It always bothered me on Mothers Day to see grannies and mums and their adorable kidlets packed off to brunches and lunches as if this was the only time of the year they were taken out for a meal someone else cooked for them. When did that second Sunday of May change from Julia Ward Howe's vision of it as a protest against war and a day to think of peace to yet another Hallmark smarmy event? Grumpgrumpgrump.....

Iraq is to moviegoers what garlic to vampires. Thanks, Frank Rich in today’s Sunday New York Times, in commenting on the weird dissonance of watching the new film by Errol Morris, Standard Operating Procedure, about the Abu Ghraib photos, in the swank of MOMA.

Marsha sent me this link to the NY Times article on March 20: The Professor as Open Book, re an mtvU show wherein profs get to get back at their profiles on Rate My Professors.

Gosh. I used to be hoTTer, but age, worldly cynicism, and raging hormones have taken its toll, I guess. I mean, really, 7 years ago someone could write: She's not too hard on the eyes - academically speaking , and now? The number of hot chili peppers has perhaps declined, from fiery habanero to toned-down Norte-Americano plain ole jalapeno. Such a shame, as the great thing about aging (perchance this is a girlie-professor thing) is that in the classroom, sometimes things just come out of my mouth that are, well, unanticipated, off-topic perhaps, potentially ribald, and at least amusing to me. Ah, but this often reflects the dynamism and synergy of the students within the class, so kudos to them for igniting those sultry sparks.

Last night Concordia’s student newspaper The Link hosted a lively discussion with myself, Journalism Prof Linda Kay and McGill Communication Studies Prof Carrie Rentschler, moderated by Misha Warbanski, on various issues related to women and the media. One issue that came up was the importance of how we as educators impart feminist perspectives in the classroom, whether through pedagogical style and content; mentioned was the increasing presence of young women in communication and journalism programs. This is a phenomenon we see across the country, but whether this prevalence of women is reflected in the overall academic trajectory in terms of graduate enrollment (MA and PhD), postdocs, and layers and levels of academic hierarchy – tenuous-track, tenure-track, tenured, Asst-Assoc-Full-Chairs, etc., has not been enumerated yet. This is a project I’ve wanted to work on for awhile, but it would seem that the usual other stuff just gets in the way…Meanwhile, here is the 2007 Ivory Towers: Feminist Audits, an annual postcard of statistical data on women and other equity groups collected from CAUT and Statistics Canada.

Shade
Feb/6/1985
Assignment for Professor Jorge Schement, UCLA MLIS Program
(his comments: Good style. It kept me reading till the last word. But what is to be concluded? (pardon the paraphrase). A-)

Abba-abba stract: In this paper, the author presents a rather irresolute and certainly vacillating answer to the aforementioned question, presented in trite but humble diaristic stylistics. The upshot of the verbiage unquestionably remains annoyingly inconclusive, and it can only be construed that this is the recitative intent.

On the gendered aspects of the Bluetooth as a tech artifact see the February 26 2008 entry at genbot course blog .

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 28(1): 80-91 (2008).

This article argues that post-September 11 political debates and
legislation around security necessitate a reconsideration of a right to privacy in Canada. It looks at the proposal for a Canadian Charter of Privacy Rights promoted by Senator Sheila Finestone in the late 1990s and the current challenges of emergent material technologies accelerated by digitization and political technologies of regulation and governance.

Feminist Interventions in International Communication: Minding the Gap, edited by Katharine Sarikakis and Leslie Regan Shade. Rowman and Littlefield, September 2007.

International communication research has badly needed a collection such as this one for a very long time. If any book is likely to give the field a much-needed shot in the arm, this is it. The variety of its contents and the freshness of the analyses are genuinely stimulating. It will probably set off new research initiatives globally. John Downing, Southern Illinois University

When feminist categories of analysis are brought to bear on the world of the new information technologies the result can be exciting and unfamiliar. Sarikakis and Shade have brought together a highly diverse group of such scholars and given us one of the more extraordinary texts I have seen on the new technologies. Together these authors open up the field with their original studies and deborder established propositions with gusto and brio. Saskia Sassen, Columbia University; author, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages

Feminist Interventions in International Communication is exactly what we all need right now. Together, these smart editors and authors reveal the connections between media's representation of women, women as workers in this burgeoning industry, and the structural trends of global media. They show us all what a feminist curiosity about global media can reveal. Cynthia Enloe, Clark University; author, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire.

This cutting-edge work critiques today's global mediascape through feminist perspectives, highlighting concerns of policy, power, labor, and technology. Starting with the general state of international communications, the book uses feminist political-economic and policy analyses to explore the globalization of media industries, including questions about women's employment and media content that is globally produced and consumed. A top-notch group of authors covers cases on online news, pornography and explicit material, political participation and democracy, policies for women's development, violence against women, labor practices and information workers, print media and publishing, public "telecentres," media coverage of HIV/AIDS, and more. Providing fresh feminist insights into international communication, this essential book shows the important strides taken toward women's justice in these areas and how far there is yet to go.

List of Contributors, TOC, and Acknowledgments (below)

GROWING UP ONLINE: Young People and Digital Technologies, edited by Sandra Weber and Shanly Dixon. Palgrave, 2007. Colleagues at Concordia! Here's the Amazon.ca link to the book with discount.

TOC:
Young People and Technology: Issues and Concepts--Sandra Weber & Shanly Dixon

Growing Up with New Technologies: A Longitudinal Case Study--Sandra Weber with Julia Weber

'I'm the One Who Makes the Lego Racers Go:' Virtual and Actual Space in Videogame Play--Seth Giddings

Time, Space and Embodiment in Girls’ Experiences of Technologies--Sandra Weber & Shanly Dixon

Computer Games: Methods, Players and Gender--Diane Carr

Young People Constructing Identities as Game Players and as Game Designers--Caroline Pelletier

The Girls Room: Negotiating Schoolyard Friendships Online--Kelly Boudreau

Blogging: Private Writing in Public Spaces?--Brandi Bell

Children’s Experiences of Technologies: Power and Technicity--Helen Kennedy & Jon Dovey

Playing at and with 'Tween' Culture: Consuming Popular Culture Websites as an Instance of Critical Digital Literacy--Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Consuming Fashion and Producing Meaning through Online Paper-Doll Sites--Rebekah Willett

Surfin’ for Idols: Pop 'Girls' and Digital Technology--Candis Steenbergen

Tween Culture and Digital Technologies in the Age of AIDS--Claudia Mitchell & Jacqui Reid Walsh

'There are too many of us for this to be abnormal!!!' Girls Creating Identity and Forming Community in Pro Ana/Mia Websites--Michele Polak

New Girl (and New Boy) at the Internet Café: Digital Divides/Digital Futures--Grace Sokoya & Claudia Mitchell

Contested Spaces: Public Discourses and Policy Problematics--Leslie Regan Shade

Re-viewing Girls and New Technologies--Shanly Dixon & Sandra Weber

Barbara Crow and I were invited to give a talk on 'Feminist perspectives on Digital technology' at the University of Texas Austin as part of their Gender and Technology Speaker Series.

We had a great time! Thanks to our hosts Sharon Strover, Gretchen Ritter, Christa French, Hillary Hart, Phil Doty and new friends Joe Straubhaar, Martha Fuentes-Bautista, Nobuya Inagaki, Michael, and Winston.