We’re Under Construction…
Author: Paul L. Hebert
InCommon this week – Digital Archives, Personal Sites, and some real talk
Welcome fellow Commoners,
This week, some of the most common ways people make use of the Commons is on display in some beautiful new sites that were created this week.
The Ladies’ Garment Worker Speaks Volumes – This website will chronicle one student’s read through the eight year run of the Ladies Garment Worker’s Union publication (1910-1918). It looks interesting, both a way to document a reading project and a way to highlight for others some of the best finds.
Heather Robinson – Lots of folks use the Commons to create personal or professional pages. This simple and elegant one shows how easy it easy to start crafting your digital presence.
Bree’s American Musical Theater – Another project-in-the-making, this one chronicling Bree’s thinking on the relevance of American musical theater to current issues and debates. She promises provocative discussion on some of the most famous works, including West Side Story, RENT, and the Disney behemoths.
The site that I’m not 100% sure what to do with yet because everything in college is so vague – I couldn’t leave this off. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there’s a definite internet snark that ensures we don’t get too full of ourselves.
Until next week, enjoy the Commons!
Best,
Paul
Welcome to the Fall 2018 Semester – Orientation
Welcome back fellow Commoners!
Another semester and it’s another buzz of activity on the Commons. Since it’s the beginning of a new academic year, I thought a kind of orientation to some of the digital initiatives going on around the Commons is called for.
GC Digital Initiatives – A great site to check often, it brings together many of the programs and groups from around all corners of the Commons. Read about workshops, events, resources, DH Institutes, etc. They also have a Twitter handle: @cunygcd
GC Digital Fellows – Based in the GC Digital Scholarship Lab, these grad students work in–as they describe it–an “in-house think-and-do tank for digital projects, connecting Fellows to digital initiatives throughout The Graduate Center.” They also have a Twitter handle: @digital_fellows
Social Mediums – The Program Social Media Fellows work to promote the scholarship and academic projects of students in each program and help students develop the critical tool sets to manage their digital footprint. Their website, “Social Mediums” includes commentary on recent Social Media news stories as well as tutorials for using various social media platforms (including The Commons). As you’d expect, they have a Twitter handle: @psmfCUNY.
Hope to see you around the Commons. Until next week,
Paul
A New semester and more to come!
Welcome fellow Commoners,
It’s that time of year again. The beginning of an academic year brings new ideas, new community members, and new projects to the Commons. As with last year, I’ll be combing through all the amazing work people are doing on the Commons and weekly bringing you some of the most interesting and relevant recent work people are doing. So check back weekly and feel free to post comments or email me if you have suggestions about great Commons projects you want to draw attention to.
Best,
Paul
In Common Spotlight: Interview with Michelle Zimmer, creator of The Bronx Was Brewing
Welcome fellow Commoners,
I’m happy to bring you all another spotlight on a #maker here at the Commons, Michelle Zimmer’s project The Bronx was Brewing.
In the years before prohibition, over sixteen hundred breweries pumped out more than 2 billion gallons of beer a year. By the end of prohibition, only a handful remained. Many of the most famous pre-prohibition breweries survived by making products other than beer–Pabst made cheese; Coors made ceramics; Yuengling made ice cream.
While most people think of Brooklyn as the flannel-clad spiritual home of the craft food movement, Zimmer (MALS 2018) offers a very different view of the brewing industry. Focusing on her home borough of The Bronx, Zimmer explores the rich brewing history of the nineteenth-century when beer was often safer to drink than water.
Zimmer’s project is ambitious, combining the digitized archival documents, original photojournalism, and a scholarly but relatable style. It is a glimpse into the thriving immigrant mecca the Bronx has always been. For me, the lesson in Zimmer’s work is that that industries die out and the cultures that arise in connection with them evolve.
Grab your favorite craft brew, and dive into this interview with Michelle Zimmer about her amazing project.
Best,
Paul
Note: This interview has been compiled from emails and notes. It has been lightly edited for style and content.
In Common this week: Interview with Ned Benton of New York Slavery Records Index
Dear fellow Commoners,
I have another behind-the-scenes look for this week!
Below, I interview with Ned Benton, Co-Director of the New York Slavery Records Index and Professor at John Jay College. The New York Slavery Records Index opened to the public on the CUNY Commons in January 2018 offering a searchable database of over 37,000 records related to slavery in New York State. In the interview Benton describes what inspired the project, how CUNY students compiled the data, and why the database belongs on the Commons.
Whatever you do, don’t skip Benton’s answer to the last question where he describes some of the most interesting details already uncovered using the tool.
I’ve played around with the database on my own and even used it in an American Literature course I’m teaching this semester. Using it, I found out my elementary and middle schools were named for former slave-owners. Hopefully you’ll be inspired by the project, or learn something by using the tool. Hopefully this interview will give you some of the interesting history behind the project, too.
In Common this week: “Departed but not gone”
Welcome fellow Commoners,
This week I’m looking backwards at sites that have been left dormant on the Commons and offer a kind of “distant reading. The title of this post comes from the title of one of those sites, dormant for over five years. (BTW: If anyone out there is looking for a corpus to explore, I’ve only scratched the surface here. Like many of the sites that will be referenced in this post, this is a hint at a project that could be. But it’s also a fascinating glimpse at the history of this digital community)
The idea comes from me doing some “spring cleaning” in my Commons account–removing myself from groups that have been inactive for years or from sites I no longer administer.
It got me thinking about the sites on the Commons that haven’t been deleted and persist years since they’ve been touched. The homepage pushes the most recently active sites, but what can we learn from looking at the opposite side of that spectrum?
I decided to make a list of the titles and post it here. I’ve organized them loosely around themes I noticed. These themes suggest experiences that we Commoners share–truly what we have “in common.” I think they also represent opportunities: they are ideas, ready for someone to pick up again.
To make the list I searched the Commons for sites that haven’t been active in more than three years, going all the way back to 2009 when The Commons first went live. I haven’t included titles that are simply people’s names, opting to share those which are more suggestive. Many of the actual sites are blank, with the default sample pages or simply an error apologizing for not finding anything. Sometimes the sites have content, though. Some are time capsules, others perplexing, funny, poignant, sad, self-depreciating, infuriating.
I’m interested in what you all see.
All the best,
Paul
THE LIST
Many sites suggest a traveling narrative:
Beyond the Pale
path less traveled by
Just Passing By
Odysseys and Homelands (sic)
Others revel in their unfinished-ness:
In Medias Res
Poems in Progress
Always a Working Title
Some capture a romantic or metaphysical self:
The Dilated Soul
My Passions
Hopeforvision
Collecting the Self
Inventing the Self
Many, like this list, suggest a wandering mind:
Occasional Thoughts
Engaging Thought
Musings
Notes
Notes to myself
Chestnuts
Thought Sphere
Public Ponderings
Thoughts and Musings
ocasional intrpspections on the world…
Asymmetrical Thoughts and Other Freudian Slips.
Some either are unfinished projects or sound like them:
Persuasion
Erotic Lit and etc
Delicious Food for Swallowing (actually about food that is easy to swallow)
GeekFitness
Quant Made Fun
A Minor Map
Counter-Mapping Return
Measure of Justice
Queer Lines of Communication Digital Scrapbook
ARTSEE
1960-1985 Computer Historical Moments for
Wrestling Freedom from a Realm of Necessity
Unsurprisingly, technology is a common theme:
CYBERTROPE
Mooreblogging
Luddite No Mas
Datalogical Turn
Blog about to Bloom
super user dood
Code. Play. KILL.
NetLogo
Mistakes I’ve Made in WordPress So Far
Teaching is also a common theme, although there are clearly sub-themes in this group:
Things I say to my BlackBoard students
If I wasn’t a teacher…
Raised by CUNY
Adventures in Teaching
SCHOOL ABANDONMENT
School Survival
My “academic” self
Blackboard Awesome
Trials and Tribulations of a Library Science Stude (sic)
CUNY Comments
But there’s excitement for CUNY, too:
My Professors..I adore and respect a lot!
LETS IMPROVE ENGLISH (sic)
Graduate NYC!
And then there’s the grab-bag category:
Thanks for all the fish
Having Fun
The Sound of the Stick
It seems we are at an impass (sic)
Miss Informed
The People’s Suitcase
When it Rains…
In Memoriam
Departed but not gone
Planning for the future
Place to Try Things Out
Start Procrastinating…Tomorrow
Lazy Sunday
The Manifold
scenarios
The Archive
Birds of a Feather
Feed Me Seymour!
DId We Break It
It Cannot be Trivial
In the Know How and Who
In Spite of Kryptonite
always a bridesmaid
Consequence of the Four Incapacities
Teaching on the Commons: An Experiment with Discussion across Three American Lit. Courses
Welcome fellow Commoners,
In this post I focus on a project Jason Nielsen and I have been working on this semester. Jason and I are both instructors at Queens College and between us, we’re teaching three sections of the same American Literature survey course at Queens College. Using a shared forum on a course page, we’re having our students discuss shared texts throughout the semester and collaborate on projects. Our primary goals are to invigorate class discussion with these additional voices and to make visible the approaches Jason and I take to these texts, too. You can take a look at the course site here: www.2018eng152.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
In Common this Week: Classes that produce Resources to Share
Welcome fellow Commoners!
This week I want to highlight two courses that are running on the Commons this semester whose expressed goal is sharing content beyond their classrooms. As the course site for Free Queer CUNY proudly declares “If it can’t be shared, it can’t be taught!”
What is unique about these courses is that they push coursework to not only engage with on-going discussion in their fields, but to produce actual tools that can be used. Students are producing genuine work product geared towards a very public audience.
- The first site is a clearing house for the Independent Study projects created by students in the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Students in the program participate in a two-part seminar in which they work together to create digital tools and projects. You can find these projects all over the Commons, but on this site you can see a collection of many of the most recent projects. It’s an exciting place to browse for inspiration but also you might discover tools useful to your research or classes: https://itpis.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
- The second site is the course site mentioned in the introduction. The course, IDS 70100 at the Graduate Center, asks students to design Queer Studies courses that can be used for undergraduates at CUNY campuses. It’s hard to imagine a collaboration that is more perfect for the CUNY Commons. It’s early in the semester, but students are already sharing resources, brainstorming ideas, and scaffolding assignments. This shared process work, along with the final syllabuses will be of tremendous help to educators in the future here at CUNY and elsewhere. https://freequeercuny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
Look out for a post next week about an experiment I’m trying with a colleague with teaching on the Commons and using discussion forums across multiple classes.
That’s all for now, keep exploring the Commons!
Best,
Paul
Welcome to a New Semester
Welcome back fellow Commoners!
It’s the beginning of a new semester and the changes around The Commons is pretty obvious. The recent push to make teaching on the Commons easier has certainly produced results and browsing around there are so many exciting course sites to be found. It reminds me that one of the most useful aspects of this digital space is that it is shared across CUNY. I’m as guilty as the next person as focusing rather narrowly on the campus on which I teach. When I’m developing a new course I look at the syllabuses of my colleagues at Queens College. There’s no good reason for that–there are wonderful educators with innovative at other schools, too. With more courses from across CUNY on the Commons, it’s a glimpse at the teaching practices and ideas of people from so many campuses. There’s a lot to sort through, but what an incredible shared resource!
I have many plans for this blog this semester. Along the lines of the most popular post from the Fall semester, I’ll be focusing on some of the movers and shakers around the Commons, bringing you brief interviews that give you a glimpses behind-the-scenes of some exciting projects. I’ll also occasionally describe my personal experiences teaching on the Commons this semester. As always, I’ll also be highlighting new posts and sites over the coming weeks.
Get ready fellow community members!
Best,
Paul
