New Liberal Arts

8/14/2019 New Liberal Arts

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New

LiberaL

arts


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New LiberaL arts

sNarkmarket

reveLator Press


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CoNteNts

iNtroduCtioN t imothy Carmody, robiN sLoaN

atteNtioN eCoNomiCs aNdrew FitzgeraLd 2

brevity gaviN Craig 6

CodiNg aNd deCodiNg diaNa kimbaLL 8

Creativity aaroN mCLeraN 12

F iNdiNg daN LeviNe 1 6

Food gaviN Craig, theresa mLiNarCik 18

geNderFuCk Laura Portwood-staCer 22

home eCoNomiCs JeNNiFer reNseNbriNk 24

iNaCCuraCy aLex LiteL 28

iteratioN robiN sLoaN 30

JourNaLism timothy Carmody, matt thomPsoN 34

maPPiNg Jimmy stamP 36

marketiNg matt thomPsoN 40

miCroPoLitiCs matt thomPsoN 42

myth aNd magiC t iara shaFiq 44

NegotiatioN matthew PeNNimaN 48

PhotograPhy timothy Carmody 52

PLay matt thomPsoN 56

reaLity eNgiNeeriNg rex sorgatz 58

traNsLatioN raCheL Leow 62

video LiteraCy kasia CiePLak mayr-voN baLdegg 66

about the CoNtributors 71

New LiberaL arts

Cbn 2009Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 United States License

Published by:

sNarkmarket

reveLator Press

Edited by Robin SloanBook design by Brandon S. Kelley

snarkmarket.com/nla

snarkmarket.com

revelatorpress.blogspot.com


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iNtroduCtioNt C n rn sln

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Tis book began as a blog. Tats the twenty-rst-century way o saying it

began as a conversation.

And that conversation started with Jason Kottke, the blogger who coined a

phrase, liberal arts 2 .0, that made us wonder: What might that mean?

Pile on some posts at Snarkmarket by the two o us and our co-blogger Matt

Tompson, and threads began to orm. Mix in smart, curious commentary

rom the Snarkmarket community, and an opportunity emerged.Tis is the idea, roughly: to collectively identiy and explore twenty-rst-

century ways o doing the liberal arts.

You might be wondering: Why bother? T e liberal arts or smar t people in the

twenty-rst century are like ancient myths or astronomers with telescopes.

Teyre just old ways o talking about problems that were intractableuntil

we had the right tools. I this is the case, then we dont need any kind o liberal

arts, let alone new liberal arts. We just need new science and technology, and

people who know how to use them.

NLa


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iNtroduCtioN

So, now, here are some new liberal arts.

Not the new liberal arts. Our titling is intentional. When we posed the ques-

tion to the community at Snarkmarket, we were sure to speciy :

We dont want to generate a canonical list, but rather a laundry list.

We want pitches or new liberal arts that are smart, provocative,

insightul, surprising, and/or unny.

So thats what youll nd here. Its less a denition than a glimpse into the

course catalog o an idiosyncratic new schoola liberal arts college 2.0.

Just like any catalog, this isnt meant to be a book you read ront-to-back. Te

contributions are listed in alphabetical order, and theyre intended or ran-dom access. Flip to a page that looks interesting. See what you think. Come

over to snarkmarket.com and join the conversation.

Beore you start ipping, a ew nal notes.

Our special thanks to contributor Gavin Craig, who provided the spark o

inspiration or the book-ness o this book, and to designer Brandon Kelley,

who took bloggy blobs o text and turned them into something elegant and

durable. Tanks also to Diana Kimball and Nick Strauss or their work on a

special contribution.

I youre reading this as a PDF: We hope you enjoy it. And we hope you send it

to your riends and anyone else you think might enjoy it, too. Aer all, whats

the point o a ree di gital copy i you dont, well, copy it?

I youre reading this as a physical book: We hope you enjoy it, too. Tis beau-

tiul object is our way o keeping aith with the past. For all this uss about

new-ness, we know the score: Books are pretty great techne. Also, use your

bookmark. It has a secret.

iNtroduCtioN

Or, to the extent that our problems cant be solved by new science and tech-

nology, theyre unchanging dilemmas that grapple with the deepest parts o

human nature. I this is the case, then we dont need to update the liberal

artswe just need to renew them. We need liberal arts that are not modied,

butpuried.

Te very name, liberal arts, evokes a body o learning that is as durable as

it is ancient.

In the classical tradition, ormalized in the European Middle Ages, theArtes

Liberales consisted o a trivium o arts o reading and compositionlogic,

grammar, and rhetoricand a quadrivium o arts o observation and calcula-

tionarithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

In ancient Rome, bodies o learning like medicine and architecture were ex-

cluded rom the liberal arts because they were too practical. Tese were the

sort o arguments that got Cicero and Varro all atwitter. In the Renaissance, it

was painting and sculpture that troubled that line between ars and techne. Te

basic idea o the liberal arts, thoughthe studies most suited or the educa-

tion o ree peoplestayed the same.

But by the nineteenth century, the liberal arts had changed drastically, as part

o the creation o the modern university, especially in the United States. Exact

sciences like chemistry, anatomy, and physics migrated rom technical col-

leges to what had been primarily liberal universitiesand technical schools

likewise began to get serious about teaching their students how to read, write,

and think.

Tis is how you get schools like Harvard and MI not just staring at each

other across town, but sharing ideas and resources, and later competing or

students and proessors. Tis is how you get guys like Charles Eliot and Wil-

liam Jamespragmatic scholars training reective doctors, lawyers, teachers,

scientists, and engineers.And this is the truth o it: Te liberal arts have always been changing just as

much as we have.

So here, as were still just getting started with a new century, it seems like

a good time to ocus some bright minds on that change. o take stock o

whats changed already. o esh out whats changing right now. And perhaps

to nudge those changes onward.


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atteNtioNeCoNomiCsIn this digital world, your attention, once in abundant supply, has become

sex increasingly scarce.

Now, what did you take away rom that sentence? Was it the thesis to this

program? Or was it something else? You, my dear student, are going to needto study attention economics.

In this age we are surrounded by stimuli, messages in our environment clam-

oring or a little piece o our awareness. Advertisements are designed and

sold with the simple premise o stealing one small mote o your attention.

Your technological devices, designed to assist you in your lie and work, beep

incessantly with updates, alerts, and alarms. Cars become more and more like

the cockpits o ghter planes with their heads-up displays and data readouts.

Even our relationships take more maintenance; lovers separated by such a

small obstacle as a day at the oce stay in constant contact through email,

instant messaging, and social networks. In our new digital world weve nally

started to run out o one o our most precious resources: Our own attention.

In the distant past, educated people worked or decades to t rain their brains to

retain inormation. Greek bards had to be able to recall the story and rhythm

o, i not the exact words o, either o Homers epics at the drop o an Athenian

dime. Monastery-conned monks would construct vast memory palaces

in their minds to store and recall data in photographic detail. Starting with

paper and pen, technological advances began to make that sort o rigorous

mental dexterity obsolete. But in our rush to modernity, have we gone too

ar? Have we given over too much o our brain power to the devices built to

boost our productivity? Are our brains now just tasty mush or our zombie

progency?

NLa

Andrew FitzgeraldJourNaList, etC

[email protected]

twitter.com/mgicndrew

atteNtioN eCoNomiCs


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o survive, were going to need a whole new brain:

muLtitaskiNg: How do you pursue our tasks at once? What lessons can

you learn rom your parallel-processing possessions?

ambieNt CoNsumPtioN: In a world awash with inormation, how can you

consume and derive value rom the cloud? How do you become a great

blue whale, sucking inormational krill through your massive maw?

FoCus: What do you do when its time to notmultitask? How do you stay

laser-ocused in a world o distractions?

stiLLNess: And lastly, but most importantlyhow do you turn it all o?

Massive parallel input o interesting inormation at hyper-speed isaddictivebut your brain needs rest. Learning to be still brings not only

the mental discipline necessary or proper ocus, but also the opportunity

or that rare insight or intuition beyond your day-to-day productivity. Tere

are signals you need to hear that wont come through your phone or email

and its easy to deaen yoursel with inormation overload.x

atteNtioN eCoNomiCs


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brevity140 characters is the new 30 seconds. 30 seconds is orever.

Anything important is worth saying quickly. By the time it has been sai d, it is

already the past, and so the saying must become a moment o its own. Brevity

is urgency and modesty at once. Attention is the scarcest resource. Millions

are dying and we have only seconds.

Te right word is worth a thousand words.

Brevity is representation and not description.

Show and dont tell becomes a truth and not a clich when video can be post-

ed instantaneously. Te message must place the reader in the moment, and

since the moment is unavailable, the message must place the reader in the

message.

Now.

(Not then, not later. Tere is no later.)

Tis is not the victory o orm over content. Te stakes are much higher than

that.x

NLa

Gavin CraigaCademiC advisor, graduate studeNt, aNd oNLiNe PubLisher

[email protected]

wordwright.blogspot.com

brevity


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CodiNg aNddeCodiNgTis course is about the deep end, and building the courage to plunge into

unamiliar places. Using lessons derived rom t heepracticesvo cr yptography,

programming, and oreign language acquisition,we willwlearn to deduce in-

ormation rom context and recognize new patterns.

A languageo jargon, words, symbols, gestures,cor imagesis apcollection

o tokens. Shared language is a primary markereohcommunity,sa handyrin-

group/out-group indicator. Te more languages weaknow, the more patterns

we can recognize; the otherwise eeting si gnals around us sink into meaning.

Finding the pulse in what would otherwise be white noise, wercome to under-

stand and aect the surrounding world.

Coding and Decodingaims to conront two realities. h t t

oNe: Languages are everywhere, and everywhere they aretcrucial. By ex-

panding the scope o oreign languages to includerunspokenblanguages

(such as Perl, Ruby, and HML) and hyperverbal tongues (such as the

vocabularies o science, slang, and religion), that scopebegins to include

tools not just o communication, but o invention. a r e v

two: Most languages are most useul to know tupon rst encounter.hBut,

precisely because it is the rst encounter, it is the very time when we under-

stand them least. Tis course aims to elevate the experience o rstaencoun-

ter. Trough repeated and total immersion ineunamiliar endeavorsnew

countries, new communities, new machinesweawillblearnbmorebquickly

how to oat. g a x e

i l g n

NLa

Diana KimballstudeNt

[email protected]

dinkimbll.com

CodiNg aNd deCodiNg


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Coding and Decodingis about all modes o communication, and all are in its

view. But it is built with particular attention to the uture, and what that uture

will be like. echnological experts can seem like magicians, conjuring eects

wordlessly. By approaching that magic as a collection o component parts in-

stead o an indivisible miracle, we can learn to see through these sleights o

typing hands. In seeing through, we will learn to perorm them ourselves; and

think, as magicians, about the worlds we will build.

Language, now, is about more than communication. It is the architecture be-

hind much o what we experience. Understanding that architecture will allow

us to experience more.

Decoding requires immersion, patience, and attention. Coding comes more

haltingly, but it comes most surely and useully out o decoding. Tis class will

require curiosity and endurance.x

CodiNg aNd deCodiNg


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CreativityCreativity should be studied as a eld in its own right, and it should be in-

cluded in the new liberal arts.

o clariy, Im not calling or psychology classes on creativity, though that

would be great. Im saying creativity should be studied as a kind o martial

art. You should train to be a ninja o creativity.

So what do I mean by creativity? Its a process that is independent o any

particular domain and has its own set o universal characteristics. Just likeNinjutsu, its a skill and requires practi ce.

Heres my stab (no pun intended) at some core components:

1 Creativity is about aCtioN with FeedbaCk

A medium is perturbed in some way, and a person reacts to that perturbation,

causing urther perturbations. A medium could be anything rom a piece o

music to a web page to a set o nancial d ata. Tis is where aesthetics and per-

sonality are expressed in the act o creativity. Its also where things get done.

An idea without action is worthless.

2 Creativity is about exPLoratioN

Fundamentally, youre discovering something new, usually about yoursel. But

sometimes its a new chemical, a new equation, or a new law o the universe.

Also, when you are exploring, you dont know everything already. Teres the

og o war in ront o you. Expertise can be dangerous to creativity: An ex-

pert sees ew new possibilities. Creative wanderlust disappears when it seems

there is nothing new to discover. But the truth is, there are always new ron-

tiersin the orm o new techniques, related disciplines, and unconventional

points o view.

NLa

Aaron McLerangeNerative media artist

[email protected]

minskelvin.com

Creativity


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3 Creativity is about PLay

Sometimes creativity is just having un. But its the kind o un you have when

you solve a hard problem or when you achieve what you thought was impos-

sible. Tis is what leads people into careers they are actually passionate about.

A sense o deep purpose, responsibility, or wanting to save the world are not

enough to healthully sustain an individual. At some level, you must derive

some un rom your work. I youre not having undeep unthen its not

worth doing.

4 Creativity is about growth

Tis component unies the other three and is essentially the end result o

practice. Your ability to provide eedback to your creative perturbations im-proves as you create more. You shouldnt be an explorer who discovers the

same mountain range over and over. Instead, travel to the part o the map

where there be dragons. Trough growth, a person develops an understand-

ing o, patience towards, and appreciation or othersbecause they under-

stand others can grow, too. Also, communities o creativity can grow together:

Ideas can be shared, works o art exchanged. In these ways, the growth rom

creativity isnt just personal but shared; we all benet.x

Creativity


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FiNdiNgNEW

10INPUTWHATAREYOULOOKINGTOFIND?,thing_to_nd

20PRINTOK,LETSFINDSOME;thing_to_nd

30FETCHaSSuMPTIONS

40GETtype_of_thingFROMll_types_of_thingsFOR

thing_to_ndBaSEDONssmptions

50GETll_resorces_vilble

60FOREACHresorceINll_resorces_vilble

70 IFresorce.type==type_of_thingTHENBREAK

80NEXT

90knowledge_biscit=get_info_from_resorce(thing_to_nd)

100IFknowledge_biscitISNuLLTHENuPDaTEssmptions;

GOTO40

110PRINTOK,WEHaVEFOuND;thing_to_nd;aNDITIS;

knowledge_biscit

END

What are your assumptions ?

How do you nd ll_resorces_vilble?

Do you know ll_types_of_things?

Lets discuss.

FiNd these thiNgs:

Photos o US Airways Flight 1549 one hour aer it crash-landed in the

Hudson River.

A Chinese restaurant near your home address that takes credit cards and

is open or lunch.

A unction in PHP to turn an absolute date (April 1, 2009) into a relative

date (one month ago).

Season 1, episode 5 o the V series Lost.

Te U.S. representative who received the most money rom the nancial

services industry last year.x

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NLa

Dan LevineProbLem soLver

[email protected]

dnlevine.com

FiNdiNg


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FoodYou are what you eat.

Food is part o every system. Humanity was created in the moment that nu-

trition was transormed into culture. Tere is nothing ab out this process that

cannot be reversed. Food is the ultimate mutually dependent binary. Food is

not ood i it is not nourishing an organism. Organisms cannot survive with-

out ood. And we are organisms; there is no doubt ab out that.

Agriculture creates society. Cities orm when there are enough surplus calo-ries being produced to support non-armers. Te arts and sciences are born

when there is time available or uses other than growing or hunting.

Tis disconnection between the production and consumption o ood has

deepened over time. Now, we, the non-producers, dont trust ourselves to

grow ood. We dont trust our soil and our rain. Weve surrendered one o

our most basic needs to strangers, corporations, and advertisers. As a result,

we eat ood that isnt ood: prepackaged, preservative-soaked material; pre-

cooked and rozen meals re-heated and served at overpriced casual dining

restaurants. We eat vegetables, i we eat them, that have been processed be-

yond recognition. Most oen, we cant even see, much less touch or smell, the

ood were buying until aer weve purchased it and removed layers o plastic

and cardboard packaging. Our ignorance is so complete that we do not even

know what ood is supposed to taste like. We eat meat rom degraded animals

killed in lthy conditions, and it doesnt even taste good.

Te reconsideration o ood as a liberal art must include a number o acets:

sustaiNabiLity, or the ability to continue to produce calories sucient to

support the ever-increasing number o people not involved in agriculture;the ethiCs oF disCoNNeCtioN, which leads not only to inhumane condi-

tions, but to an inability to prevent contamination in the ood supply chain;

and the aesthetiCs aNd PLeasures oF taste, simple taste. Food is

intrinsically connected to nature, ecology, politics, pop culture, amily values,

and economics.

NLa

Gavin CraigaCademiC advisor, graduate studeNt, aNd oNLiNe PubLisher

[email protected]

wordwright.blogspot.com

Theresa Mlinarcik

Food


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Te new liberal art o ood must seek to ameliorate the alienation o con-

sumption rom production. Gardening, even just window gardening, can

take place in the most densely-populated urban areas. Post-urban centers like

Detroit oer an opportunity or agriculture on a larger scale, with t he benet

o oering local, healthy, and inexpensive ood to those in the greatest need.

Te armers market cannot replace the supermarket, especially or those o

us who live in areas with a limited growing season, but i we can grow ood

that we share or even sell to each other, then we are more likely to be aware o

where our ood comes romand what can go wrong with it along the way.

Eating not only connects us to the natural world and to ourselves as organ-

ism, but also to each other. In considering ood as a liberal artsomething

which can be examined, known, and enjoyedwe must also become aware othose or whom lack o choice is not just a cultural condition but a socio-eco-

nomic reality. Encouraging local production at even the smallest, individual

scale is not a luxury; it is a means or social justice. Fresh produce and mini-

mally-processed oods must be or as many as possible, as oen as possible;

not just or the wealthy, or or suburbanites with easy access to supermarkets

and giant, garden-ready backyards.

It may not be necessary or benecial to demand that we each grow all o our

own ood, but we must know what we are eating and why. We must know and

be able to accept how it was raised and harvested or killed. Te answer is not

a new FDA-approved supply chain, where ood is still produced, processed

and packaged out o our sight, in conditions that we are le to trust are clean,

sae, and humane. Rather, the answer is participation on as many levels as

possible. We grow. We market. We buy. We prepare. No pleasure without

responsibility. No responsibility without pleasure.x

Food


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geNderFuCkNo one is normal. Seriously, try to think o a ew riends you consider to be

pretty normal. And then remember the quirky things they do around you

sometimes. And then imagine the reaky stu they probably do that you dont

even know about. Tink how cool it would be i ever y one o your riends and

amily members and co-workers knew about the reaky stuyou do (or may-

be just contemplate doing) and didnt even think it was reaky. In this course,

well be exploring how some stu gets to be called normal and other stu

gets to be called reaky, and how we might be able to uck with all that.

In the rst part o the course, well turn our attention to the constant stream

o messages about gender were exposed to every day, and try to think criti-

cally about them.

Common questions posed will be:

Where do my ideas about normal gender come rom?

How do I regulate my thoughts and behavior based on those ideas?

What are the rewards associated with meeting stand ards o gender?

What are the consequences o ailing to live up to gender norms?

What would I be like i I didnt eel compelled to act like one particular

gender?

In the second part o the course, well consider examples, both amous and

mundane, that uck with normal conceptions o gender. Students will be en-

couraged to share their own experiences and observations o genderuck, and

to challenge themselves to leave their prejudices at the door o the classroom.Gender really doesnt work or anyone the way its supposed to. No one is nor-

mal. Everyone breaks the rules o gender at some point. Now we just need to

gure out how to generalize that rule-breaking so as to make the rules recede

rom view.

Our ultimate goal or the course will be to id entiy and embrace the moments

in our culture where normal stops being s o important, in the interest o mak-

ing the world a more comortable place or everyone.x

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NLa

Laura Portwood-Stacer

[email protected]

geNderFuCk


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homeeCoNomiCsIt starts with a bunch o bananas at your local grocery store. As you look at

them, you are thinking about the price per pound, and the nutritious benets

they give your body. But what are the broader implications o that bunch o

bananas? Who picked them? Was he or she paid airly or the work? Did the

bananas ripen naturally, or were they sprayed with chemicals and articiallyripened? How did the bananas get to your supermarket? Even though the

price per pound is relatively low, what are the hidden costs? Does the health

benet to your body outweigh all these other costs?

Te questions get even more complicated when you move on to the meat

department.

Why home economics? Every single person in the United States makes daily

decisions that aect their own health, but also have broader implications. o

be educated about that impact, and to learn about and contribute to alterna-

tives, is to have the power to lead healthier, more sustainable lives. Te very

health o our bodies and our planet depend on it.

Home economics has two core components: theoretical and practical. Te

theoretical component would cover the ollowing:

sustaiNabiLity How can we dene sustainability, while nding ethical

solutions to support a growing population?

makiNg seNse oF LabeLs Locavore, vegetarian, organic, green, En-

ergyStar, LEED certied: What do they all mean? How does the govern-

ment dene them or businesses? Are the denitions air?

us Food ProduCtioN How did we end up with a giant corn mono-cul-

ture? What can we learn rom arming methods o 100 or 200 years a go?

sustaiNabLe arChiteCture What are the best practices? What are the

cost/benet ratios o solar panels, or example? O graywater systems?

CommuNity PLaNNiNg What can and should local governments do to

encourage people to reduce their ecological ootprint?

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Jennifer Rensenbrink

[email protected]

newhomeeconomics.wordpress.com

home eCoNomiCs


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aNimaL ethiCs How can we realistically obtain protein or 6 billion+

people while reducing pollution caused by raising animals or meat?

What role should animal welare play?

iNterNatioNaL trade What impact do U.S. imports and exports have

on local economies and environments in developing countries?

Te practical, or lab, component o home economics would cover topics such

as the ollowing:

gardeNiNg: maximizing small spaces, organic methods, preserving

harvested ood

PermaCuLture: emphasis on urban planning and insect/bird habitat

aNimaL husbaNdry: small animals that can be raised in urban areas

(such as chickens), including humane slaughter and meat processing

CookiNg aNd bakiNg: healthy, whole, practical oods or everyday lie

the sCieNCe oF yeast aNd other FermeNtatioN ProCesses:

bread, beer, and cheese making

NutritioN: why one glass o apple juice is not equal to one apple, and

other common misconceptions demystied; plus basic nutritional needs

or average men, women, and children

water aNd eNergy eFFiCieNCy: practical in-home solutionsx

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home eCoNomiCs


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iNaCCuraCyInaccuracy is the art o being intentionally inartul in an immaculate way; it

diers rom most other liberal arts in that it is not constricted by the singular

political perspective ever so entrenched in academe. Tus, it behooves the

modern renaissance 2.0 person-in-training to see the world as composed o

the true dichotomiesconservatives and liberals, bloggers and journalists,

Friendster and MySpace, vapidity and proundity, and greatness and ailure.

And obviously, a uture contributor to society needs to display v im and pizazz

in order to make a contribution. Aer all, inaccuracy can start warsor endthem.x

NLa

Alex Litelwriter

[email protected]

lexlitel.blogspot.com

iNaCCuraCy


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iteratioNHow do you make things?

You could lay out the process as a line. You start at one end with a bundle o

goals and plans. As you work harddesigning, writing, rehearsing, or doing

whatever else is requiredyou progress along the line. At some p oint, you get

to the end, with a product, a novel, a perormance. Youre nished!

You could lay out the process that way. But youd be doing it wrong.

Making things is a circle. You start the arc with an idea about the world: an

observation or hunch. Ten you sprint around the track, getting to a proto-

typea breadboard, a rough dra, a run-throughas ast as you can. Your

goal isnt to nish the thing. Its to expose it, no matter how rough or ragged,

to the real world. You do that, and you learn: Which o your ideas were right?

Which were wrong? What surprised you? What did other people think? Ten

you plow those ndings back into an improved prototype. Around the circle

again. Run!

Iteration is dicult when youre working with stone or steel. Its easy when

youre working with words or web pages. But, this is important: More things

are becoming more like words and web pages in the twenty-rst century.

Even solid, material things. Even stone and steel. Iteration applies to more

domains than it ever did beore, and its reach is growing.

Whatever your materials, iteration improves the process o making things.

Teres a lot to learn about:

your owN work styLe Do you resist showing unnished work to oth-

ers? What does it take or you to eel comortable sharing a prototype that

is, clearly, a piece o junk?

your materiaLs Whats the minimum you can do to create a simple

prototype or rough dra? Are there simpler materials or easier techniques

you can temporarily substitute to save you time and eort?

how to test thiNgs How do you get people to playtest your pro-

totype in the right context? How do you extract rich, useul eedback

rom them?

NLa

Robin SloangeNeraList media Nerd

[email protected]

robinslon.com

iteratioN


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how to ChaNge Course When do you leave your original goals

behind entirely? How do you recognize a big, unexpected opportunity

staring you in the ace?

As you rene your iterative process, you make the loops aster and more pro-

ductive. Ideally, iteration isnt a circle at all; its a spiral. With each loop, you

know more about the world. With each loop, youre making something better.

With each loop, youre simplymakingbetter.

With iteration, instead o driving an id ea blindly into the world, hoping to get

lucky, you tip-toe, eeling as you go. And you are guided by the eedback you

get. Oen that eedback says, Right on! Keep going. But just as oen it s ays,

Nobody wants this thing youre making. But theres something useul hiding

here. Te latter kind conounds our conventional view o success; in truth,

its the secret origin o some o our deepest genius.

Iteration is liberation. Tere are no beginnings or endingsjust small steps

orward.x

iteratioN


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36 37NLa

maPPiNgwn, f pl, i n l f il--Fnc,

i cnpl n nfl ln i n clpp

n f n f; n n f p f P n

n , c cp nfnl

pc n f , c

, fc n n , fcln

f fc pp n l 1

Which better explains the landscape: maps or photographs? Teres no longer

any reason to choose. Te potential now exists to create visceral, photo-in-

tegrated maps that are able to successully communicate the urban condi-

tions such as ractalization. Applications such as Google Maps increasingly

change the way we see, understand, and describe our environment. Cameras

with geo-tagging capabilities aord us the opportunity to embed photographs

into digital maps, resulting in something thats more than a record o place; it

is a record o time. Moments are mapped and universally accessible; a shared

global consciousness arises via shared cartography. Te personal becomes

public while public space becomes personalized.

Mapping is a convergence o technology and the arts: design, photography,

language, history, programming, and economics are all relevant to craing an

understanding o your role in the built environment. But the reverse is also

true: an understanding o the built environment helps you understand elds

like design, language, and economics. Current real-time mapping enables us

to map classes o objects rom the global to the local: rom ar-o military

movements to locally-available produce.

1 Virilio, Paul. City o Panic. Oxord: Berk, 2004

NLa

Jimmy Stamp

[email protected]

lifewithotbildings.net

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From the lost art o the hand-drawn map to live GPS tracking, mapping

teaches you the skills required to better understand your positionliterally

and gurativelyin the world. Youll need to apply critical thinking skills as

you extrapolate and congure data to understand the possibility o multiple

views o a single location. You will learn to process and codiy empirical

data to re-present your environment at a various sca les.

Please note that this willalso include ull-scale mapping (please reer to the

renowned apocryphal anthropologists Lewis Carroll 2 and Jorge Luis Borges 3

or more inormation).

Please also note that all students will be required to pay or their own sub-

dermal GPS implants or purposes o tra cking and documentation.x

2 Carroll, Lewis. Sylvie and Bruno. (no copyright)3 Borges, Jorge Luis. On Exactitude and Science,A Universal History o Inamy.

London: Penguin Books, 1975

maPPiNg


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marketiNgHow are ideas sold?

Te answer to that question is the key to inuencing the world. Its how the

popular kids in school sustain their status; how parents, teachers and peer

groups aect the behavior o children; how Osama bin Laden draws new re-

cruits into al Qaeda; how Apple launches new products. Ideas succeed not by

being good or bad, but by being sold eectively.

In a world where people break into tribes based on their identication with abrand or product, marketing bleeds into politics, law, and national security.

Skilled marketers will be anthropologists and social network theorists, track-

ing how people group and label themselves. Teyll be masters o cultural

orensics, able to dissect the origins and impact o any product or campaign.

As it becomes easier and easier or anyone on earth to communicate with

anyone (and everyone) else, its increasingly important to understand the epi-

demiology o ideas. Students o marketing will learn the nuances o inorma-

tion inection: how to distinguish promotion rom presentation, how to trace

messages to their source. Teyll learn to recognize the patterns o inorma-

tion ow, and spot the moment when an ideas reception ips rom hype to

backlash. And theyll explore the ethics o marketing, the role that accuracy

and privacy play in the spread o ideas.

Whether or not they know it, everyone practices marketing. But not every-

body does it well. Tose who do wield a powerul advantage.x

NLa

Matt ThompsonoNLiNe JourNaList aNd sNarkmaster

[email protected]

mthomps.com

marketiNg


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42 43NLa

miCroPoLitiCsYou can probably name your head o state, your chie minister o deense, and

the main branches o your ederal government. But do you know the name o

your city manager? Te head o your neighborhood association? Te neigh-

bor who hasnt missed a city council meeting since the 1970s?

So much o the texture o everyday lie is hashed out in obscure municipal

backchannels, by small groups o engaged citizens getting together on week-

day evenings. Te buildings you see every day, the restaurants you dine at,

the closing time o your neighborhood bar, the bus routes to and rom your

homethese things are the way they are because o a complex system o pro-

essional networks and planning meetings that ew have the know-how to

navigate. When the spare change and ree ti me o millions o people can elect

a U.S. President, weve entered a new era o civics built not on institutions, but

on individuals.

Tis is micropolitics, and it aects more than places. Te particulars o health

care plans that will aect millions are being drawn up by civil servants in

remote corners o government, while a quietly inuential elite adds loopholes

and kickbacks over expensive dinners. Masters o micropolitics will learn to

nd these nodes o civic inuence and ensure that the best ideas get a place

at the table.

Learning micropolitics doesnt just mean learning how to draw an org chart

or a city or a neighborhood or an issue. It means learning how to improve

that org chart. It means learning the practical art o organizing small groups

o people to make noise, apply pressure, or elect someone. Its about nding

the small changes that have big eects in the lie o a community.

As they say, all politics is micro.x

NLa


[email protected]

mthomps.com

miCroPoLitiCs


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44 45NLa

myth aNdmagiCFrom Dionysus to David, Kali to Kerridwen: Since the beginning, people have

created stories to explain, explore, and celebrate nature and the human con-

dition. Similar themes and tropesthe Sun God, hair as sacred, cleansing

ritualshave emerged in places as ar apart as Aboriginal Australia and Aztec

South America. Even in todays age, where science and the skeptical mindsco at airy tales, myths and legends have power: as urban legends, tabloid

odder, classic movies.

Why are people compelled to explain lie in stories? How does storytelling

build community and society? What role do they play in our education, our

commerce, our day-to-day lives?

Myths become the basis o rituals: think o ceremonial easts with sacrice

and magic, or the witchdoctors night-long remedies to cure your ills. How

did those myths transer into ritual, and how did those rituals aect society

as a whole?

Were Freud and Jung correct in their assessments o a collective human con-

sciousness, where all o humanity share the same sets o symbols and inter-

pretations? Or are symbols highly individual in nature, reecting the personal

myths and legends inherent in every person?

Will uture historians look back at this time and regard Oprah, Britney,

or Paris as the deities o our time? Will they consider Friday night parties,

twenty-rst birthdays, and the World Cup as our religious rituals? In ouruture, what will be scoed as crackpot conspiracy, and what will become

our Holy Word?

o master mythology, you have to learn and be immersed in your own

mythsthose o your culture, your heritage, your location, your liestyle,

your history. What are your archetypes? What are your themes and tropes?

How do you communicate your myths to others? What are your core belies,

and how are they aected by your personal myths?

NLa

Tiara ShafiqCosmoPoLitaN CuLturaL Creative

[email protected]

tirshq.com

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Youll also deconstruct rituals to create your own. What does each element

represent? What is the signicance o time, nature, music, location? Which

elements have lain orgotten, and which have increased in signicance? Does

the ritual change over time?

What sort o magic occurs in your lie? What do you count as magic?

In this course you will exercise your skills o imagination, creativity, inves-

tigation, critical analysis, cross-cultural understanding, research, synthesis,

and curiosity. You will be challenged; you will encounter ideas that seem ab-

solutely silly, ideas that seem atrocious, ideas that seem ahead o their time,

ideas that seem visionary. You will nd contradictions and synchronicities.

You will deal not only with un antasy, but also with deep, dirty secrets.

Will you analyze myth, or will your lie become myth?x

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48 4949

NegotiatioNd n n n l? t nl

f fc c nn Npln bnp

Negotiation is the art o reconciling dierences without resorting to political,

economic, or physical orce. Negotiation is more than getting the other to give

you what you want; it means understanding that other, in the ull complex-

ity o their lie, and leading them to understand you. It is a way o thinking

about the world that considers even enemies as potential partners. It is a path

to change.

Why is negotiation important now? As a society, weve solved most o the

easy problems. Te ones that are le are too complex to be solved by any

single person, or even any single group, no matter how intelligent or well-

inormed; we need to bring more minds to bear. Negotiation is the lubricant

in the engine o massive cooperation; it reduces the riction o disagreement

and produces collective, social rewards that compensate or an absence o

personal, ego rewards.

Negotiation implies negation o the sel, negation o the ego. One o the core

needs o negotiation is the surrender o petty sureness; the parties must give

up clinging to things that dont mattersuch as the conviction o righteous-

nessin exchange or those that do. It requires openness, a way o presenting

the sel that invites disclosure and respect. You cant negotiate i youre busy

telling everyone why youre right.

Negotiation begins with an invitation to dialogue, acknowledging the other

as a peer and equal. When the parties come together, they assume the best o

each other: that each is presenting their position as accurately as possible, hasgood reasons or holding that position, and is able to change it in response to

new inormation or arguments. Tey assume that the other knows things they

do not, and they come with an eagerness to learn.

NLa

Matthew Penniman

[email protected]

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50 51NLaNLa

We study negotiation in a context that incorporates several related concepts:

acilitation, presentation, and massive cooperation.

FaCiLitatioN involves teasing out the best strands o a persons thought

and mirroring them back clearly, while steering interactions away rom

personal attacks or ego displays. In a way, acilitation is negotiation without

an overt conict at its center; it aims to smooth and improve the process o

working as a group.

PreseNtatioN is the art o transmitting complex inormation in a

personal context. It conveys a position as more than a set o acts or series

o logic; it oers a sense o the path youve taken to arrive here, o your

knowledge as you live it rather than knowledge oating in a void. Good

presentation helps parties to see reason in the opposing position, even i

they disagree with it.

CooPeratioN is becoming more than yoursel by working with others.

massive CooPeratioN is the scale at which individual contributions

begin to disappear into the whole.x

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PhotograPhyFrom the iNauguraL address For the CoLLege oF PhotograPhy:

Apart rom the exact sciences, nothing has transormed the i dea o the liberal

arts as prooundly as PhotograPhywhich enables not only the recording

o still and moving images, but their reproduction, transmission, and projec-

tion onto a page or screen.

Te classical liberal arts are arts o the word, products o the book, the letter,

the lecture. Te Renaissance added the plastic arts o painting and sculpture,and modernity those o the laboratory. Te new liberal arts are overwhelm-

ingly arts o the doCumeNt, and the photograph is the document par excel-

lence.

Like the exact sciences, photographic arts are industrial, blurring the line be-

tween knowledge and technology. (Te earliest photographers were chem-

ists.) Like painting and sculpture, they are visual, aesthetic, based in both

intuition and cra. Like writing, photography is both an action and an ob-

ject: writing makes writing and photography makes photography. And like

writing, photographic images have their own version o the triviuma logic,

grammar, and rhetoric.

We dont onlysee pictures; we LearN how theyre structured and how they

become meaningul. Some o our learning is intuitive, gathered rom the ways

our eyes and brains make sense o the visual world. We have an habitual sense

o how photographic meaning is created, taken rom our experience watch-

ing movies or taking our own photographs. But we also have a critical sense

o it, taken rom our a esthetic responses to photographs and cinema, and our

awareness o how both are edited, enhanced, and manipulated. Photographyis the art and science o the real, but also o the ake; o the depth and the

surace, and the authentic as well as the inauthentic or nonauthentic appear-

ances o the world.

NLa

Timothy Carmodymedia theorist

[email protected]

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54 55NLaNLa

Rather than pictures, lm, or even images, PhotograPhy , the recording

o light, is the term to bet on: Its the only category that can describ e pictures

on metal, glass, paper, celluloid, or ash memorywhether still or moving,

analog or digital, recorded or broadcast, in color or black and white, repre-

sentative or abstract. It is essential to examine equally the transmission and

consumption o photography as well as its production: still images, cinema,

television, digital video, and animation all belong to you, as well as photore-

production, photomontage, image databases, and any possible combination

where the still or moving image appears. Even the optical cables that have

transmitted this data to you several times over communicate through pulses

o light. Photography is the science o the interrelation and specicity o all o

these orms, as well as their reproduction, recontextualization, and redeni-

tion. Photography is a comprehensive science; photography is a comparativeliterature.

It took universities centuries to answer the demand posed by the exact sci-

ences to liberal education. It is our task to poseand to answerthe demand

photography makes o us now.x

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PLayEven beore we learn to speak, we play. Its how we begin to explore the world.

Games exert a primal power over us; aer were ed, clothed, and sheltered, we

must entertain ourselves. Harness that power, and what might we create?

Culture in the inormation age has taken a sharp turn towards play. Corpora-

tions seeking creativity rom their employees set them loose to toy around,

and reap big rewards rom t he results. Video games have exploded into a new

entertainment industry, extending play deeper and deeper into adulthood.

Games have crept beyond our consoles, arenas and arcades to suuse all our

entertainments, becoming reality shows on television and alternate reality

games everywhere else.

Students o play will not only learn to exploit these cultural orces, theyll

unlock the cheat codes or the games that underpin everythinglanguage,

politics, science, aith, art. Teyll gure out how to approach goals as game

designershow to engineer systems o rules, scores, simulations and wagers

that can transorm everything rom tax preparation to house-cleaning into

recreation. Teyll discover how to tap our innate anity or play to improve

education, our communities, and our quality o lie.

O course, play i snt all serious. Its ultimately about the pursuit o ungur-

ing out the pleasure centers o our brains and hacking them or un, prot,

societal benet, or all o the above. And its not just or kids anymore.x

NLa


[email protected]

mthomps.com

PLay


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58 59NLa

reaLityeNgiNeeriNgi n n fcl p n l

an wl

Reality engineering is the study o how Te Real is manuactured. Previ-

ous epochs have approached this discipline with rowning condescension(c. Manuacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky). We will eschew loaded words

like inauthentic, spin, and ake. Instead, our coursework approaches the

manuacture o reality rom the giddy middle: with a euphoric yet critical

belie that the most thrilling bits o modern lie straddle the ence between

articial and authentic.

As an inherently diverse eld, the coursework will span disciplines. We will

dabble in many elds, including but not limited to: public relations (spin),

marketing (buzz), biology (mimicry), art (trompe loeil), religion (god), eco-

nomics (money), psychology (Capgras syndrome), medicine (plastic sur-

gery), ood (Splenda), and mass communications (Rathergate).

When your parents ask what you are studying, your response will be bold:

truthiness.

Blurring the lines was always the norm, so our coursework utilizes classics

rom the broad canon o simulated reality:

Jonathan Swi,A Modest Proposal

Milli Vanilli, Girl You Know Its rueOrson Welles, War o the Worlds

James Frey,A Million Little Pieces

Plato, Te Republic, Allegory o Te Cave

MV, Te Hills

Andy & Larr y Wachowski, Te Matrix

lonelygirl15

Danger Mouse, Te Grey Album

a

b

C

d

e

F

g

h

i

NLa

Rex Sorgatzwriter, bLogger, desigNer, ProduCer, eNtrePreNeur

[email protected]

moclos.com

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60 61NLaNLa

Te Blair Witch Project

FanFic.net

In the weeklyLabportion o this class, which accounts or 25% o your grade,

you will build a project using one the ollowing para-reality tools:

Photoshop

Te Sims

Auto-une

Wikipedia

ACID Pro

MySpace

Your FiNaL ProJeCt, which accounts or 50% o your grade, will take the

ndings rom your lab explorations and explode them into a ully-simulated

environment, previous examples o which include:

Getting plastic surgery.

Starting a tribute band.

Launching an oshore gold arm.

Committing a crime and making your own video reenactment.

Founding an LSD-induced cosplay cult.x

J

k

a

b

C

d

e

F

a

b

C

d

e

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62 63NLa

traNsLatioNI theres anything at all that a modern curriculum should make clear to ev-

eryone, its that theres no room or the monolingual any more. Because our

modern world is so small todayand by small I mean globalized, rather than

parochial, which is another kind o smallness; because in this world it is pos-

sible to know more about whats happening in Gaza than whats happening in

our own neighborhoods. Perhaps in no other age has cultural and linguistic

insularity been more perilous. We cant aord not to speak to people whom

we cant speak to. We cant aord not to read writings that we cant read. Wecant, in other words, aord not to understand people whom we do not un-

derstand.

I thereore propose that translation should be one o the new liberal arts:

translation in its literal sense o transmitting texts rom one language to

another, but also in the metaphorical sense o a sustained, collective eort

towards genuine intercultural understanding. It couldnt unction as a stand-

alone class in a single college: It must be plugged into a network o participat-

ing colleges rom as many countries as possible, and it needs to be a genuinely

global eort.

Every student would declare at least two languages: their native tongue and

one or more languages o their choosing, however rm or tenuous their grasp

o them. Seminar groups would consist o students who declared the same

two languages, so that discussions could take place in two mutually intel-

ligible languages, at vary ing levels o ability. Tese are the groups theyd work

in, communicating in online orums and discussion groups, live chat, and

video conerences.

How do you learn translation? Perhaps rom the real world:

Students could choose a suitably global event, collect media coverage o

this event in dierent languagesin print, by broadcast, or onlineand

draw comparisons. How are the same events recast in dierent languages

to dierent cultural audiences? What prejudices, slants and spins might

be exposed by such an endeavour; or where might common ground arise

where we least expect it?

NLa

Rachel Leowgraduate studeNt, history

[email protected]

idlethink.com

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64 65NLaNLa

Students could investigate and report on literature outside their native

language and together, as a group, come up with a more global literary

canon.

Students could work together to translate and exchange something they

loved with someone else: a play or poem, the lyrics o a song, a unny V

ad, a speech by a personal hero.

Students could take each other through tours o their internet, in their

language. What blogs, news sites, and journals do they read? (For all its

globalizing dimensions, whole swathes o the internet exist in languages

we cannot read).

Students could read to each otherpoetry, short stories, anythingintheir native languages. Even i you dont understand it, hearing things in

another language can be an enchanting, empathetic experience.

Te point o a class like this wouldnt be merely to develop competence in a

language or its own sake, but to show us new worlds o literature, sounds,

ideas and ways o being that exist outside what we knowto create opportu-

nities or us to come to know them, and perhaps, to all in love with them.

I done right, this class would even be a new kind o community service.

Every translation generated in this class would go into a digital archive, or

the benet o uture classes and a wider global public. Every graduating class

o translators would add to a growing pool o bilingual world citizens: they

might be anything rom the greatest diplomats and the savviest journalists

right down to the teenager who makes riends with the new oreign kid in

school when no one else can, or will. And generation by generation, the world

would ll with them: these deeply sympathetic people who would be nodes

between cultures, slowly orging rapport and understanding rom the ric-

tion and incomprehension that plague our small world today, with such vast,grievous consequences.x

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66 67NLa

videoLiteraCyFl n f cl, f ll wn h

Students o the new liberal arts will need to learn to watCh and ListeN all

over again. Basic literacyreading and writing textis no longer enough.

Now, all media is transmitted through the window o a glowing screen. ele-vision and web video have become dominant modes o communication and

even print news media rely increasingly on video to show us truth. Under-

standing video is essential to participating in modern society. Studying video

literacy, students will gain the tools to analyze the ull spectrum o audiovi-

sual media.

how does PersPeCtive shaPe meaNiNg? Everything begins with a

rame. From telephoto lenses to tilt-shi video, nd out how lens length di-

rects attention and contextualizes an image.

how does editiNg Create New Layers oF iNFormatioN? Context is

everything. Find out how news editors spin seemingly-neutral video oot-

age, and how editing choices shape an on-camera interview. From Vertov to

Youube, study the evolution o montage.

how do souNd aNd image work together to create something ar

greater than the sum o their parts? Study silent cinema and music videos. See

how sound can sell an image, and vice versa.

From webcams to Imax, how does teChNoLogy shaPe what we see?Learn how production values can signal qualities like authenticity or the

uture. How is V inuencing web video, and vice versa? How does viral

distribution inorm how we think about video inormation? How is piracy

changing the entertainment industry and its products?

Ten, theres history. How did analog media shape the ormats we see today?

How are digital media breaking out o these ormats? Consider the impor-

tance o narrative structure to the moving image and the rising signicance

o database structure.

NLa

Kasia Cieplak Mayr-

von BaldeggProduCer

ksicieplk.com

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68 NLa 69NLa

From Fox News to Al Jazeera to Google in China, explore news media around

the world to nd out how cultural values and political objectives shape news.

Investigate news as storytelling and news as spectacle. How do narrative and

musical clichs trigger emotional investment in an event?

Te moving image has the power to entertain, inorm, and manipulate a mass

audience. In the new liberal arts, the exploding global language o audiovisual

media demands a New LiteraCyx

video LiteraCy


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CoNtributorstimothy Carmody is a postdoctoral ellow at the University o Pennsylvania,

where he teaches courses in comparative literature, cinema and media stud-

ies, and the history and theory o writing. He is currently writing two books,one Paper Modernism on nineteenth- and twentieth-century material culture,

and another Blood and reasure on war economies and the history o lyric

poetry. He blogs at snarkmarket.com.

[email protected]

kasia CiePLak-mayr voN baLdegg is a producer/director/new media

junkie based in San Francisco. She studied lmmaking and new media at

Harvard University, where she launched H Bomb, Harvards rst student

magazine about sex. She moved to Caliornia to produce and recruit Viewer

Created documentary shorts or Current V. Now she is a reelance producer

and writer. Her parents still think shes illiterate.

.ksicieplk.com

gaviN Craig is an academic advisor or the Honors College at Michigan

State University, where he is pursuing an MA in English Literature. He is an

editor at Revelator Press, a nonrevenue e-chapbook publisher (revelatorpress.

blogspot.com), and ash ction editor at Conclave: A Journal o Character.

His writing has been published in Red Cedar Review, Te Ofeat, Oats, and

City Pulse.

[email protected]

.wordwright.blogspot.com

.twitter.com/criggv

aNdrew FitzgeraLd lives in San Francisco and heads up the citizen jour-

nalism program or television/internet company Current V. He writes oc-

casionally online and ofine and enjoys a ne scotch.

[email protected]

.twitter.com/mgicndrew

71NLa70


43/47

Laura Portwood-staCer lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches courses

on popular culture and writes about liestyle politics. When not attempting to

quietly radicalize the masses, she likes to knit, watch middlebrow television,

and date people rom the internet.

[email protected]

JeNNiFer reNseNbriNk is a thirty-one-year-old mom who bike-commutes

most o the year to her web design job or a local media company in Min-

neapolis, Minnesota. She lives in South Minneapolis with her husband, two-

year-old boy-girl twins, a dog and a cat, and is attempting to slowly transorm

her lawn into a mini urban arm.

[email protected]

.newhomeeconomics.wordpress.com

tiara shaFiq is a circus trainee, improv rookie, burlesque apprentice, and

one-time advocate or alternative education. She is orming Te Merch Girl,

a creative productions services business that does all the odd and sometimes

boring things that need doing in a production or event. She splits her time

between Australia and Malaysia, but never really calls any one place home.

[email protected]

.tirshq.com

robiN sLoaN is a generalist at Current, a participatory media company co-

ounded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. Beore Current, Robin worked at the

Poynter Institute, a journalism school and think tank. Beore Poynter, he

graduated rom Michigan State University. He blogs at snarkmarket.com.

[email protected]

.robinslon.com

rex sorgatz is a writer, designer, entrepreneur, and media consultant based

in New York. His consulting agency, Kinda Sorta Media, has done work or

a wide range o clients including NBC Olympics, IFC, Saturday Night Live,

and Buzzeed. He is a contributing editor at Wiredand his work has appeared

in New York Magazine and NPR. Sorgatz is ormer Executive Producer o

msnbc.com, and he blogs his internet lie in real time at Fimoculous.com. He

is currently working on a novel called Everyone Is Famous.

[email protected]

.moclos.com

73CoNtributors

diaNa kimbaLL ell in love with the internet. She is moving rom one corner

o the United States to the other, and will end up in San Francisco. In general,

she is an enthusiast.

[email protected]

.dinkimbll.com

Based in San Francisco but traveling whenever possible, daN LeviNe seeks

problems needing creative solutions to play with. (And smart nice people to

play on them with!) Currently he is working in the music industry which is a

giant puzzle unto itsel, enjoying the uncertainty o the near uture.

[email protected]

.dnlevine.com

raCheL Leow was born in Malaysia, and ended up some years later as a

graduate student at Cambridge University, where she is now perpetrating a

Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history. She likes books a lot.

[email protected]

.idlethink.com

aLex LiteL is a sel-described writer who usually can be ound somewhere

near or in Los Angeles. He enjoys Beckerreruns and being esoteric.

[email protected]

.lexlitel.blogspot.com

aaroN mCLeraN is a Ph.D. student studying generative/interactive music

with Curtis Roads at Media Arts and echnology, University o Caliornia,

Santa Barbara. He also worked with Brian Eno on the generative music or

the computer game Spore. He recently started skateboarding and loves to play

jazz on the weekends.

[email protected]

.minskelvin.com

theresa mLiNarCik lives north o Detroit, Michigan, where she teaches col-

lege-level writing and also volunteers as an advocate or survivors o sexual

assault, abuse, and rape. She loves taking naps with her pup, Ada.

matthew PeNNimaN lives in Lansing, Michigan, with his wie and cat. Much

o his work centers on nonprots, websites, and technologies o writing, but

he also enjoys teaching, acilitation, and public deliberation. He likes projects

that let him learn things.

[email protected]

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Jimmy stamP is a reelance writer based in San Francisco. As editor o

the blog Lie Without Buildings, he writes about architecture as it relates to

everything rom lm to ction to ashion, and is a regular contributor to

several websites and magazines including Dwell, Te San Francisco Appeal,

Te Architects Newspaper, and ArcCa. His work has also been eatured in

Architect Magazine, Te Architectural Review, and Wallpaper*. Stamp will

graduate rom the Yale School o Architecture Masters o Environmental

Design program in 2011.

[email protected]

.lifewithotbildings.net

matt thomPsoN has been working on guring out the uture o journal-

ism at the Reynolds Journalism Institute,Minneapolis Star ribune, PoynterInstitute, and elsewhere or the past ew years. He lives in Minneapolis,

Minnesota, with his two PCs and his beloved Kindle, Inkless.

[email protected]

.mthomps.com

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Documents

New Liberal Arts