RTC Master student, Nancy Achiaa Frimpong presented a paper on August 11, 2018 at the Comics Studies Society conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The conference theme was “Mind the Gaps! The Futures of the Field”. Frimpong presented on the topic “Ebola Virus Disease as Colored: The Case of American Online News Dissemination of Comics.” Her presentation received financial support from the Graduate Students Government Travel Grant, and the Humanities Department Travel Grant; and academic mentorship from communication and culture professor, Dr. Sue Collins.
The Humanities Department’s CinOptic Enterprise Team won first place in the Enterprise Team competition at the 2018 Design Expo for their poster and presentation. Pictured, from left to right are:Back: Zach Martens (STC), Sarah Lindbeck (STC), Noah Kozminski (STC), Shaun Burriss (Math Ed), McKenzy Rehfus (CCM)
Front: Eric Smith (VPA), Abigail Kuehne (CCM)
Photo by: Nathan Shaiyen, CCM and CinOptic member.
Incoming first-year Humanities majors in Communication, Culture and Media, English, and Scientific and Technical Communication posed for this photo at orientation this week. Pictured are Jayleen Rossi, Julianna Humecke, Brendan Pulda, Heidi Langley, and Cam Sanders.
RTC graduate, Joel Beatty, and professor Stefka Hristova have co-authored a chapter in the book, Surveillance, Race, Culture, published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Their chapter is titled “Articulating Race: Reading Skin Color as Taxonomy and as Numerical Data”. According to Dr. Hristova, the chapter “explores the transformation of race into biodata at the turn of the 20th century”. The book is edited by Susan Flynn, University of the Arts, London; and Antonia Mackay, Oxford Brookes University.
Anna K. Swartz, a graduate of Rhetoric, Theory and Culture, has published the article, The Missing Subject in Schizophrenia, for the Neuroethics Blog at Emory University.
Michigan Tech undergraduate students Matt Luther and Trenton Woodcox are two of four recipients to win a Japan Business Society of Detroit (JBSD) Foundation scholarship to study Japanese language and culture at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. They will arrive in September, and study on JCMU’s campus the entire 2018-19 academic year. The $4,000 scholarships will offset travel, tuition and living expenses.
Motivated by career goals, both are certain their year abroad will set them up for success in competitive professions.
Luther, an English major with a minor in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), says he “was interested in Japanese culture from a young age. After I graduate, I plan to go to Japan to teach English long term.”
Woodcox is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social sciences with a focus in law and society. Expected to graduate in 2020, he says he wants to “work on international policy or law at the U.N., work at an embassy like the Japanese embassy or work with the CIA in country profiling, so I think (studying abroad in Japan) will definitely help a lot.”
Read the full story on mtu.edu/news.
Silke Feltz, a PhD candidate in Humanities, has published a book review of “The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics,” by Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson and Tyler Doggett (Editors) in Metapsychology Online Reviews.
Anna K. Swartz, a graduate of Rhetoric, Theory and Culture, has a book review of “Phenomenology of Illness” published at Metapsychology Online Reviews.
In addition, Swartz published the article, “Are You Really Trans?”: The Problem with Trans Brain Science for the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics official blog.
My internship with Kijenzi—a group introducing 3-D printing for medical applications in rural Kenya—was less a formally established involvement, and more a reflection of ongoing efforts I started in summer 2017 and will continue in this summer. I had the opportunity to continue investing my time and energy in a project that I believe in, and to have some tangible return on that investment in the form of credits.
This internship led me to develop and fund a research project, develop a web presence and branding material, and be an integral part of an international interdisciplinary team. I’ve had extensive opportunities to develop my skills as a professional communicator with the variety of work I have been responsible for over the semester and beyond, giving me the hands-on experience necessary to learn a trade. Getting outside the classroom and working on client projects with real-world impacts is an invaluable experience, and I appreciated the chance to work with Kijenzi during the academic year, continuing my involvement in the organization while also advancing my degree at Michigan Tech.
If you want to know if you have a passion for something, you should gain experience in it. Thankfully, Michigan Tech’s University Marketing and Communications department, or UMC, was my opportunity. I spent the past two semesters working in the department as a student writer. I had come into it with no idea what I would gain, but left with some important lessons.
First: planning. Being a college student already requires balance, but put a job on top of that and you have someone in need of Google Calendar. After adding in time for interviews, writing, and meetings, my time soon became thin. Meeting deadlines and creating content I was proud of was crucial to me. If I didn’t make the time, then the words would be bland and unimaginative.
Then I moved into learning about communication. There are so many people within the UMC, from writers to editors to those that make the content accessible. Making sure people know your intentions and plan of attack clearly is important. While this was great to learn, I also found out that sometimes people just won’t answer you and there is nothing that you can do about it.
Lastly, I would say I gained much more respect for people in my field. Of course, not being a part of it before meant I never knew much, but I didn’t realize the amount of work put in. It opened my eyes for me to see that writing wasn’t something that anyone could do, but something people with passion could do. Those who helped make my writing better knew exactly where I was at and gave wonderful ideas to aid me. If it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I would have continued to love writing. The UMC made me fall in love with being a writer all over again.