Dynamic Subspace

Tag: City Tech

  • Call for Applicants, City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press, Deadline Mar. 1, 2020

    Benjamin Franklin printing press exhibit at City Tech.
    Benjamin Franklin printing press exhibit at City Tech.

    Mark Noonan, my colleague at City Tech, is running an NEH Summer Institute on the topic, “City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press.” I’ll be contributing to the Digital Methods Workshop on Wednesday, June 24 with my experience working on the City Tech Science Fiction Collection and using digital tools to make archival materials available to students and researchers. See the link below for all the sessions and apply to join us in Brooklyn!

    City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press

    (NEH SUMMER INSTITUTE)
    (June 21 – July 3, 2020)

    New York City College of Technology-CUNY will host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty in the summer of 2020 (June 21 – July 3).

    For more information visit:

    http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/cityofprint/

    Applications to participate will be accepted via our online application system until March 1, 2020.

    The Institute will focus on periodicals, place, and the history of publishing in New York.  As an institute participant, you will take part in discussions led by cultural historians, archivists, and experts in the fields of American literature, art and urban history, and periodical studies; participate in hands-on sessions in the periodicals collection of the New-York Historical Society; visit sites important to the rise of New York’s periodical press, such as Newspaper Row, Gramercy Park, the New York Seaport, the East Village, and the Algonquin Hotel; and attend Digital Humanities workshops.

    You will also be asked to read a rich body of scholarship and consider new interdisciplinary approaches for researching and teaching periodicals that take into account the important site of their production, as well as relevant cultural, technological, aesthetic, and historical considerations. Sessions will be held across New York City including New York City College of Technology, the Brooklyn Historical Society, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Pace University, and the New-York Historical Society.

    We encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the subject matter. Scholars and teachers specializing in periodical studies, journalism, urban history, art history, American studies, literature, and/or cultural studies will find the Institute especially attractive.

    Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply.

  • ENG3402, The Graphic Novel: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (Continued…)

    Continuing from my previous post on The Dark Knight Returns, I’ve assembled a selection of videos below featuring Frank Miller and others talking about Miller’s work in The Dark Knight Returns.

    In this interview introduced by science fiction writer and editor Harlan Ellison for “The Masters of Comic Book Art (1987), Frank Miller discusses The Dark Knight Returns, Ronin, and other works.

    DC Comics interviews people about their work on and memories of The Dark Knight Returns.

    The Frank Miller episode of G4’s Icons discusses The Dark Knight Returns at the 16:00 mark.

    Frank Miller was interviewed for Comic Book Confidential (1988). His part of documentary is embedded below.

    In this final video, Frank Miller talks about his work and influences.

  • Publishing Studies

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    Printing press on display at City Tech.

    Recently, I had an opportunity to speak with colleagues about what Publishing Studies means to me. I edited my thoughts into the following note.

    Publishing Studies: Theory and Praxis

    Publishing Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses rhetoric and composition, media studies, history of the book/newspaper/magazine/websites/etc., and practical skills including writing, editing, design, layout, production, marketing, business administration, etc. Publishing Studies programs prepare students for publishing industry careers.

    Publishing Studies should be grounded in theory and praxis. Theory provides a foundation for understanding the field and its development. It gives ways of seeing and thinking about the process and purpose behind publishing. Theory helps one be a confident problem solver, an open-minded thinker, and a dynamic life-long learner who can adapt to changing work conditions and challenges. Balancing theory is practical skills. These skills are what help students build a portfolio, gain experience through internships and entry level positions, and obtain a job on their desired career path. Through their understanding of theory, students will understand that the skills they have when leaving a program will only go so far as the publishing industry changes. They can leverage their current skills to grow their skill set over time and be engaged members in their profession so that they know what new trends they should pay attention to and what new skills will keep them competitive in the job market.

    Rhetoric

    Publishing Studies is founded on rhetoric and composition. Publishing is all about communicating particular ideas to a particular audience using a particular (production scale/mass communication) medium. Knowing audience, rhetorical techniques, modes of communication (WOVEN=written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal), and the writing process are essential skills for anyone interested in the publishing industry. Furthermore, being a reflective practitioner–using journal writing and reflection–supports the acquisition, integration, and improvement of the use of rhetoric and composition principles in the work place. There is a lot of overlap in this regard (as well as in the tools employed in the publishing field mentioned below) with Technical Communication.

    Media Studies

    Media and materiality are really big components of Publishing Studies, because publishing is all about using mass communication media technologies to reach an audience. Important issues for Publishing Studies from a Media Studies perspective might include: the effect/affect of media on audiences, how does media change over time, how does media influence other media, what biases are built into particular media or how those media are used, and are there issues with particular media at scale (e.g., Facebook and Twitter’s role in Brexit and the 2016 US election). Aesthetics, design, layout, and UX are important, too, and they overlap (as do many aspects of theory) with practical skills.

    History of the Book/Newspaper/Magazine/Website/Etc

    Perhaps under the umbrella of Media Studies, the History of the Book and other produced media such as newspapers, magazines, websites, social media, and others, are key to a fundamental understanding of Publishing Studies. The field encompasses many different forms of mass communication technologies, and the intertwined histories of these media provide a useful context for how we are at this particular moment in publishing history while also revealing how the history of publishing is not a Whig historical progression, but in fact, contains many interesting dead ends and forgotten technologies whose time might not have been right but contained some aspects that were useful and might deserve revisiting in the present. Layered in these histories are issues of labor, capital, production technologies, world historical events, and societal movements, all of which have influenced the development of the publishing history.

    Practical Skills

    Praxis is tempered by theory. Theory is made meaningful by praxis. The two support one another and enrich one’s experience of the publishing field in a way that helps propel students toward dynamic careers instead of cookie-cutter jobs. Publishing careers include writing, editing, design, layout, printing, IT, programming, procurement, representation, marketing, fact checking, research, and business administration. All of these rely on a basic set of writing, communication, and interpersonal skills, and each branches off into a discrete set of current (but always changing) skills involving knowledge-based work (e.g., planning, research, summarizing, extrapolating, etc.) and tool-based work (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, CMS, etc.). Each career path’s set of widely accepted skills (i.e., those skills that employers are looking for in employees) are those that should be researched and taught by faculty. Besides their course work, students can learn more about these through trade publications and books, mentors, and internships.

  • Presentation Videos from the Third Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, Nov. 27, 2018

     

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    The Third Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium was an amazing success! Here are videos from the symposium’s presentations and discussions from Nov. 27, 2018. Watch them all on YouTube via this playlist, or watch them as embedded videos below.

    9:00am-9:20am
    Continental Breakfast and Opening Remarks
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Justin Vazquez-Poritz, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, New York City College of Technology
    Jason W. Ellis, New York City College of Technology

    9:20am-10:35am
    Session 1: Affect and Experimentation
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Moderator: Jason W. Ellis
    Leigh Gold, “The Legacy of Frankenstein: Science, Mourning, and the Ethics of Experimentation”
    Lucas Kwong, “The Island Of Dr. Moreau, Fantastic Ambivalence, and the Victorian “Science Of Religion”
    Robert Lestón, “Between Intervals: A Soundscape for all Us Monsters”

    10:45am-12:00am
    Session 2: Identity and Genre
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Moderator: Jill Belli
    Anastasia Klimchynskaya, “Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Fantastic: Rationalizing Wonder and the Birth of Science Fiction”
    Paul Levinson, “Golem, Frankenstein, and Westworld”
    Joy Sanchez-Taylor, “Genetic Engineering and non-Western Modernity in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl”

    1:15pm-2:30pm
    Session 3: American Culture and Media
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Moderator: A. Lavelle Porter
    Aaron Barlow, “‘Fraunkensteen’: What’s No Longer Scary Becomes Funny or, How American Popular Culture Appropriates Art and Expands the Commons”
    Marleen S. Barr, “Trumppunk Or Science Fiction Resists the Monster Inhabiting the White House”
    Sharon Packer, “Jessica Jones (Superhero), Women & Alcohol Use Disorders”

    2:40pm-3:40pm
    Student Round Table: “Shaping the Future: A Student Roundtable on Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower”
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Moderator: A. Lavelle Porter
    Panelists: Zawad Ahmed
    Marvin Blain
    Kartikye Ghai
    Devinnesha Ryan

    4:00pm-4:50pm
    Frankenstein Panel: Mary Shelley’s Novel’s Influence on Scientists and Technologists
    Location: Academic Complex A105
    Moderator: Justin Vazquez-Poritz
    Panelists:
    Heidi Boisvert, Entertainment Technology Department
    Robert MacDougall, Social Sciences Department
    Ashwin Satyanarayana, Computer Systems Technology Department
    Jeremy Seto, Biological Sciences Department

    5:00pm-6:00pm
    Closing and Tour of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection
    Location: City Tech Library L543
    Remarks by Jason W. Ellis

  • Third Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, Nov. 27: Program and Details

    SF-symposium-3-poster

    The Third Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction

     

    200 Years of Interdisciplinarity Beginning with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

     

    Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018, 9:00am-6:00pm

     

    New York City College of Technology, CUNY

    Academic Complex, Room A105

    285 Jay St., Brooklyn, NY 11201

     

    Organizing Committee: Jill Belli, Jason W. Ellis, Leigh Gold, Lucas Kwong, Robert Lestón, and A. Lavelle Porter

     

    Hosted by the School of Arts and Sciences.

     

    Event hashtag: #CityTechSF

     

    The kind of literature that came to be known as Science Fiction (SF) owes a tremendous debt to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818). In addition to being an (if not the) inaugural work of SF, Mary Shelley builds her cautionary tale around interdisciplinary approaches to science, and she takes this innovation further by applying the humanities to question the nature of being in the world, the effects of science on society, and the ethical responsibilities of scientists. These are only some of Frankenstein’s groundbreaking insights, which as Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove observe in Trillion Year Spree (1986), “is marvellously good and inexhaustible in its interest” (20). The many dimensions of interdisciplinarity in Frankenstein and the SF that followed are the focus of the Third Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

    Schedule

     

    9:00am-9:20am

    Continental Breakfast and Opening Remarks

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Justin Vazquez-Poritz, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, New York City College of Technology

    Jason W. Ellis, New York City College of Technology

     

     

    9:20am-10:35am       

    Session 1: Affect and Experimentation

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Moderator: Jason W. Ellis

    Leigh Gold, “The Legacy of Frankenstein: Science, Mourning, and the Ethics of Experimentation”

    Lucas Kwong, “The Island Of Dr. Moreau, Fantastic Ambivalence, and the Victorian “Science Of Religion”

    Robert Lestón, “Between Intervals: A Soundscape for all Us Monsters”

     

     

    10:35am-10:45am     

    Break

     

     

    10:45am-12:00am     

    Session 2: Identity and Genre

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Moderator: Jill Belli

    Anastasia Klimchynskaya, “Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Fantastic: Rationalizing Wonder and the Birth of Science Fiction”

    Paul Levinson, “Golem, Frankenstein, and Westworld”

    Joy Sanchez-Taylor, “Genetic Engineering and non-Western Modernity in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl”

     

     

    12:00am-1:15pm       

    Lunch

     

     

    1:15pm-2:30pm        

    Session 3: American Culture and Media

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Moderator: A. Lavelle Porter

    Aaron Barlow, “‘Fraunkensteen’: What’s No Longer Scary Becomes Funny or, How American Popular Culture Appropriates Art and Expands the Commons”

    Marleen S. Barr, “Trumppunk Or Science Fiction Resists the Monster Inhabiting the White House”

    Sharon Packer, “Jessica Jones (Superhero), Women & Alcohol Use Disorders”

     

     

    2:30pm-2:40pm        

    Break

     

     

    2:40pm-3:40pm        

    Student Round Table: “Shaping the Future: A Student Roundtable on Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower”

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Moderator:      A. Lavelle Porter

    Panelists:         Zawad Ahmed

    Marvin Blain
    Kartikye Ghai

    Devinnesha Ryan

     

     

    3:40pm-3:50pm        

    Break

     

     

    4:00pm-4:50pm        

    Frankenstein Panel: Mary Shelley’s Novel’s Influence on Scientists and Technologists

    Location: Academic Complex A105

    Moderator:      Justin Vazquez-Poritz

    Panelists:         Jeremy Seto

    Robert MacDougall

     

     

    4:50pm-5:00pm        

    Break/Relocate to Library

     

     

    5:00pm-6:00pm        

    Closing and Tour of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection

    Location: City Tech Library L543

    Remarks by Jason W. Ellis

     

     

    Symposium Participants & Contributors

     

     

    Aaron Barlow teaches English at New York City College of Technology (CUNY).

     

    Marleen S. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction and teaches English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction criticism. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. Barr has edited many anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. She is the author of the novels Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir. Her latest publication is When Trump Changed, the first single authored short story collection about Trump.

     

    Jill Belli, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English and Co-Director of the OpenLab, the college’s open-source digital platform for teaching, learning, and collaborating. Jill teaches and researches utopian studies and science fiction, and she serves on the Steering Committee and as the web developer for the Society for Utopian Studies. She is currently working on a book about happiness and well-being in education.

     

    Julie Bradford designed the symposium’s Frankenstein-themed poster. She is a BFA in Communication Design Management student at City Tech who has a strong background in illustration. When she is not distracted by cute and shiny things or busy drawing up comic adventures with her Pokemon Go buddies, she is focused on her schoolwork and catching up on her shows. While completing her BFA, she is working as a graphic design intern for City Tech’s Faculty Commons. Her online portfolio is available here: www.behance.net/
    juliebradf2a85.

     

    Jason W. Ellis is an Assistant Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Kent State University, M.A. in Science Fiction Studies from the University of Liverpool, and B.S. in Science, Technology, and Culture from Georgia Tech. Recently, he co-edited a special issue of New American Notes Online (NANO) on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

     

    Leigh Dara Gold received her doctorate in German Literature in 2011 from New York University. She teaches Introduction to Poetry and English 1121 at New York City College of Technology, and Ancient Literature and Composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her current research interests include science fiction’s role in the classroom, research on Ursula K. Le Guin, and connections between dance, literature, and philosophy.

     

    Anastasia Klimchynskaya is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently working on a dissertation on the emergence of science fiction in the 19th century, which she situates in the context of earlier genres as well as the period’s discourses around scientific and technological novelty.  Her other intellectual interests include the mechanisms through which science fiction becomes science fact, literature as political engagement, and the cultural history of AI. She is also on the organizing committee of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Conference (Philcon), and a peer reviewer for the Journal of Science Fiction. 

     

    Lucas Kwong is an assistant professor of English at New York City College of Technology, where he has recently served as the coordinator for the Literary Arts Festival Writing Competitions. His scholarship includes the article “Dracula’s Apologetics of Progress,” published in a 2016 issue of Victorian Literature and Culture, as well as a forthcoming article on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” for Journal of Narrative Theory. His current research project examines how late Victorian fantastic fiction reimagined the era’s fascination with religious difference. He also serves as the assistant editor for New American Notes Online (www.nanocrit.com) and City Tech Writer (openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/citytechwriter), a journal of student writing.

     

    Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999), Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To Save Socrates (2006), Unburning Alexandria (2013), and Chronica (2014). His stories and novels have been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Edgar, Prometheus, and Audie Awards. His novelette “The Chronology Protection Case” was made into short movie, now on Amazon Prime. His nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), New New Media (2009; 2nd edition, 2012), McLuhan in an Age of Social Media (2015), and Fake News in Real Context (2016), have been translated into twelve languages. He co-edited Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion in 2016. He appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the History Channel, NPR, and numerous TV and radio programs. His 1972 LP, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2010. He was President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 1998-2001. He reviews television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

     

    Robert MacDougall is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at City Tech.

     

    Sharon Packer, MD is a physician and psychiatrist who is in private practice and is Assistant Clinical Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. She is the author of several books that link science, psychiatry and the humanities, including Neuroscience in Science Fiction Film, Cinema’s Sinister Psychiatrists, Movies and the Modern Psyche, Superheroes & Superegos: the Minds behind the Masks; Dreams in Myth, Medicine & Movies. She edited two multi-volume books on Evil in American Popular Culture and Mental Illness in Popular Culture. She writes regular articles on “Why Psychiatrists are Physicians First” for Psychiatric Times.  

     

    A. Lavelle Porter is an Assistant Professor of English at New York City College of Technology. He holds a B.A. in history from Morehouse College and a Ph.D. in English from the CUNY Graduate Center. His writing has appeared in venues such as The GC Advocate, Callaloo, The New Inquiry, Poetry Foundation, and the African American Intellectual History Society. He is currently working on a book about representations of black higher education in popular culture.

     

     

    Joy Sanchez-Taylor is an Associate Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College whose research specialty is science fiction and fantasy literature by authors of color. She has published articles in Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation and The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. Currently, she is working on a book project titled Diverse Futures: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Writers of Color.

     

    Jeremy Seto is an Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences at City Tech.

     

    Justin Vazquez-Poritz is the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at City Tech.

     

    Special Thanks

     

    Complementary magazines donated by Analog Science Fiction and Fact. For more information about the magazine and subscriptions, visit http://www.analogsf.com.

     

    Complementary passes donated by The Morgan Library & Museum. Enjoy the exhibition It’s Alive! Frankenstein at 200 through January 27, 2019. For more information, visit www.themorgan.org.

     

    Invaluable support from Dean Justin Vazquez-Poritz and Office Assistant Iva Williams.

     

    Tremendous assistance from the Faculty Commons: Director Julia Jordan, Design Intern Julie Bradford, and the rest of the team.