ThatCamp Community College: An Overview

Here I am setting up in the morning. Picture by Gina Yanuzzi.

Here I am setting up in the morning. Picture by Gina Yanuzzi.

My co-coordinators Chris Gazarra and Gina Yanuzzi did a lot of work the morning of the unconference getting everything set up as I riffed ideas from previous ThatCamps at them. Gina drew this to give directions to those who were coming in.

My co-coordinators Chris Gazarra and Gina Yanuzzi did a lot of work the morning of the unconference getting everything set up as I riffed ideas from previous ThatCamps at them. Gina drew this to give directions to those who were coming in.

After nearly a year of planning, the first ever ThatCamp Community College took place in the spring on our Mt Laurel campus here at BCC. We had a small group of about 10-12 at various times in the day (including a number of cancellations and no shows too), which led to very dense and productive sessions in the morning and then a rapid fire session to discuss proposed topics that did not receive enough votes.

Our morning sessions were about the key technological needs of community college students and how technology effects the form and logic of composition papers. I was so happy that our Dean in Liberal Arts, Nichole Bennett-Bealer, was able to sit in during the morning sessions for a bit.

After lunch we had one more session to discuss in rapid fire fashion some of the other session ideas that had been proposed in the morning. It was a small group, and mostly English and Literature faculty, so we could go into a detailed and deeper discussion.

I was so happy that our intern president David Spang was able to drop by for a little bit as well during the afternoon session. Dr. Spang has been extremely supportive since our first meeting back in August and I am grateful for his support and leadership here at BCC.

We will have information about next year's ThatCamp Community College later in the summer or early in the fall.

Ursula Le Guin

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

What I Am Up To This Summer

I am hoping for, after a very turbulent spring semester, a pretty quiet summer. I am teaching three sections of distance education composition courses in the first part of the summer. Summer courses are normally pretty straight forward, although I did have a rather horrific plagiarism case last year.

I will be attending three unconferences this summer. June 18th is ThatCamp Digital Pedagogy at the Carnegie Library in Atlantic City. A few days later is the PhillyDH event at the University of Pennsylvania. Finally, I will return to Stockton for the NJEA's Techstock unconference.

At some point in the summer, the team behind ThatCamp Community College will meet to plan next year's unconference. I will have some posts about this year's unconference soon.

I am writing a bit this summer. I have a book review and journal article currently under consideration. More details on that as they emerge.

Signifying Nothing Podcast Episode #50

https://signifyingnothing.net/uncategorized/signifying-nothing-podcast-episode-50/

Integrity-Armenian Persecution
Intent-No Rules
Magic Circle-Scream Evil
Violent Arrest-Law Abiding Citizen

Get High-Magnetized
Boston Strangler-Forward Into Hell
Night Birds-No Spoilers
Green Beret-After The Arms Race

Bl’ast!-Look Into Myself
Arms Race-Mind Control
Framtid-Nuclear Power Genocide
Peace Breakers-Don’t Ask Me

Down But Not Out-Caught In The Cycle
Not Afraid-Elephant Skins
Nuclear Spring-Death Sentence
Neo Cons-No Allegiances

Sacrilege-House The Homeless
Wound Man-Carbon
Violent Reaction-VxR Stomp
Mercy Killings-Forever I Roam

Drusilla, Kendra, & the Role of Agency in Vampire Literature

This morning I spoke at the Buffy to Batgirl conference at Rutgers-Camden. I did not get to give my full paper because of some time constraints, but here is the full version of the paper. I talk about Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Carmilla, and Dracula with a strong focus on Mina Harker, Kendra, and Drusilla.

I need to thank Courtney Stoker who helped me edit this paper when I originally wrote it. This paper was submitted a few years ago to a journal who liked it, but said to make a few changes. One of them was unclear, so I asked for an example. I was told the editor did not have time to read it again and that I should have a colleague look at it. I did not resubmit it to that journal. Courtney helped me a lot with crafting my argument in here and I really appreciate her hard work helping me.

PDF

Podcast #11

Here is podcast #11. This one is my recording of my article for The Victorian about adapting Dracula as a work of hypertext fiction. This is a new version. The one I previously posted did not come out well. This one has better audio.