worlds-oral-history-is-about-to-go-viral/

Talk: Our mothers said, “Protest March!” but we say, “Online Organizing!”

In her 2010 Ted Talk, Courtney Martin, blogger at Feministing.com, the most widely-read feminist publication in the world, highlights the impact the Internet, digital networking, and social media have made on feminist activism saying, “Feminist blogging is basically the 21st century version of consciousness-raising.” In the last few years informative and cheeky hashtags like #yesallwomen, #bringbackourgirls, #menexplainthingstome, and #bindersfullofwomen have raised consciousness about national and global women’s issues.

While it may be clear that feminist activism and consciousness-raising has gone digital, what implications does this have for Women and Gender Studies as a field? What about the activist nature of the Feminist classroom? How can we (students, scholars, activists) embrace digital consciousness raising without becoming arm-chair activists? I’d like to lead a conversation that attempts to answer some of these questions–and I can provide relevant scholarship on feminist pedagogy–but I hope participants will have their own ideas and stories to tell as we work to understand these ideas together.

 

Talk: Intro to Feminist Concepts in Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”

Cyborg:

noun
  1. a fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body.

In “The Cyborg Manifesto,” author Donna Haraway proposes advances in feminism in the technological age. Written in 1991, the manifesto serves as both an early introduction to the ways in which technology affected earlier forms of feminism and a prediction of the socioeconomic future in relation to gender, including “the homework economy.”

Beginning with an introduction to basic feminist concepts addressed by Donna, I will later address the main ideas of the manifesto and question if Haraway’s predictions held true. I can also discuss this reading in relation to postmodernism and posthumanism, if desired.

Link to article (pre-reading not required):

www.egs.edu/faculty/donna-haraway/articles/donna-haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto/

Submit Your Session Proposals!

Between now and Saturday the 28th, please visit the WordPress site and propose a session and/or workshop: feminismstexas2015.thatcamp.org/propose/. At an unconference, the program isn’t set beforehand: it’s created on the first day with the help of all the participants rather than beforehand by a program committee. Our first session on Saturday will be setting the schedule and sessions for the rest of the day.

If you haven’t already registered for a free account on the WordPress site but you’ve paid your registration fee via TCU’s Extended Education site, go here and fill out the registration form: feminismstexas2015.thatcamp.org/register/#registerwp

There are roughly four things people do in THATCamp sessions: Talk, Make, Teach, and Play. Sometimes one session contains elements of all these, but it’s also a fair taxonomy for THATCamp sessions. In a Talk session proposal, you offer to lead a group discussion on a topic or question of interest to you. In a Make session proposal, you offer to lead a small group in a hands-on collaborative working session with the aim of producing a draft document or piece of software. In a Teach session, you offer to teach a skill, either a “hard” skill or a “soft” skill. In a Play session, anything goes — you suggest literally playing a game, or playing around as a group with one or more technologies, or just doing something fun or original.

For examples of sessions, see the Propose page on the site.

Asexuality Awareness via Technology

I have been asexual my whole life, but I didn’t know it until I came across the term on the internet my freshman year of college. It was such a validating experience to see that other people felt the same way about sex that I do! But if it weren’t for the internet, I never would have found that my sexual orientation was shared by thousands of others, as I have never met another asexual in person.

I would like to talk about the value of the internet, new media, and technology for raising awareness of identities and experiences like asexuality, both as a way to reach people trying to understand themselves and for others who do not know about sexual orientations beyond the usual gay/lesbian, heterosexual, and bisexual categories, especially when information is coming from the commuity members themselves rather than scholars. This discussion can/should also include ways to include these non-scholarly texts into our classrooms, campus activities, and research.

Welcome!

The New Media Writing Studio at Texas Christian University is excited to announce that we’ll be hosting THATCamp Feminisms Texas 2015 on Saturday, March 28, 2015. The unconference will run from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.

In picking Feminisms as our theme for this THATCamp, we hope to bring together people interested in feminisms and/or digital humanities. Undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff from Texas educational institutions are encouraged to attend. We especially seek attendees who can broaden our scope of inquiry beyond the “ivory tower” of the academy. Our event is open to the public.

The following questions inspired us to chose “THATCamp Feminisms” as our theme:

  • What role does gender play (or not play) in the rapidly expanding field of digital humanities?
  • How can digital humanities practitioners benefit from feminisms and feminists (especially intersectionality)?
  • What can feminists learn from digital humanists?
  • In what ways do these communities overlap, challenge, or oppose each other in terms of theories and practice?

THATCamp Feminisms Texas 2015 takes inspiration from the previous THATCamp Feminisms (West, South, East) held in 2013. Major thanks go Jacqueline Wernimont (Arizona State University), who hosted THATCamp Feminisms West at Scripps College, which inspired the two concurrent sister camps Feminisms East and Feminisms South.

Are you unsure about proposing a session and/or workshop for THATCamp Feminisms Texas? Visit the THATCamp Feminisms sites to see what types of session and/or workshops attendees proposed:

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Please browse through the site for more information. Registration opens Monday, January 12, 2015 and is on a first come, first serve basis (we have space for 100 attendees). Questions? Email Jay Jay Stroup, Assistant Director of the NMWS, at .