News Archive

CMF Assistant Professor Dr. Hogan is part of a new interdisciplinary working group looking at social histories of DNA: 

Genomics, Bioinformatics and the Climate Crisis

The goal of this working group is to facilitate learning and communication among researchers and students interested in the environmental humanities, a field that brings insights from the arts and humanities to bear on pressing ecological issues. Our specific focus is to examine the present climate crisis together with critical scholarship on the promise of DNA – as gene and genome – as a potential solution to this crisis.

The group will meet monthly from September 2017 to March 2018 to discuss published research, present work in progress and host guest speakers. Key themes for organizing discussions and readings include: critical studies of climate change; the social history of DNA; reimagining diversity and kinship in a genomics age; and critical analysis of bioinformatics (DNA as data). This working group will identify and explore gaps in existing literature to provide a platform for developing a SSHRC Insight Development Grant on environmental humanities approaches to genomic applications for climate change.

Alix Johnson (UCSC) and Mél Hogan (University of Calgary) have guest edited an issue of Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. 

INTRODUCING LOCATION AND DISLOCATION: GLOBAL GEOGRAPHIES OF DIGITAL DATA

The contributions to this issue of Imaginations address the relationship between digital data and physical place. How is the economy of data storage organized in and across communities, regions, nations, and states? How does the industry reprise old relationships and forge new ones? How are boundaries and borders inscribed and encountered by users and creators along the way? How is information technology (IT) infrastructure built into environments, shifting social and natural terrain? By foregrounding spatial relations and infrastructures, these essays draw connections between globalized geographies of media distribution and localized impacts of IT on the ground.

More: http://imaginations.csj.ualberta.ca/?p=9947

CMF's PhD candidate AnneMarie Dorland, a Finalist of this year's #SSHRCStorytellers is the winner of the competition's 2017 Engagement Prize!

The award was evaluated by the fellow storytellers and the judges, and is given to the Top 25 Storyteller who best connects social sciences research and their own research study with the larger community. AnneMarie was selected based on her work connecting the Doing Design Thinking study with the University itself (through blog posts, guest posts for UToday and twitter engagement) and with the classroom (by integrating the findings from the study into teaching in COMS 383, and by using the SSHRC Storytellers videos as teaching tools in the classroom).

The University of Calgary's UToday article, Experts peer into the future of Canada's wireless 'spectrum' and predict seismic shifts, provides insight on the research and information presented at the Canadian Spectrum Summit 2017, presented by conference organizer and Co-Chair, CMF's Dr. Gregory Taylor. 

The Labour of Leisure is explored in a new article by CMF's Dr. Barbara Schneider and Sociology's Dr. Liza McCoy.  

Square dance is a form of social dance carried out by groups of four pairs of dancers arranged in a square, moving in response to on-the-spot instructions of a square dance caller. This article looks at the work that the square dance caller does to produce “fun” for the participants. The multi-faceted labour of being a caller includes being a singer, an entertainer, an expert in calling, a teacher, a sound equipment expert, a business person, and an emotional worker instrumental in producing other people’s pleasure.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14927713.2016.1269295?scroll=top&needAccess=true 

The Canadian Public Relations Society has two $1,000 scholarships available for students enrolled in public relations/communications programs at three educational institutions in Calgary. Both awards offer a $1,000 Scholarship and other benefits. 

Students in any of the Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies, and Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies, Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies, or Bachelor of Film Studies programs who have been accepted into a travel study program are eligible for the Department of Communication, Media and Film Study Abroad Award. One scholarship of $1000 per year will be awarded, based on the calibre of the proposed travel study plan.