Borges reinvented Don Quixote as a playful novel, full of surprises and unexpected anticipations of the way we read today. Across genres and over decades, his varied meditations opened new paths for readers. The following conversation took place during January 2016 between Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College,…
My freshman writing students are among the scores presenting their research in preparation for drafting their big term paper. Similar:Carolyn made it to the next round of the 2017 PPT Shakespeare Monologue contest. Finals ar…CultureI never have time to create materials like this during the academic year. Brand new handou… AP Style follows the standard…
This is why I still blog. While commercial platforms like Facebook and Twitter are designed to keep you churning out new content that attracts shallow attention, a weblog encourages reflection, the exploration of lateral thinking and deep linking, and the accumulation of ideas (your chronologically sorted, taggable history of posts) over time. Mark C. Marino…
Similar:Shakespeare Popularized Falconry TermsEnglish is full of figures of speech pop…CultureOffice Hours in the Pool Hall My favorite story comes from the week …AcademiaSam Shepard Giggles, Doesn't GoogleI wrote my undergraduate honors thesis o…CybercultureSimon Newman Resigns as President of Mount St. Mary’s Simon P. Newman resigned on Monday eve…AcademiaKing Oberon Midsummer Make-upMidsummer closes tonight, July…
A third alum in the last few weeks has contacted me to thank me for challenging her while a student: When I look back on my time at SHU, I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, but yet again, this is proof that the skills you taught us so a few years ago…
Think of journalism as falling into three basic baskets: The “what” basket, the “so what” basket and the “now what” basket. The “what” basket is filled with reporting in a straightforward manner on things that happened. “There was a fire at 8th and Elm Street today. No one was injured,” and all that. The “so…
Fair use is a concept baked into US copyright law, and it’s a defense to copyright infringement if certain elements are met. The US Copyright Office says the defense is decided on a case-by-case basis. “The distinction between what is fair use and what is infringement in a particular case will not always be clear…
Hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook followed BuzzFeed’s live video of two people putting rubber bands around a watermelon until it burst. We should all reflect on how journalism can make the news that is truly important interesting enough to compete with exploding fruit. Traditional media companies face the increasingly daunting task of hooking…
The boy’s personal best in terms of win-loss. Trophy for performance at his level. A fun Satuday. Similar:How "Hail Mary" Became Inextricably Linked to American FootballI am revamping an existing “News Writing…CultureStar Trek: Voyager Premiered 20 Years AgoI remember wanting to like Voyager a lot…Culture“Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I…
Was browsing YouTube for a few of my favorite movie swordfights. Yes, the left-handed thing from Princess Bride was clever, and sure, the upgrading from foils to sabres in The Great Race added tension. You might be cool with the quips, but you’ll never be “Cryano de Bregerac dueling Valvert while simultaneously composing a ballad…
I learned a lot while reading this enjoyable essay by Jimmy Maher. Looked at today, however, Sherlock certainly wasn’t a bad note to go out on. Being built on the sturdy foundation of everything Infocom had learned about making text adventures to date, it’s not notably, obviously innovative, but, impressively given that it is a…
It’s a world of trial and error and constant discovery, stuffed with byzantine secrets, obscure text commands and hidden recipes. And it runs completely counter to most modern computing trends. Where companies like Apple and Microsoft and Google want our computers to be easy to manipulate — designing point-and-click interfaces under the assumption that it’s…
A couple weeks ago I posted about a recent graduate and former Setonian editor-in-chief who said that skills she wasn’t at the time exactly thrilled I made her learn in the new media journalism program helped her land her first full-time job with benefits. Today I heard from a different former editor-in-chief, who was thrilled…
Similar:Universities must stop presuming that all students are tech-savvyAlthough considerable resources have bee…AcademiaThe hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconductThe story notes that when police departm…CultureFox News, accused of manipulating news images, relabels them as "collages," "regrets these…Using bits and pieces of real news in or…CultureLet’s Make the Academic Job Market More HumaneIt’s been decades…
“We Shall Overcome,” a song that was the “unofficial anthem to the civil rights movement,” was wrongly placed under copyright and should be put in the public domain, according to a lawsuit filed today in federal court. The complaint (PDF) was filed by the same group of lawyers who succeeded at putting the world’s most famous song, Happy Birthday, into…
By a set of strange coincidences, complicated by the history of Europe’s uneven adaptation of the Gregorian calendar, April 23 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the deaths of both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare. In June I’ll be playing the villain in the Cabaret Theatre’s production of Man of La Mancha (which incorporates…
Similar:Carolyn at about 7yo drew Titania in love with Bottom. #tbt #midsummerArtScrooge Is My BrotherMy daughter delivered the opening “Marle…CultureI have two scenes in a horror film. My head appears in a third scene.During Fall Break, I filmed my scenes fo…AestheticsMechanical innards for a Steampunk set piece. #Blender3D #greebleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChXOu8C…AestheticsYour first attempt at a medieval gate…
My daughter plays the narrator, my wife plays the cat, and my son plays the robber. A 9-minute “All for One Stories” radio play. Produced by WAOB Audio Theatre. Similar:I just finished recalibrating the port scanner station and lookout post. If you need help … AestheticsAxios journalism style delivers traditional news content in scannable formatIn…
I have a pretty good idea whose woods these are, believe me. And let me tell you something, my people say he’s a complete nobody. This guy lives in the village. So what if he sees me stopping here? I dare him to sue me! I dare him! Rottingpost Similar:Understanding Poetry INCIDENTAL COMICS: Understanding Poetr…CultureBranding Essentials for…
I’m somewhat interested in the topic, but I’m actually posting about this because my freshman writing students are now in the process of gathering sources for their research paper. I have to train them to ignore reader-friendly science journalism like this, and instead engage directly with the academic source this reporter is summarizing. That’s a…