Remixing the Humanities Kimbro, Noschka and Way

On this episode, Geoff digs into academic social media and Twitter with Manu Chander and Gina (lastname). What purpose does Twitter serve for academics as a social outlet or a space for activism and the sharing of ideas? What are some ways that the “shorthand” of Twitter (GIFs, etc.) can help or hinder the rigor of academic conversation? How do Twitter and other forms of social media contribute to a form of communal “peer review” in a field where getting your ideas out is a key form of developing those ideas/conversations? How can that Twitter standard, the hashtag, help develop and strengthen scholarly communities in the vein of #ShakeRace and #MedievalTwitter. How do these platforms help us break down the walls between specializations and periods that often create false boundaries and limit our research and conversations?

Be sure to visit our blog post at https://humanitiesremix.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-episode-twitter-and-academic.html for more information on the guests and the CFP discussed in the episode.

In this episode, Geoff talks with another group of collaborators from the Qualities of Mercy Project about how they felt about the process and the end results of the work they did with their students and The Merchant of Venice in production. What were some of the challenges of production/quality? What impact did the region/cultural milieu of the students have on the way they interpreted Shakespeare's ideas? Moreover, the guests chat about how much the project made students consider their institutional position as their performances were paired with performances from students all over the country. How did the institutions/administration respond to the project? How do you manage a variety of views and interpretations coming from the students while still needing to impose a coherent theme? What were some of the more important and significant staging choices these students made in making the text resonate with them and their communities?


Joining Geoff this time are Vanessa Corredera (Andrews University), Ruben Espinosa (University of Texas El Paso), Katherine Gillen (Texas A&M - San Antonio), and Katheryn Vomero Santos (Trinity University).



Listen to the new episode here! And if you missed part one, you can find it here.



And you can watch the fruits of the project here!


Please remember to share, rate, review, and subscribe! We can be found on Twitter and Facebook at humanitiesremix, and reach us via e-mail at humanitiesremix@gmail.com.

In our latest episode, Geoff talks with some of his co-participants in The Qualities of Mercy Project, an initiative among Shakespeare instructors who collaborated to bring The Merchant of Venice to college campuses nationwide and to discuss what "mercy" means in a regional sense. Our guests discuss the ways their students responded to the plays notions of forgiveness and mercy, ostracization, and racism/antisemitism in the wake of some of America's deadliest shootings, as well as the implications of anachronism and letting Shakespeare "off the hook." Also, what does it mean for pedagogy when we literally ask students to "embody" Shakespeare's plays and cultural discussions?


Joining Geoff for this conversation are Jonathan Burton of Whittier College, Ambereen Dadabhoy of Harvey Mudd College, Brooke Carlson of Chaminade University, and Mary Janell Metzger of Western Washington University


We'll be back in two weeks with another group of participants in this incredible project. In the meantime, you can watch the project here!



Please remember to share, rate, review, and subscribe! We can be found on Twitter and Facebook at humanitiesremix, and reach us via e-mail at humanitiesremix@gmail.com.

This week, Remixing the Humanities sits down for a brief chat with Colleen Kennedy, the publicist for Washington D.C.'s Shakespeare Theater Company and talks about the road from academia to the "alt-ac," or, as Colleen calls it, "IRL jobs." She talks about how she tailored her job materials for a position off the tenure-track, and how she feels graduate students and humanities programs could do a better job of preparing students to work outside the academy. Additionally, she gives some advice on how graduate students can make sure that they are thinking of writing/communicating to readers of all stripes, and how cultivating a writing career outside of your dissertation or academic journals can be one of the wisest career moves you make. Also, she talks about how her new career provides something that is often lacking in academia - a work/life balance!



Check out the new episode here!


For more information on the Shakespeare Theater Company, head here!

Colleen is happy to share her experience with the curious! You can find her on Twitter at @ReadColleenK.



Please remember to share, rate, review, and subscribe! We can be found on Twitter and Facebook at humanitiesremix, and reach us via e-mail at humanitiesremix@gmail.com.

Mary Rambaran-Olm and Adam Miyashiro are no strangers to discussions of race and racism in medieval and Anglo-Saxon studies. Within the past few years, they helped found the organization Medievalists of Color, which aims to create a space for scholars who find themselves marginalized in a field with pernicious strains of white supremacy and Euro-exceptionalism. Mary recently drew even more attention to the matter by publicly resigning her position on the executive board of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists at the second meeting of the Race Before Race symposium in Washington DC. Even now, members of the society are struggling to find a way to re-name and re-brand as a means to shed recent accusations and to ideally make the society more inclusive.


Mary and Adam join Remixing the Humanities to discuss recent developments in the field given the attention and fallout from Mary's speech at Race Before Race. We talk about what it means to have the scholarly and the public-facing conversations operating in tandem, and the dangers of "cloistering" academic inquiry within the confines of perceived prestige and rigor, as well as the real harm caused by ivory-tower gate-keeping. What cost to graduate students of color bear when they enter a field that wants them as students, but not necessarily as co-contributors? How do we push forward to make all fields of study more inclusive and welcoming? Does one need to operate within the per-existing system in order to affect change, or at what point does breaking with the norms become the catalyst for a real movement?

Please remember to like, share, rate, and subscribe. We can be reached on Twitter and Facebook at humanitiesremix, and our e-mail is humanitiesremix@gmail.com.

Join us this week as Devori talks with Dr. Jenn Stewart, the director of composition and assistant professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Jenn tells Devori about her research with first-year composition courses and texts that focus on issues surrounding diversity. They talk about how important it is that humanities courses provide a necessary touchstone to diversity for college students, as well as what sort of data can be derived from such initiatives to help steer humanities programs into public-facing pedagogy that helps create an informed electorate and conscientious citizens, and avoid the dreaded "indoctrination" accusation.

As always, be sure to like, share, rate, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you're interested in talking with Remixing the Humanities, you can reach out to us on Twitter at @humanitiesremix, or via e-mail at humanitiesremix@gmail.com.