Welcome to the Professional and New Media Writing program’s 2020 Digital Showcase!
This showcase brings together some of the digital work being done by our students and faculty. Each piece is created and designed by our participants and showcased as they wish it to be seen. We hope you spend careful time with each project and listen to what worlds are being created. Each piece, we believe, has something meaningful to tell us.
When you are done, please take a moment to vote for “audience choice” in both undergraduate and graduate categories. The winners will each receive a small prize and be recognized during the English Department’s year-end celebration.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PROJECTS
This documentary was made to highlight the sport of 9Man in Boston and what it means to play the sport as an Asian American in 2019.
Demet Schofield: “I Was Born Happy” AUDIENCE CHOICE
My short personal essay reflects a heartfelt realization that I observed during self-isolation due to Covid-19. The subject is happiness and finding the beauty in yourself, accepting and starting to honor yourself, and your own views about what life is and how should one live it.
Sean Barney: “Put the Seat Down”
This photo essay is inspired by two of my favorite authors: Roald Dahl and Jonathan Swift. The assignment was to create a photo essay that attempts to affect an issue that I am passionate about. I strongly feel the world needs to be more considerate. This should start domestically. I also believe that the best way to reach people is through humor, however dark. This is my attempt.
Vanessa Boatwright: Vanessa’s Voice
Vanessa’s Voice is a college and lifestyle blog, showcasing articles about product reviews, food, travel, life experiences, and college advice, including a few about UMass Boston. The blog is written for anyone in school or those who value lifestyle, and it’s intended to reach out to readers and give them insight on various topics.
Amanda Lacey: “A Response to the English 306 Discussion on ‘A Short Essay on Being'”
This essay was written after I left my English 306 class furious at how my peers had evaluated an essay. We had just read Jenny Boully’s essay called “A Short Essay on Being”, which was about a young half Thai woman dealing with her identity as Thai and her relationship between her culture and its food. By the end of the essay, my class decided there was “no point” to the essay and that it was simply a rant. I disagreed immensely, yet couldn’t put it into words within our fifty minute class session… instead, I formed this essay about it.
Marie Alessandro: “Mercy Maelica at the Satanic Temple HQ, Salem MA”
In this photo essay, the author shares a glimpse into the life of Mercy – a member of the “atheistic religion” that is The Satanic Temple. TST is a dark horse in the struggle to keep Church and State separated, as well as a champion of pressing issues such as Reproductive Health. In exploring the dark romanticism of the Satanic figurehead of TST, and contrasting to the family life and community in which she thrives, the author touches upon the struggle for personal freedoms and the contradiction of the cultural concept of what Satanism means.
GRADUATE STUDENT PROJECTS
This audio project replicates the experience of sitting in a graduate course that discusses theory. I want to use audio to mimic the mix of emotions and the confusion that occurs in my head as I try to make sense of my readings for graduate classes.
Danny Elfanbaum: Poems from Taper AUDIENCE CHOICE
“Some Things About Me”
“Myths”
“Links“
The three pieces were programmed in Javascript as a part of my submission to Taper IV: A New Trope, an issue of the online computational journal focused on “the concept of metaphors, archetypes, perspectives, and paradigm shifts.” The interesting constraint for this journal is that all the code/text has to be under 2KB, and so in addition to limiting what actually can be done with these pieces, the way the code must be written also changes to accommodate the constraint (e.g., single-letter variable names, etc.). I’m very interested in exploratory forms — and digital forms in particular — and these pieces were created as a part of a larger investigation into programed/programmable literary forms.
Faculty Projects
Matt Davis: “Ways of Doing and Knowing in Digital Rhetoric: Pedagogy“
This webtext transcribes, analyzes, and remixes 25 interviews with scholars in rhetoric & composition to provide a multi-perspectival answer to what digital rhetoric is and what it means to teach digital rhetoric. The text asks these scholars to talk about course outcomes, assignments, assigned texts, and assessments in their digital rhetoric courses. In analyzing and synthesizing their responses, the text finds 3 tensions that describe digital rhetorical pedagogy: continuation and rupture; theory and practice; and text and network.
Vote Here for “Audience Choice”
Now please take a moment to vote for your favorite project in both undergraduate and graduate categories. Voting is now closed.
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