SMARTech Collection: School of Literature, Communication, and Culture Invited Speakers

Atlantic Gandhi, Caribbean Gandhi

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Atlantic Gandhi, Caribbean Gandhi

Authors: Natarajan, Nalini

Description: Presented on April 2, 2009, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Skiles building room 2, Georgia Tech campus.; Sponsored by GT's Writing and Communication Program and the Gandhi Foundation of USA.; Nalini Natarajan was born in Madras (now Chennai) and raised in New Delhi and Bombay (now Mumbai). Upon graduation with an MA from Delhi University, she taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. She obtained her Ph.D as a British Council Scholar and a recipient of the Fellowship from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the United Kingdom from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K. Thereafter, she was hired into a tenured faculty position at Miranda House, Delhi, and taught there for a while. After a short stint as a postdoctoral scholar at Yale University, she moved to Puerto Rico in 1987 with her husband, tropical ecologist John Parrotta. Through her background and domicile, she combines an interest in India and its many regions, local languages and cultures, British domestic and imperial culture in the Nineteenth Century, feminist theory, and Caribbean and Latin American issues. She has proposed innovative courses in these areas, including her latest ones focusing on the city. She is the author/editor of two books and numerous articles. She is working on a book scheduled for publication with Callejon Press entitled The Resonating Island, a series of intercultural essays on the Caribbean and South Asia. She currently divides her time between San Juan and Washington DC where she occasionally helps coordinate the panels on a yearly South Asia Literary festival of new authors in conjunction with the Smithsonian.

How We Think: The Transforming Power of Digital Technologies

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: How We Think: The Transforming Power of Digital Technologies

Authors: Hayles, N. Katherine

Abstract: The emerging field of the Digital Humanities challenges many of the assumptions and practices of the Traditional Humanities. For those who are developing digital tools, resources, archives, and text and data mining algorithms, digital practices and theory mutually inform and modify each other. This talk will explore the implications of these changes and synthesize the results of nearly twenty interviews with scholars prominent in the Digital Humanities (including our own Jay Bolter). N. Katherine Hayles is a Professor in the Literature Program at Duke University, with a joint appointment in ISIS, Information Science Information Studies She writes and teaches on the relation of science, technology and literature in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics won the René Wellek Prize for the Best Book in Literary Theory for 1998-99, and her book Writing Machines won the Suzanne Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts completes the trilogy of Posthuman and Writing Machiness. Her new book, Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary, surveys the field of electronic literature, offers theoretical frameworks for its interpretations, and explores connections between print and electronic narratives

Description: Presented on January 15, 2009 from 4:30-6:00 pm in the Library East Commons Performance Space.; This lecture is part of the 2008-09 Georgia Tech School of Literature, Communication, and Culture’s Distinguished Speaker Series on Minds, Machines, and Media.

The Moral Equivalent of War: Energy Rhetoric during the Carter Years

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: The Moral Equivalent of War: Energy Rhetoric during the Carter Years

Authors: Honeycutt, Lee; Brown, Marilyn A.

Abstract: Many people attribute the failure of Jimmy Carter's forward-looking 1977 national energy plan to opposition from entrenched corporate powers, but the plan's fate also relates to the changing role of rhetoric in the American presidency. From his early fireside chat on energy to the "moral malaise" speech late in his term, Carter seemed unable to reconcile traditional policy tasks with the rising importance of the bully pulpit in shaping public opinion. In this talk, Lee Honeycutt shows how rhetorical lessons from the Carter years provide insight into how the new administration might craft its rhetoric on future energy policy. Includes a response from GT School of Public Policy Professor Marilyn Brown.

Description: Presented on Jan 22, 2009 from 4:00 - 5:00 pm at the Clary Theater, Student Success Center, Georgia Tech Campus.

Conceptual Blending in Higher-Order Human Cognition

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Conceptual Blending in Higher-Order Human Cognition

Authors: Turner, Mark

Abstract: The Digital Media Program within the The School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC) welcomed Case Western Reserve University Professor Mark Turner. His talk touched on the cognitive processes involved in human creativity ranging from everyday thought to higher level literary and artistic cognition.

Description: Presented on October 2, 2008, 4:30 - 6:00 pm at the Clary Theater on the Georgia Tech campus.; This lecture is part of the 2008-09 Georgia Tech School of Literature, Communication, and Culture’s Distinguished Speaker Series on Minds, Machines, and Media.