English Department Newsletter, 6 Feburary 2006

Faculty News

ROSE BLOUIN

Concordia University opened its special exhibit "Heart of South Africa," a photography exhibition by artist Rose Blouin, with an artist's reception, Sunday, January 15 and a special artist's talk at 1 p.m.Monday, January 16 at the University's Ferguson Art Gallery. These events ran in conjunction with Concordia University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration on Monday, January 16, as well as highlighting Black History Month in February. The exhibit will be available for viewing beginning Monday, January 9 and will run through Sunday, February 5 at the gallery. The "Heart of South Africa" is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and a Columbia College Chicago Faculty Development Grant.

AMY HAWKINS

Amy Hawkins has been named the first Critical Encounters Fellow. Working with members of the College and civic community, Amy will lead Critical Encounters through its first year, with its thematic emphasis on HIV/AIDS. The Office of the Provost, working with the Center for Teaching Excellence, has established this faculty fellowship to provide leadership in the College?s Critical Encounters initiative.

GARNETT KILBERG COHEN

Garnett Kilberg Cohen was recently awarded a 2006 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Finalist Award in Prose of $700. Garnett has been invited to be Book Review Editor of Another Chicago Magazine (if you are interested in being considered as a reviewer, please let her know). She will Moderate a panel on chapbooks from 1 pm - 3 pm on February 8 at the Portfolio Center. Tony Trigilio will serve as one of the 4 panelists.

KILIAN MCCURRIE

Kilian has been appointed to NCTE?s Promising Young Writers Advisory Board. The Promising Young Writers program represents NCTE's commitment to early and continuing work in the development of writing. Kilian has also been nominated for NCTE?s college section nominating committee. Elections are in April.

TOM NAWROCKI

Tom proposed, developed and participated in a panel at the Nonfictionow Conference held at the University of Iowa this past November. The panel titled "Family First: What Problems Arise When Writing Includes Family" is currently available for audiocast at this website:
http://www.english.uiowa.edu/nonfiction/index.html

You can also listen to most of the panels and readings by Philip Lopate, Lauren Slater and Pico Iyer. This convention was the first conference ever dedicated solely to creative nonfiction.

SARAH ODISHOO

Sarah Odishoo has her listing and biography as English Language Educator in Marquis Who's Who in American Women, 25th, Anniversary Edition, (forthcoming 2006-2007) and Who?s Who in America, 60th Anniversary edition (forthcoming 2006-2007), and Who's Who among Teachers ( forthcoming 2006-2007), as well as Outstanding Professional, in America's Registry of Outstanding Professionals.

In addition she has a poem coming out in Chrysalis Reader, as well as the short story "The Trial," in WESTWIND Review, Ashland, Oregon (forthcoming).

She will also be presenting ?Goddess is a Verb: The Divine Feminine in Action in Literature and Film," at Swedenborg Library?s Writing Program, Chicago (forthcoming April 28, 2006).

KAREN OSBORNE

Karen gave her paper "Modes of Ethnographic and Ethical Inquiry in Teaching American Indian Texts" at a session on Ethics and American Indian Cultures at the Modern Language Association Convention in Washington, D.C. in December.

TONY TRIGILIO

Tony Trigilio is one of the poets featured in the anthology DIGERATI: 20 CONTEMPORARY POETS IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD (Three Candles Press), set for release Feb. 14. Discounted copies can be ordered at http://www.threecandlespress.com/books.htm.

DAVID TRINIDAD

David recently learned that in November, at the CUNY Conference on Contemporary Poetry in New York, on a ?Novel & Essay in Verse? panel, Chris Schmidt delivered a paper called ?David Trinidad and the Poetics of Camp.?

Last year David was asked by AMERICAN POET, the journal of the Academy of American Poets, to introduce an emerging poet. He chose to introduce New York poet Soraya Shalforoosh. A brief essay he wrote about her work, ?Good Signs,? appears in the current issue, along with four of her poems. A poem of his own, ?Ode to Thelma Ritter,? also appears in the issue.

STAN WEST

Stan West's "Stories from Down Under," featuring Aboriginal oral historians like Chris Mumbulla, an educator with the National Tertiary Educational Union, airs in a two-part Black History Month special, two consecutive Sundays, January 29 and February 5, at 6:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. on his ?City Voices,? on WNUA 95.5 FM. Stan visited Melbourne Dec.7-9 as a National Education Association delegate to the International Higher Education and Research Conference co-sponsored by UNESCO and Education International. Stan is a member of NEA's Black and American Indian Caucuses.

Additionally, Stan has been invited to present January 26 at Northeastern Illinois University's Tenth Annual African, African American, Native American, Caribbean and the Americas Heritage Conference on the theme ?Human Rights and our Collective Destiny.? It will feature a video documentary presentation & interactive discussion - ?Diversity in Oak Park-Past, Present, Future?, written, directed and produced by Stan West and Yves Hughes Jr. Stan also continues his work with Chicago Teaching Artists.
http://chicagoteachingartist.typepad.com/collective/

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Tech/Ped Corner

Open-ing up.

One of the first computer games I remember buying was Sim City, for my family's x86 computer. It came with a red-ink on pink-paper code booklet that was required each time you started a new game. If you couldn't fill in the fifth alphanumeric code from the third column on page 2, the game would not start. Since the ink and the paper were in low-contrast, the page could not be photocopied; the thousands of codes on its sixteen pages made the booklet arduous to transcribe. Thus, Sim City was hard to copy and distribute to others. This kind of copy-protection made sense to me?the game's publisher needs to protect the value of their product; if that pink booklet weren't included, I could distribute the game to whomever I wanted, for free! Little did I know that this protection system was actually part of an ideological war being waged among computer programmers and publishers?a war over ?open source.?

When people began writing and distributing computer code, they often did so free of charge. While they included their names in the programs, they usually did not charge anything to other users, nor to people who copied the programs they made. They did so for several reasons?for a long time, hardware was so expensive that the programs were seen as 'added bonuses,' rather than the object of purchase. Using a computer was complicated enough that only a chosen few could do so?there wasn't a market for commercial programming. Additionally, programming was seen as a craft, one that demanded 'showing off.' Finally, since many people who programmed had learned to do so by tinkering around, they felt everyone should have access to that learning process.

The rise of the home computer changed all that. Suddenly there were millions of people with computers in their homes, eager to process words, play games, and spread their sheets. (Sorry, I'm not clear what verb goes with ?Spreadsheet.?) Alongside this emerging market grew software companies who, unlike these individuals who 'hacked' together code and distributed it freely, sought to sell their code user-by-user. Additionally, these companies began asserting copyright over their code?they began suggesting that it was illegal for users to ?look under the hood.? They took the 'how it works' code?or source code?and closed it. In light of these new trends, a new philosophy was born: the philosophy of open source.

Open source programmers believe that computer code should be open for its users. Individuals should be able to tinker with programs they have obtained, and should be allowed to redistribute their changes. An entire network of programmers and users have grown around these ideas, usually centering on the idea of programs built and maintained to be freely distributed. While many of the largest programs employ programmers, they also recruit heavily from folks who are interested in the projects, and want to help.

So what does this mean for you? The short answer is that there are lots of free, well-built, and heavily user-tested programs available for you and your computer. The long answer is that the open source model provides an interesting model for those of us interested in encouraging collaborative activity, both in the classroom and in our own scholarship. Perhaps most importantly, Open Source software provides a great example of the power of communal work unmotivated by commercial needs.

If you'd like to know more about Open Source software, I recommend:

A primer from the Free Software Foundation:
note that Free Software and Open Source are distinct ideas with a common goal
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/

The Cathedral and the Bazaar:
A book-length treatise on the value and philosophy of Open Source software
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/

?Open Source and Academia?:
An exploration of the useful relationship between educational and Open Source philosophies?by your humble author
http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/tayloriley/intro.html

Here are links to some of the key open source software projects you or your students might enjoy:

OpenOffice:
A fully-functional Office application capable of saving in Microsoft-friendly formats.
http://openoffice.org/

Firefox and Thunderbird:
A browser and mail client (respectively) that offer a wide range of customizations and features.
http://mozilla.org/firefox/
http://mozilla.org/thunderbird/

Gimp:
A slightly-clunky but powerful image-editing program.
http://gimp.org/

Filezilla:
A file-transfer program
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

nVu:
A web authoring program along the lines of Dreamweaver (though not quite as smooth).
http://www.nvu.com/

A handy list of MANY open source packages available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_software_packages

See you next month!
Brendan

Department newsletter compiled by M. Killian McCurrie.