Andrew Whitacre (awhit@mit.edu)
Andrew directs the communications efforts for CMS/W and its research groups. A native of Washington, D.C., he holds a degree in communication from Wake Forest University, with a minor in humanities, as well as an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. This work includes drawing up and executing strategic communications plans, with projects including website design, social media management and training, press outreach, product launches, fundraising campaign support, and event promotions.
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Podcast: Helen Elaine Lee, “Pomegranate”
Helen Elaine Lee reads from the manuscript of her novel, Pomegranate, about a recovering addict who is getting out of prison and trying to stay clean, regain custody of her children, and choose life.
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Podcast: Nick Montfort, “Poet/Programmers, Artist/Programmers, and Scholar/Programmers: What and Who Are They?”
Nick Montfort is Professor of Digital Media at Comparative Media Studies/Writing. He develops computational poetry and art and has participated in dozens of literary and academic collaborations.
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Podcast: Christopher Weaver, “Amplius Ludo, Beyond the Horizon”
Weaver, founder of Bethesda Softworks, discusses how games work and why they are such potent tools in areas as disparate as military simulation, childhood education, and medicine.
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Megawatt, Professor Nick Montfort’s 2014 computer-generated book, now in German translation
Recently, literary scholar Hannes Bajohr brought Megawatt another interesting step forward, by modifying the code to output the text in German.
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Human vision, climate change, and white sharks: 2019 Science Documentary Videos
Produced by the graduate students from the 2019 class of the Graduate Program in Science Writing.
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Video: 2019 Science Writing Thesis Presentations
Our Graduate Program in Science Writing students read from their culminating works as they finish up they one-year program.
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Podcast: Haidee Wasson, “Do-it Yourself Cinema: Portable Film Projectors as Media History”
Haidee Wasson explores the long and vibrant place of portable film devices in the history of small media, repositioning the “movie theatre” as the singular or even central figuration of film presentation and viewing.
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Podcast: Sohail Daulatzai, “The Battle of Algiers as Ghost Archive: Specters of a Muslim International”
Sohail Daulatzai on The Battle of Algiers’ “competing narratives, a battleground over the meaning and memory of decolonization and Western power, and a site for challenging the current imperial consensus.”
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Podcast: Nick-Brie Guarriello, “The Good Stuff”: The Intersections of Work, Leisure, and Relational Bonding on Tumblr and Patreon
Nick-Brie Guarriello on the political economies and labor demands of micro-celebrity and Influencer culture across social media platforms regarding the Pokémon GO community.
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Video and podcast, Civic Arts Series: Myron Dewey, “Protecting the Water in Solidarity and Unity”
Myron Dewey has pioneered the blending of citizen monitoring, documentary filmmaking, and social networking in the cause of environment, social justice and indigenous people’s rights.
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Podcast: Sasha Costanza-Chock, “#MoreThanCode: Practitioner-led Research to Reimagine Technology for Social Justice”
Sasha Costanza-Chock explores key findings and recommendations from #MoreThanCode (morethancode.cc), a recently-released field scan based on more than 100 practitioner interviews.
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Podcast, “Civic Arts Series: Erik Loyer”
Erik Loyer’s award-winning work explores new blends of game dynamics, poetic expression and interactive visual storytelling.
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Alum Candis Callison delivers this year’s MIT Ph.D. hooding ceremony address
Read her call to make the world “more just, more fair”.
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Making Documentary: Videos from 2018 science writing graduate students
Learn about how the earth got its oxygen, about supercooling atoms…and how to dye eggs.
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Podcast: Anne-Katrin Weber, “Between Participation and Control: A Long History of CCTV”
Anne-Katrin Weber explores the politics of CCTV, highlighting the adaptability of closed-circuit technologies, which accommodate to, and underpin variable contexts of media participation as well as of surveillance and control.
