Category Archives: Events

Zephyr Frank from Stanford Spatial History Lab to Speak at Duke 02/20/2013

Reading 100 Plays at the Same Time: Encounters as Micro­networks in Literature

Zephyr Frank

Department of History
Stanford University

Wednesday, February 20, 2013
12:00 – 1:15PM
Smith Warehouse – Bay 4, C105 “Garage”

Erving Goffman used the language of theater, and a close analysis of what happens on stage, to generate a theory of social experience. This paper adopts Goffman’s approach, based on elementary “strips” of interaction, and repurposes it for the quantitative study of plays as micro-encounters that build into macro-structures. The encounter provides a computational signal and an interpretive concept in the “window,” an arbitrarily cut strip of a given number of speeches in a play. As the window moves through the play, a micro-network is built based on the speech-acts within the window’s range. While the overall network of a play can reveal something about a play’s social and dramatic structure, the window helps us capture, quantitatively, the basic units of social experience that go toward creating those larger structures. The window also allows for the comparison of many plays of varying length and structure, putting, for example, the Ancients, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Brazilian playwrights together in a new analytical frame. Zephyr Frank is an Associate Professor of History at Stanford University, Director of the Spatial History Project, and the principal investigator for the Terrain of History project. He is also the director of CESTA. The Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), an interdisciplinary collective of labs operates independently of any one particular home department, and is organizationally housed within the Dean of Research at Stanford University.

Co-Sponsored by Information Science + Information Studies and the Triangle Digital Humanities Consortium

‘Reacting to the Past’ Comes to Duke University

The FHI GreaterThanGames Lab just successfully co-sponsored a regional Reacting to the Past conference January 19-20, 2013. Visiting Fellow Adeline Koh wrote up her experiences at a similar event for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker column – and we knew GTG had to experience this live role-playing game experience on site.

Conference participants learned about the RTTP pedagogy by engaging in intensive two-day workshops on particular games. In addition, plenary sessions will provide an opportunity to discuss issues related to teaching and learning, game mechanics, and the like.

We sponsored two games:

Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence,1945

Frederick Douglass, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Constitution: 1845

 

For more details about these games and the Duke event RTTP Event Description. See also the RTTP Reacting to the Past Storify (Twitter aggregation)

An additional goal for the GTG Lab was to think about how such real-world role-playing experiences might be translated into virtual or hybrid pedagogy forms. This came up as part of the onsite conversations. Koh is currently developing a game called Trading Races that she hopes to translate into digital form with the help of GTG’s Victoria Szabo and other partners.

Hybrid Pedagogy Event: Mon, 11/12/2012, 130-3pm

Join Us!

Digital Pedagogy, Play, and Mass Collaboration
Monday, November 12, 2012 – 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Jesse Stommel and Pete Rorabaugh

Co-sponsored by GreaterThanGames, Information Science + Information Studies, and the PhD Lab in Digital Knowledge

Please join us for an event on MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) and play in education with Pete Rorabaugh (English, Georgia State University; @allistelling) and Jesse Stommel (English & Digital Humanities, Marylhurst University; @jessifer), editors of the journal Hybrid Pedagogy. Adeline Koh (Literature, Richard Stockton College & 2012-13 Humanities Writ Large Visiting Faculty Fellow) will moderate. We’ll be livestreaming the event on the FHI Youtube channel, and everyone is encouraged to watch and take part via the Twitterstream: hashtag #dukehp.

This summer Hybrid Pedagogy ran the experimental course, MOOC MOOC, a mini-MOOC, a meta-MOOC, a MOOC about MOOCs. The course was announced in the Hybrid Pedagogy article, “The March of the MOOCs: Monstrous Open Online Courses,” in which Jesse argues, “Content and learning are two separate things, often at odds… Most content is finite and contained; whereas, learning is chaotic and indeterminate. It’s relatively easy to create technological infrastructures to deliver content, harder to build relationships and learning communities to help mediate, inflect, and disrupt that content.”While institutions ponder how to make excursions into new media more efficient and profitable, the pedagogues at the digital table must push the other side of the envelope. We should be creating critical and reflective sandboxes that invite learners to set their own goals, make mistakes, collaborate, and improvise.

In Deep Play, Diane Ackerman writes, “We may think of play as optional, a casual activity. But play is fundamental to evolution” (4). George Dennison offers a similar account of play in The Lives of Children, in which he describes “children’s natural play” as “expansive and diverse, alternately intense and gay,” whereas more formal play (games with umpires, rules, etc.) becomes “strained and silent,” “serious,” and “uncomfortable” (195-196).

An attachment to outcomes discourages experimentation. In “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs,” Pete argues that “process takes precedence over the product.” This talk will emphasize the ways that play can function not as a methodological approach toward a set of outcomes but as the outcome in and of itself. We will open a conversation about how social media and digital space make learning voracious and lively by inviting new (and often wild) modes of interaction.

Role Playing Game Night at Duke!

Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Time: 7pm-9pm
Location: Biddle Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Will Hansen, 919-660-5958 or william.hansen@duke.edu

Is studying for finals stressing you out? Or do you need a break from hectic holiday shopping? Please join the staff of the Rubenstein Library to for a night of fun and games to celebrate the opening for research of the Edwin and Terry Murray Collection of Role-Playing Games. The collection, one of the first to be available at a research institution, contains thousands of boxed sets, game books, accessories, card games, and manuscript records from the 1970s to the present, documenting the history of a medium that has grown into a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Rare and unique materials from the collection will be on display.

Come play a classic board or card game with friends old and new, enjoy refreshments, and learn more about the history of games. We hope to see you there!

Spring 2012 Workshops

DATES AND TIMES TBA unless otherwise noted.

Recurring Events:

  • iApp programming (Wednesday nights; independent study options available)
  • Spring “critical” play group: pick a game, have someone introduce it, and then go!
  • Game design – modding board games; white papers – 101 board game recipes for inspiration

One-time/Short Workshops:

  • Unity 3D (short session)
  • Arduino (short session)
  • EZ-IO board
  • DIY videogame cabinet
  • iPack workshop
  • Interface Design

Upcoming Speaker: Mobile App Developer Matt Bischoff

Mobile Application Development
Matthew Bischoff, Lickability.net

7 December 2011, Noon – 1:30PM
Smith Warehouse
FHI “Garage” (Bay 4, Downstairs, Room C105)
Lunch will be served

Please join us for a lunchtime conversation at Noon, Wed, Dec 7 in the FHI Garage in Smith Warehouse Bay 4 with Mobile App Developer Matt Bischoff of lickability.net. Matt has been a successful independent developer, and recently got a job with the New York Times to develop mobile apps for the newspaper. He both has programming chops and a background in graphic arts and UI. He is a strong proponent of UI and believes this is the key to a successful app. I’m sure we can all learn a lot from Matt’s experience, so hope to see you there! All are welcome.

The Digital Muse: The Internet, Social Media, and Contemporary Poetics on 11/11/11

Special Panel and Exhibit at the One Makes Many Colloquium in the Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, C105 “Garage” on Friday, November 11, 2011

2:45-4:15  The Digital Muse: The Internet, Social Media, and Contemporary Poetics

w/ Steve Roggenbuck, Dan Anderson, and Bill Seaman (Moderator: Patrick Herron)

Exhibit of featured speakers’ digital poetry work opens in the GreaterThanGames Lab (FHI Bay 4, C104) 11AM – 6PM on Friday.

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Panel and Exhibit Co-sponsored by the FHI GreaterThanGames Lab and the Program in Information Science + Information Studies

For full event information and schedule see the One Makes Many event website.

 

Visiting Artist Tamiko Thiel 10/3

The MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts  invites you to meet pioneering Augmented Reality artist,

Tamiko Thiel

Artist Talk and Reception
Monday, October 3
6:15-8pm
FHI Garage – C105, Bay 4, 1st Floor, Smith Warehouse

Internationally exhibited new media artist Tamiko Thiel is interested in developing the dramatic and narrative capabilities of interactive 3D virtual reality as a medium for addressing social and cultural issues. She lectures internationally on the creation of meaning in art and of dramatic experience in time-based and interactive media. She is developing a theory of dramatic structure for virtual reality that merges concepts of structured experience from music theory, drama and urban planning together with the possibilities for user engagement and immersion provided by first-person interactivity.

Thiel has taught and lectured internationally at such institutions as Carnegie Mellon University; the MIT Media Lab; the Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Germany; the University of California/San Diego; the USC School of Cinema-Television; and the School of Film and Television in Babelsberg, Germany. A founding member of the cyberartist group Manifest.AR, she participated in the path-breaking augmented reality exhibit “We AR in MoMA,” an uninvited guerilla takeover of MoMA New York. Her recent projects include interventions at the Museum of Modern Art, NY and the 54th  International Venice Bienniale, Italy.

This lecture is presented as part of the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts Visiting Artist Series, in collaboration with Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS) , Art, Art History and Visual Studies (AAHVS), the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), and the Program of the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI)

Tamiko will also be doing an Augmented Reality Workshop for the MFA students and some ISIS and GreaterThanGames students on Wednesday, 10/5 from 3-6pm in the Old Carpentry Shop (next to Smith Warehouse). Space is limited; please contact Victoria Szabo for more information or sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/TamikoThielAR

GreaterThanGames Game Night -POSTPONED!

Due to numerous scheduling conflicts among our Lab members and affiliates, and the fact that we haven’t yet received and/or set up all our gaming equipment just yet, we are POSTPONING the GreaterThanGames Lab game night we had originally planned for this evening. We anticipate rescheduling for late September/early October when we have had time to settle in and sort our schedules.

Many apologies for the late notice. We will let everyone know when the new time is set, and hope to see you all there.

In the meantime, if you were planning on coming to the session tonight, we urge you to set aside that time and play games on your own!