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Solo Exhibition by Christine Ferrera, New Media Studio, Opens At Gibbs Street Gallery (6/21)

Christine Ferrera, Google Art Video, Video Still, Dimensions variable

Friday, June 21 at 8:00 p.m., Between You and Me, an exhibition by Coordinator/Producer of the New Media Studio, Christine Ferrera ’10 M.F.A., Imaging and Digital Arts, opens at the Gibbs Street Gallery in Rockville, Maryland.

According to Rockville’s VisArts website, Between You and Me is a collection of performance pieces “that circuitously contemplate art, humor and feminism. Each piece uses personal monologue as a vehicle to explore longing, insecurity, narcissism and enlightenment. By counter-posing live and recorded performance, satire and sincerity, the artist either transcends her angst or winds up in a self-reflexive tangle.”

The works include Starbux Diary; Awkward Pauzez the Digital Comic, a stand-up comedy act with computer generated punchlines; Google Art Video, a performance featuring the strange encounters of two women drifting through cyberspace receiving mystical clues and the inspiration to create, and Stellar Cellar, a journey through a woman’s subconsciousness under the guise of a radio show discussion about wine. Read the complete descriptions of the works on the event poster.

This event is free and open to the public, and continues through July 7. Performances of the works are scheduled through June on the 22nd, 23rd, 28th and 29th. A free opening reception will be held on the 28th from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Humanities Forum Panel Discussion Featured on “Marc Steiner Show”

A Humanities Forum panel discussion recorded at UMBC during the Spring semester was featured on the “Marc Steiner Show” on Tuesday, June 5. The topic was “Race and the Civil Rights Movement in Music and Media,” and the discussion featured Derek Musgrove, assistant professor of history; Michelle Scott, associate professor of history; Marc Steiner, host of the “Marc Steiner Show” and Daphne Harrison, emerita professor in Africana Studies and founder of the Dresher Center for the Humanities. The discussion was moderated by Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American Studies.

The full discussion can be heard here. For more information about the Humanities Forum, visit the Dresher Center’s website; the fall 2013 Humanities Forum schedule will be announced soon.

UMBC Athletics Matches Best-Ever Finish With Third-Place Standing in America East Commissioner’s Cup Race

The UMBC athletic program matched its best-ever finish by placing third in the race for the America East Conference’s Stuart P. Haskell, Jr. Commissioner’s Cup. The Retrievers’ 19-sport program also finished third in 2007-08 and 2010-11 and bested last year’s fourth-place finish. UMBC has finished in the top four of the league in six of the last eight seasons.

UMBC won a pair of titles, capturing league crowns in men’s soccer and men’s swimming and diving. It was the second league championship in three seasons for Pete Caringi Jr.’s squad, while Chad Cradock’s team won the coveted title for the ninth time in ten AEC campaigns.

The Retrievers also pulled down a league-high five runners-up finishes in women’s swimming & diving, women’s indoor track & field, men’s lacrosse, men’s tennis and men’s outdoor track & field.

Read the full release »

Dr. Jason Loviglio, MCS, Publishes Book

Jason Loviglio, Director of the Media and Communication Studies Program, is co-editor with Michele Hilmes of the new book “Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era” (Routledge, 2013).

The book website notes, “Radio’s New Wave explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age. Extending and updating the focus of their widely acclaimed 2001 book The Radio Reader, Hilmes and Loviglio gather together innovative work by both established and rising scholars to explore the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio’s convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. Even radio’s history has been altered by research made possible by digital and global convergence. Together, these twelve concise chapters chart the dissolution of radio’s boundaries and its expansion to include a wide-ranging universe of sound, visuals, tactile interfaces, and cultural roles, as radio rides the digital wave into its second century.”

Congratulations Dr. Loviglio!

Article by Christopher Rakes, Education, Receives Award

An article co-authored by Christopher Rakes, assistant professor of education, has been selected as an honorable mention for the Journal of School Psychology ‘s (JSP) 2012 Article of the Year.

The article was entitled “A Longitudinal Study of School Connectedness and Academic Outcomes across Sixth Grade,” and co-authored by Kate Niehaus, assistant professor of Educational Psychology and Research at the University of South Carolina, and Kathleen Rudasill, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  The study examines the extent to which school connectedness (i.e., students’ perceptions of school support and the number of adults with whom they have a positive relationship) is associated with academic outcomes across sixth grade for students from high poverty neighborhoods.

This selection was based on nominations from JSP editorial board members and members of the Society for the Study of School Psychology and voting by an independent selection committee composed of Society for the Study of School Psychology members.

An abstract of the article can be read here.

Jason Loviglio, Media and Communication Studies, Co-edits New Book

radios new waveJason Loviglio, director of media and communication studies, is the co-editor with Michele Hilmes of the recently-released book “Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era” (Routledge, 2013).

“Radio’s New Wave” features essays from 12 top scholars from three continents.  It explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age, exploring the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio’s convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. “Radio’s New Wave” charts the dissolution of radio’s boundaries and its expansion to include a wide-ranging universe of sound, visuals, tactile interfaces, and cultural roles, as radio rides the digital wave into its second century.

Kate Drabinski, Gender and Women’s Studies, in the Indypendent Reader

Maryland – and Baltimore in particular – remains a place with a troubled relationship to the Civil War, Kate Drabinski, lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies, points out in a recent piece for the “Indypendent Reader.”

“Maryland never seceded from the Union, but its citizens leaned strongly toward the Confederacy,” she writes. “All the contradictions of this past that is still very much present are engraved in the infrastructure of the place, from street and park names to its more obvious public memorials and monuments that remind us of this war.”

Drabinski focuses her piece on Baltimore’s monuments to the Civil War (three in honor of the Confederacy and one in honor of the Union), and especially on the memorial to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee that sits at the corner of Wyman Park near the Baltimore Art Museum.

“The struggle over the meaning of these memorials continues, and the sense of a glorious Confederate past continues to radiate from this memorial, the memory of slavery and bondage past and present, about which this war was fought, surely ghosting the place,” she writes.

The full piece, “They Were Great Generals and Christian Soldiers: Remembering Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” appeared online on June 3.

Christine Mallinson, Language, Literacy & Culture, Publishes “Data Collection in Sociolinguistics: Methods and Applications”

Christine Mallinson, associate professor in the Language, Literacy & Culture Program, is co-editor, with Becky Childs and Gerard Van Herk, of the new book, Data Collection in Sociolinguistics: Methods and Applications (Routledge, 2013).

The book website notes, “This edited volume provides up-to-date, succinct, relevant, and informative discussion about methods of data collection in sociolinguistic research. It covers the main areas of research design, conducting research, and sharing data findings with longer chapters and shorter vignettes written by a range of top sociolinguists, both veteran and emerging scholars. Here is the one-stop, go-to guide for the numerous quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods that are used in sociolinguistic research, ensuring that Data Collection in Sociolinguistics will be not only useful in the classroom but also as a reference tool for active researchers.”

Professor J.K. Chambers of the University of Toronto writes in the foreword to the volume, “This collection provides a balanced, judicious, forward-looking summation of the ways in which we collect, access and process the data that is the foundation of our enterprise. In its format and its tone, it has the feeling of a symposium involving a select group of sociolinguists sharing their personal experiences as well as their collective wisdom. It is an invaluable sourcebook for researchers and students and also for veteran fieldworkers in the diverse situations we face on entering the community.”

Jodi Kelber-Kaye, Honors College, on the Marc Steiner Show

On May 29, Jodi Kelber-Kaye, associate director of the honors college, was a guest on the Marc Steiner Show to discuss the 162nd anniversary of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech.  Kelber-Kaye was joined by Lea Gilmore, singer, activist, and Center for Emerging Media cultural correspondent; Dream Hampton, journalist and cultural commentator; and A. Adar Ayira, project manager of the More in the Middle Campaign for Associated Black Charities and facilitator and analyst at Baltimore Racial Justice Action to discuss African American women and feminism.

“The word feminism is a more recent invention, and if we want to say it was invented out of white women’s movements we could easily say that.  Black women’s rights people have always had a dissonant relationship with that term,” said Kelber-Kaye.

The full conversation can be heard here.

Kimberly Moffitt, American Studies, on the Marc Steiner Show

On May 23, Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American Studies, was a guest on the Marc Steiner Show for a segment entitled “Is President Obama’s Message To Black America Different From The Rest Of America?,” in which Moffitt and her fellow guests analyzed President Obama’s messages to Black America, looking at his recent commencement speeches.  Moffitt was joined by Kai Wright, editorial director of Colorlines.com and Keith Snipes, an actor and writer.

“I think as a politician, he’s fairly consistent with providing us middle-class rhetoric,” said Moffitt. “But I think the difference with what we see happening at HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities] in terms of the speeches there, is that in some ways, the Obamas feel like they’re with family and that they can have certain familial conversations that they probably would have in smaller settings, but they’re forgetting that they’re in a very public space.”

The full segment can be heard here.

Robert Provine, Psychology, in the American Journal of Human Biology

Psychology professor Robert Provine’s latest book, “Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping and Beyond,” was recently reviewed in the American Journal of Human Biology.

“Provine brings together ethology, neurophysiology as well as psychology to describe the secrets of our daily behaviors in detail,” writes the reviewer. “Aimed at a wide readership, Provine’s book consists of 13 chapters written with humor… using only minimal resources, available to anyone, he is studying behaviors that raise serious questions.”

The full review can be read here.

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