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Transforming the Student’s Experience as Scholar – Symposium co-sponsored by CLIR and the Brown University Library
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The Brown University Library and the Council on Library and Information Resources will host leading scholars from around the country for a symposium on scholarly methods in the Humanities. The event will kick off with an installation of an electronic work, “imposition,” by John Cayley, Visiting Professor of Literary Arts, and a reception on Thursday evening, April 17, in the Rockefeller Library. The symposium, sponsored by CLIR (the Council on Library and Information Resources) will be held on Friday, April 18, at the Watson Institute for International Studies and will feature presentations by Randy Bass, Georgetown University, Bernard Frischer, University of Virginia, and Christopher Dede, Harvard University. The program will close with a panel discussion on the impact of multi-literacies on transforming the student’s experience as scholar, with Brown faculty members and students including Dietrich Neumann, Professor of Art and Architecture, Susan Smulyan, Associate Professor of American Civilizations, James Der Derian, Professor of International Studies, and Professor Cayley.“The first shots of the information revolution may have been fired over a decade ago, but we are still grappling with what the tremendous advances in technology mean to scholarly life,” said Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian. “This symposium builds on Brown’s culture of interdisciplinary, active learning, enabling an environment where students partner with faculty to probe questions at the center and edges of academic inquiry. Brown faculty members were among the first to explore cutting edge technologies and to incorporate humanities computing into their teaching and research. This meeting of minds will help take stock of how far we’ve come and where we need to go to better prepare our students for a rapidly changing world and to unlock their potential as life-long scholars.”
For a complete itinerary of events see below:
Symposium Kick-Off, April 17, 2008, Location: Rockefeller Library, Second Floor Computer Cluster
“imposition”: a networked performance, Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Abstract: A networked performance by John Cayley, Visiting Professor of Literary Arts. Mr. Cayley’s performance will be accompanied by a reception. For more information about Mr. Cayley’s piece, see: http://programmatology.shadoof.net/?imposition.
Symposium, April 18, 2008
TRANSFORMING THE STUDENT’S EXPERIENCE AS SCHOLAR
CLIR Symposium on Scholarly Methods in the Humanities
Location: Joukowsky Room, Watson Institute for International Studies
Introductions: Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian
Comments: Chuck Henry, President, Council on Library and Information Resources
9:00-9:30 a.m.
“The Invention of Amateurs and the Uncertainty of Expertise”
Speaker: Randy Bass, Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning Initiatives and Associate Professor, English, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Georgetown University
Time:9:30-10:30 a.m.
Abstract: How might multi-literacies change the way we develop digital scholars and scholarship? We would do worse than look to the convergence of two seemingly unrelated sources of insight: the changing role of invention in the era of the “amateur upload” and the rising importance of ideas like “uncertainty” in the research on expertise and expert learning. This session will explore some ways that the future of digital media asks us to reconsider a whole range of ideas that have become marginalized in higher education: creativity, visual communication, narrative, even emotion. Reckoning with the future of digital scholarship–and the intellectual development of students to prepare for it– may mean confronting some of our long-held assumptions about learning and knowledge.
Break
Time:10:30-10:45 a.m.
“Making Heritage Virtual: Rome Reborn 1.0 and Other 3D Modeling Projects at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities”
Speaker: Bernard Frischer, Director, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia
Time: 11:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Abstract: This talk will discuss methodologies and technologies used to digitize 3D cultural property such as pottery, statues, buildings and even entire cities. Current projects at IATH will be used as examples, including Virtual Williamsburg, the Digital Forma Urbis Project, and Rome Reborn 1.0. The focus of the talk will be on the latter–an international initiative to create 3D computer models illustrating the urban development of Rome from the first settlement in the late Bronze Age to the depopulation of the city in the sixth century A.D. Rome Reborn 1.0, the first results of the overall project, shows the city as it might have appeared in 320 A.D. In the conclusion, new directions and challenges in this field will be discussed, including populating models of buildings and cities with people and their activities; using models as tools for discovery (and not simply as illustrations of previous knowledge); and the online collection and dissemination of real-time 3D models on the Internet.
Lunch
Time: 12:00-1:30 p.m.
“Learning about Research and Vice Versa”
Speaker: Christopher Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Time: 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Abstract: Web 2.0 interactive media — such as wikis, social tagging tools, and virtual environments – capture rich records of students’ behaviors that are valuable for both learning and assessment. In studying their own and peers’ patterns of performance, students can potentially gain insights both about their own cognitive and social processes and about the practices and epistemology of academic scholarship. This session describes several types of tools that illustrate this potential.
Roundtable discussion
Speakers: Panel of Brown faculty and students including Professors John Cayley, James Der Derian, Dietrich Neumann, Susan Smulyan
Time: 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Closing comments
Time: 4:00-4:30 p.m. -
Brown Daily Herald: Two students’ research pays off
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By Kurt Walters
04/10/08
Caitlin McKenna ’09 and Sara Damiano ’08 were announced as the winners of the University Library’s second annual Undergraduate Research Awards for “extensive, creative use” of library resources, according to an April 4 press release.
Ron Fark, leader of Gateway Services and facilitator of the selection committee, said this year’s contest was very competitive, with the committee receiving 12 “very good” applications. “We would have given out a few more,” Fark said, if it had been possible.
What set the two winners’ research projects apart was the way each “seamlessly integrated primary source material into lively and engaging narratives,” University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi said in the press release.
McKenna’s research, titled “Golden Orbit: The Black Sun Press in the Shadow of Modernism” was about a small printing press run by the American Crosby brothers in 1920s Paris, and how it impacted literary modernism, she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. McKenna, who is currently studying abroad in Paris, wrote her paper as a final project for HIST 2970: “The Authority of the Word,” a graduate seminar she said was “the most influential class I’ve ever had at Brown.”
Damiano’s paper, “‘Such virulent temper added to the Rigour of the Laws’: Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts in Charles II’s England” was written as a project for a history seminar with Professor of History Timothy Harris that she worked on throughout the semester, she said. She looked at the effects of a series of laws mandating religious conformity to the Church of England and the persecution that resulted from them, she said.
The anonymous committee that selected the winners consisted of two Brown faculty, a dean from the Office of the Dean of the College, two librarians and a member of the Friends of the Library, Fark said.
One of those members, when reviewing McKenna’s project, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that “after reading her piece, I wanted to run straight to the library and see what treasure I might find that could possibly start me on a similar journey!”
Committee members looked at usage of library resources, lucidity of writing and ability to synthesize these into a project that showed potential to lead to more research, according to the Library’s Web site. The Library will award the winners $750 each.
The competition will be offered again in 2009, Hemmasi said, and the committee will expand the contest to accept multimedia projects, Hemmasi said.
Fark said he hopes that more students will apply, though he added that “the review committee might not think that.”
Both Damiano and McKenna said they were unsure how they would use the prize money. Damiano said she would probably use it to support her plans after graduation, and McKenna wrote that since Paris is “incredibly expensive,” the money may end up going towards “chicken, toothpaste, metro tickets.” -
Library’s Undergraduate Research Award Winners Announced
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In partnership with the Office of the Dean of the College, the Brown University Library is pleased to announce that Caitlin McKenna and Sara Damiano are the recipients of the second annual Undergraduate Research Awards. This $750 prize recognizes excellence in undergraduate research projects that make creative and extensive use of the Brown University Library’s collections including print, databases, primary resources, and materials in all media. A six member review committee of Brown faculty members, librarians, Friends of the Library Board, and the Office of the Dean of the College selected this year’s winners.
“The works submitted this year were unusually strong,” said Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian. “It was a very difficult decision to select only two of our many outstanding applicants. Caitlin and Sara had two remarkable works of scholarship that seamlessly integrated primary source material into lively and engaging narratives. Their writings highlight both their keen minds and analytical abilities and the Brown University Library’s extraordinary resources.”
McKenna’s award recognized her essay entitled Golden Orbit: The Black Sun Press in the Shadow of Modernism. Written as a final project for Robert Gross’ history of the book seminar, McKenna’s paper examines the legacy of Harry Crosby, an American expatriate living in Paris in the 1920s, who ran a publishing company that produced special editions of works by literary luminaries such as James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. Crosby was fascinated by the cult of the sun and railed against an American culture that he deemed puritanical. McKenna drew extensively on a host of library resources to conduct her independent research. She relied on the Rockefeller Library and interlibrary loan services to furnish her with background information and the special collections housed at the John Hay Library to provide her with fresh insight Crosby’s character and interpersonal relationships. To this end, Crosby’s correspondence with friends and lovers, manuscript notebooks, and hand edited proofs proved invaluable.
Robert Gross, James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History at the University of Connecticut, commented on McKenna’s deft handling of a difficult topic by noting, “It was on a par with the best papers by advanced graduate students I have received in this course over two decades, and it assimilated its sources with greater ease. Since she was a second-semester sophomore at the time, her essay may well be the best undergraduate research paper I have read in three decades of teaching.”
Damiano received the award for her paper entitled “Such virulent temper added to the Rigour of the Laws”: Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts in Charles II’s England. Damiano’s work examines the ways in which laws against nonconformist religious conventicles were enforced during the reign of Charles II. This was a period of time (1660-1685) in English history marked by widespread religious persecution. Damiano made extensive use of the Library’s holdings in preparing her paper. She consulted over 25 pamphlets about the Conventicle Acts, assize sermons, and an edition of John Besse’s Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers (1753), held in the John Hay Library.
In supporting Damiano’s nomination, Timothy Harris, Munro-Goodwin-Wilkinson Professor of European History, raved, “I found her paper to be extremely well-researched, making excellent use of the Library’s holdings. It is well-written, tightly structured, intelligent and thoughtful, and develops a number of highly perceptive insights. It is a truly impressive piece of scholarship.”
A private reception will be held at the Library to honor the recipients in late spring.