A student in Jill Olmsted’s podcasting class featured the work of Dr. Natalie Hopkinson on the history of Go-Go Music, what led to it being criminalized in DC, and her co-founding of the Don’t Mute DC Go-Go Music and Culture movement, which activated thousands of people in demonstrations in the streets and online to fight back against gentrification and cultural erasure. The episode, Soul of the City, was created in the media studies course by an a Political Science and Communication undergraduate, who worked for The Eagle, covering campus student government and the impact of COVID-19 on campus.
Ben Stokes brought in the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) as an experiential learning partner for his course “Game Research Methods” (G-610). The class was hired by the museum to conduct playtests of their new art history card game, as the Smithsonian considers a second print run and new game mechanics. Museum curators traveled to AU to observe the play sessions in the Game Center. The fee of $2,000 was paid to the Game Center, and the funds will be available to students in the future for conference travel and research.
Krzysztof Pietroszek had a highly productive academic year with the record number of peer-reviewed publications and citations to date. With the help of PhD student Manuel Rebol, he was able to focus on disseminating results of the NSF work, leading to two full proceeding papers at ISMAR and HICCS, and a short proceeding paper at AVI. Krzysztof also continued his long-term collaboration with Graz University of Technology in Austria, resulting in two proceeding publications. He also published two papers related to his creative work and one related to his student's creative work. Two additional publications have been recently accepted for the Springer's "Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games," which will be published before the end of the academic year. In total, he produced 11 peer-reviewed papers. Krzystof has also presented four non-proceeding papers at conferences in Asia and Europe. The publication list and links are available on the Institute for IDEAS website.
Krzysztof also received the highest number of recognitions for his creative work to date, with 20 awards and 2 honorable mentions for the short film "Dill Pickle," a part of the transmedia experience he has been working on throughout his tenure-line work. He also received a semi-finalist selection for the "Dill Pickle" interactive theater play based on the same story as the short film, produced in 2022. He is currently working on several volumetric fiction projects, including an AR collaboration with Suhail Dahal, a filmmaker/professor from the American University of Sharjah, funded by a grant received from the Sheik of Dubai, and a collaboration with an experimental theater performer, Yifan Gong, from the University of Edinburgh. A review of volumetric studio work has recently appeared in "The Eagle."
Public Communication adjunct professor Jack Hornady's art exhibit, "Road Trip," was featured in this Washington Post review, "In the Galleries: Exploring New Methods of Image Transformation," by art critic Mark Jenkins. The exhibit concluded on May 10th but you can view the collection on his website.
Leena Jayaswal will have a photograph Race, in the Family International Exhibition in Rome, Italy in September. There were 1168 submissions and 100 images were chosen. The exhibition will be at the Loosenart Gallery in September.
Joe Campbell was interviewed recently by the Spanish news site El Diario about Joe Biden and "middle class" America.
Ros Donald was an invited expert speaker at the second annual convening of the Climate Comedy Cohort, co-directed by the Center for Media & Social Impact and Generation180.
Ros also spoke on a panel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's 2023 Journalism Ethics Conference, Ethics, Urgency and Climate Journalism. She and two other speakers featured on WORT's A Public Affair to chat about the structural barriers to effective climate journalism and ways to fix it.
Claudia Myers was interviewed for the podcast "Media & Monuments" produced by Women in Film & Video DC. Here is the episode description: Host Candice Bloch sits down with award-winning writer, director, and producer, Claudia Myers to discuss screenwriting. Claudia brings her knowledge and experience as a successful writer and longtime communications professor at American University to the conversation. Learn about her active film career amidst a plethora of great advice for crafting stories for the screen." The series is widely available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and elsewhere.
Kurt Braddock was interviewed by RAINews 24 in Italy about the extent to which Neo-Nazism and white supremacism has pervaded the United States. Paying particular attention to the attack in Allen, Texas, Kurt discussed the role of ideology in the performance of these attacks, as well as what can be done to prevent them. ran-100523-389.mp4
The PC division announced the winners of their PC Capstone Awards on AU’s Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Winners include:
- Best Strategic Communication Capstone - Jessica Newell’s“Marching Through Streets or Typing Behind Screens: Gen Z’s Activist Persona and Potential as Described by Them”
-
Best Political Communication Capstone - Owen Boice’s“Moving the White Moderate: A Message to Get White Moderates to Support Black Abolitionists”
- Best Public Relations Portfolio - Bethel Woods Campground project by graduating seniorsAlana Cunningham, McKenna Friedland, Jiaqing Hao, Lauren Morris, and Claire Rosenwinkel.
Ericka Menchen-Trevino is a co-author of two papers recently accepted for presentation at the General Online Research Conference (GOR) which will be held in Kassel, Germany in September 2023. One, "Statistical Analysis of Web Browsing Data: A Guide” represents a new collaboration with researchers at the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany and Princeton University, and "Survey professionalism: New evidence from trace data," which represents a new collaboration with researchers at NYU.
Professor Maggie Burnette Stogner’s “The Impact Age – A New Framework For Creating Media That Matters” presentation was selected for the annual CILECT conference in Rome, Italy this Fall. CILECT is the World Association of Film and Television Schools with 180 schools from 60 countries on 6 continents with more than 10,000 professors who annually train more than 60,000 students and communicate with an alumni network of over 1,600,000.
Maggie Stogner’s short blog about her “water warrior mom” was highlighted in Planet Women News this month. Planet Women was founded in 2021 to advance women’s leadership for a healthy planet, with a global vision that supports diverse perspectives, cultures and world views.
Margot Susca spoke with The Hill on Tuesday about national newspapers dominating the Pulitzer Prizes. Despite the economic turmoil facing local and regional newspapers, Margot noted the rise of nonprofit newsrooms winning journalism’s top prizes as an encouraging sign of the industry’s shifting dynamics.
Aram Sinnreich’s forthcoming book A Second Chance for Yesterday has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly!
Journalism students Syedah Asghar and Jane Fusco have been selected to receive scholarship awards from the American News Women's Club in DC. It is unusual to have two students from the same university selected for these annual scholarship awards from ANWC for college journalists. Syedah is a graduating senior in journalism with minors in public health and political science. Jane is a rising junior in broadcast journalism. They will be honored at a reception on May 24 where CNN anchor Dana Bash will receive the club's annual award for excellence in journalism.
Jane Hall’s students in Advanced Reporting published their final issue/trend pieces on the class blog on important topics, building on what they learned in previous courses in our reporting curriculum. Among the topics for these final stories are the trauma experienced by “secondary survivors” of domestic abuse, high schools cancelling plays that feature LGBTQ+ characters, high schools monitoring students’ emails and online activity, “race-evasive” parenting in trans-racial adoptions, voting-rights battles in states, debates over free speech and speakers on campus, the availability of Narcan to prevent overdose deaths on campuses, captioning accessibility for deaf people in movie theaters, the gun lobby and “defunding the police,” and efforts to help at-risk youth in juvenile detention. The 19 students in this section ranged from second-semester sophomores to seniors, including a number in broadcast journalism.
Jane Hall was interviewed about Kaitlan Collins and CNN’s Trump town hall by Bloomberg Radio, the Wall Street Journal and KNX all-news radio in Los Angeles.
Last weekend (May 6 & 7) Professor Kylos Brannon designed the between band animation for the branding of the M3 Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Rorschach Theatre has announced the dates and location for Angel #9, this summer’s production that is the culmination of the current Psychogeographies project. The play follows a band in the late 1990s and the lead singer’s journey to come to terms with the traumas of her past, a bright future with her band, and the cryptic interference of an earth bound Cupid. Professor Kylos Brannon is designing the integrated video for the performances. In tru immersive Rorschach fashion, they will be transforming a former retail space in Farragut North into a late 90s rock club.
Need to blow off some steam after the semester ends? Saturday night, come to 930 Club and dance the night away to your favorite guilty pleasures at Hot In Herre, a 2000s DJ party. Kylos will be creating live mash up videos of nostalgic pop culture and music videos. Come to hear Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé, stay for the tight visuals. (Email Kylos if you want to come, there may be room on the door list!)