Wicked Ambiguity Explored by Guest Speaker from Facebook

Jonathon Colman
Jonathon Colman

What’s it like to create solutions for people you won’t know in your lifetime? This wicked problem is faced by designers, artists, engineers, software developers, research scientists, information architects, content strategists—creatives of all sorts.

Jonathon Colman, product usability and lead content strategist at Facebook, offers some answers in his talk, “Wicked Ambiguity,” at 7 p.m. Monday (Sept. 18) in Walker 134.

In addition to his primary responsibilities at Facebook, Colman helps to recruit and place college interns. A Michigan Tech alumnus, Colman earned his BS in scientific and technical communication in 1997. Before joining Facebook in 2013, he worked in digital marketing and search engine optimization for REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) and the Nature Conservancy.

This even is sponsored by the Department of Humanities.

In Print: Emerita Elizabeth Flynn Publishes Chapter

flynnElizabeth Flynn, professor Emerita (HU), recently published a chapter, “Feminist Perspectives on Postcolonial Rhetorical Practices: Spivak’s Cosmopolitan Erudition and Nazer’s Surveilled Silence,” in Rhetoric and Writing Studies in the New Century: Historiography, Pedagogy, and Politics edited by Cheryl Glenn and Roxanne Mountford (Southern Illinois University Press, 230-254).

In Print: New Book by Syd Johnson

Routledge Handbook CoverThe Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, edited by L. Syd M Johnson (HU) and Karen S. Rommelfanger (Emory University) has been published by Routledge. The handbook offers an informed view of how the brain sciences are being used to approach, understand and reinvigorate traditional philosophical questions, as well as how those questions, with the grounding influence of neuroscience, are being revisited beyond clinical and research domains.

Click here for more information.

Author Visit Highlight of Orientation Week

16231B76-6B81-4602-95B2-5DF7A215C73C-3882-000005048741D3ECA visit and lecture by author Daniel Tammet is the one highlights of Orientation Week at Michigan Technological University. Tammet, author of the bestselling “Born on a Blue Day” will speak to students as part of the Reading As Inquiry program.

Now in its 14th year, Reading As Inquiry asks first year students to read a specific book. Tomorrow, students will attend an address by the author and engage in a discussion with fellow students and a staff facilitator. “Born on a Blue Day,” this year’s required reading, is a memoir of Tammet’s life with Asperger syndrome and savant syndrome and was named “Best Book for Young Adults” in 2008 by the American Library Association.

Possessing an incredible memory and aptitude for math and numbers, Tammet holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits and has the ability to learn languages in short periods of time.

Robert Johnson, professor of rhetoric, composition and technical communication in Tech’s Humanities department, explained why “Born on a Blue Day” was chosen. “The program is called ‘Reading as Inquiry,’ so we look for books that will inspire conversation,” Johnson says. He says there’s more to choosing the summer reading than whether it’s a good book. “We also have to consider their qualities of a public speaker, their availability during Orientation Week and, frankly, the cost of getting them here.”

Holocaust Survivor from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

8dad3602cbacfe04d0e097ff560d42b913fa23c9Rozsa Lecture “Survivor: A Conversation with a Holocaust Survivor from the Survivors Speakers Bureau of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Museum’s Office of Survivor Affairs is proud to offer schools, civic groups, military bases, and other institutions nationwide the opportunity to hear a Holocaust survivor share his or her experiences. Every year, our survivor speakers reach hundreds of different audiences, providing thousands of people across the country and abroad with the moving and memorable experience of listening to them recount their stories of suffering, loss, and survival.

The speaker will be Peter Gorog, born Péter Grünwald in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, on March 10, 1941. Peter’s father, Árpád Grünwald, worked as an office manager at the Franklin Publishing House and his mother, Olga Schönfeld, was a hat-maker. Hear his story, and learn how his experience can inform society today.

https://www.ushmm.org/remember/office-of-survivor-affairs/speakers-bureau

 Wednesday, September 13 at 7:30 pm
Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts

1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931

You can purchase the tickets by either visiting our events page or through this link directly to ticketing services, tickets will be available for the event beginning September 1st.

On the Road

image153105-persDana Van Kooy recently attended two conferences: the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) in York, England (July 27-30), where she presented her essay, “Configurations of Jamaica: The Modern Narrative of Diminishing Returns.”

She then attended the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR), which met in Ottawa, Ontario (Aug. 10-13). There, she presented a paper entitled, “Reanimating the Decorporializing Logics of Modernity and Capitalism.” Both essays contribute to her current book project about how modernity emerged from the nexus of human and environmental catastrophe: plantation slavery.

Tech Authors’ Book Signings This Weekend in Copper Harbor

M. Bartley Seigel
M. Bartley Seigel

Michigan Tech’s Cyndi Perkins (UMC) and M. Bartley Seigel (HU) are among the writers scheduled to be on hand during the 2017 Upper Peninsula Authors Book Signings—on the porch at Grandpa’s Barn Books in Copper Harbor.

The book signing is in conjunction with Copper Harbor’s Art in the Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 19-20). Grandpa’s Barn is owned by Lloyd Westcoat (GLRC). Seigel, one of the contributors to “And Here:100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017,” will be on the porch from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday.

Perkins will sign copies of her novel “More Than You Think You Know,” from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday. A total of 17 writers and artists will be on the porch during the two days.

Grandpa’s Barn is located behind Copper Harbor’s one-room school and is adjacent to the Grant Township Park.