DISLOCATED: KINSHIP, FORCED REMOVALS, AND REMEMBERING

Project Team: Susan Burch, Levi Westerveld (‘15.5), Joy Wood (’17), Patrick Schmidt (’18)

About: Dislocated foregrounds the life story of incarcerated Dakota member Elizabeth Fairbault and her kin from the late 1800s through the present day. Because indigenous understandings of kinship and history differ significantly from white U.S. concepts of family and of history, new digital visualizations of kinship are necessary.

LAND AND LENS: PHOTOGRAPHERS ENVISION THE ENVIRONMENT

Website: http://sites.middlebury.edu/landandlens/

Project Team: Kirsten Hoving, Kirk Horton, Tevan Goldberg, Sam Kudman, Danny Padilla, Kristin Richards, Scott Waller, Danielle Weindling, Rachel Kang

About: “This exhibition features seventy-one photographs drawn primarily from the Museum’s rich holdings of historic and contemporary photography. Several years in the making, Land and Lens was curated by Kirsten Hoving, Professor of History of Art, with the assistance of numerous students in her classes, interns, and research assistants.

Instead of publishing an exhibition catalogue to be read after visiting the museum, Professor Hoving has produced a digital catalogue to be accessed on the spot as visitors make their way through the exhibition. You can use one of the Museum’s iPads to learn more about the works on view, or you can access information on your own tablet or horizontally-held smart phone. Headsets are available to enable you to listen without disturbing others.

In the digital catalogue you will find short videos that will enlarge your understanding of an artist or a specific photograph; written descriptions of photographic processes or environmental contexts; discussion of the art historical context for photographs; and interpretations of artists’ works through original music composed and performed by Middlebury College students. Short explanations of photographic processes are also available.

William Wegman (1943 – ), October 1981, Rangeley, Maine, 1981, dye transfer print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Perry, 1984.024. Courtesy William Wegman

The photographs have been grouped into eight sections, each indicative of issues reflected in the individual works. As you enter a section of the exhibition, please be sure to access the accompanying information provided in the digital catalogue.

This project was supported by a grant from the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative at Middlebury College. Additional funding was provided by the Committee on the Arts, the Director for the Arts, and the Department of History of Art and Architecture.”

Legends of Kintamani

Website: http://sites.middlebury.edu/animationstudio/portfolio/legends-of-kintamani/

Project Team: Su Lian Tan, Daniel Houghton, Hosain Ghassemi (’17), Ruben Gilbert (’15), James Graham (’16), Justin Holmes, Sofy Maia (’16), Coumba Winfield (’17)

About: “Legends of Kintamani is an original cello concerto composed by Su Lian Tan and a suite of large-scale animated murals to accompany each movement of the concerto. It debuted at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music Contemporary Music Ensemble performance with a followup performance at the Middlebury College Center for the Arts.”

“Dedicated to Darrett Adkins, Legends of Kintamani,was inspired by travels to Southeast Asia and specifically Bali. The five movement story-telling form depicts a return to a more innocent time, one where mythology and reality combine in fairy tales.” –Su Lian Tan

Midd Italiano

Project Team: Tom Van Order, Mikaela Taylor (‘15.5)

About:MiddItaliano is an online text for introductory Italian courses geared toward college-aged adults. The first phase of this project resulted in a digital textbook that has been used since 2015 for all beginning Italian courses during the academic year at Middlebury College (ITAL 101, 102, 103, and 123). As of the summer of 2019, MiddItaliano has been adopted for two introductory courses at the Middlebury Italian Summer School, and beginning in 2020 it will also be used for an introductory Italian course at our C.V. Starr School abroad in Florence, Italy.”

The Real Work

Website: https://www.jamiekmccallum.com/films

Project Team: Jamie McCallum , Ethan Murphy, Lena Jacobs (‘17.5 ), Molly Stuart (’15), James Graham (’16), Sunita Prasad

About: The Real Work has been shown at the following film festivals:

New Hampshire International Film Festival (Premiere)

Wandering Reel Film Festival 

Social Justice International Film Festival 

Big Easy Documentary Shorts Festival

Canadian International Labor Film Festival 

Understanding Expressed Desire

Project Team: Martin Seehuus, Joey Button (’17), Emily Eslinger (’18), Rachel Copulsky (’16), Rubby Paulino (’18), Kaitlyn Kuvalanka (’17)

About: Understanding Expressed Desire captures and analyzes pre-existing online sexual fantasies which were posted, read, and rated anonymously on websites dedicated to the sharing of such stories. This project has resulted in the following publications and presentations:

Seehuus, M., Stanton, A., Handy, A. (2019). On the content of real-world sexual fantasy: Results from a massive online studyArchives of Sexual Behavior, 48,725-737.

Seehuus, M., Handy, A., Stanton, A. (2017, May).  The Themes and structure of sexual fantasy. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.

Seehuus, M. Handy, A., Stanton, A. (2020). Change in the popularity of transgressive content in written erotica between 2000 and 2016. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-8.

Worlds of Solomon Northup

Project Team: Amy Morsman, Julia Kendrick (’17), Leah Lavigne (’16)

About: The Worlds of Solomon Northup is a digital history project that will share the shocking and remarkable story of Solomon Northup, a free man of color from New York, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and then discovered twelve years later, liberated, and returned home. Through text, images, maps, and documents, this site will explore in greater depth the two communities Northup inhabited, in Louisiana (as a slave) and in New York (as a free citizen). 

Chicago Freedom Movement

Website: http://sites.middlebury.edu/chicagofreedommovement/

Project Team: Jim Ralph

About: “In 1965, the country’s most effective civil rights leaders joined forces in Chicago to attempt the first civil rights campaign in a large Northern city. Focusing on open housing, the movement enlisted thousands of people to march through Chicago’s streets and into its real estate offices. This site chronicles the peopleorganizations, and events that formed the movement, and brings together a vast collection of movement material.”

Field House Museum

Website: http://sites.middlebury.edu/fieldhousemuseum/

Project Team: Holly Allen

About: “The exhibits on this site were generated by students in a Winter term course, “Designing a Field House Museum,” in collaboration with faculty, archivists, athletic administrators, and representatives of Sasaki Associates, the architectural firm charged with designing the new Field House. Each exhibit offers a thematic approach to Middlebury sports history. A separate exhibit features interviews with Middlebury coaches and administrators. Finally, we have created a timeline of Middlebury athletics.”

[in] Transition

Website: http://mediacommons.org/intransition/

Project Team: Chris Keathley, Jason Mittell

About: [in]Transition is a collaboration between MediaCommons and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ official publication, Journal of Cinema & Media Studies – is the first peer-reviewed academic journal of videographic film and moving image studies, and is fully open access with no fees to publish or read. Subscribe to our email list to receive links to new issues.

Practitioners of these forms (which include, inter alia, the ‘video essay’, ‘audiovisual essay’, and ‘visual essay’ formats) explore the ways in which digital technologies afford a new mode of carrying out and presenting film and moving image research. The full range of digital technologies now enables film and media scholars to write using the very materials that constitute their objects of study: moving images and sounds.

Though a number of other outstanding sites present videographic work, none has yet received the disciplinary validation that is accorded to written scholarship. In large part, the strictures of written academic discourse pose a challenge for this nascent form of multi-media ‘writing’. [in]Transitionaims to address this challenge. This journal is designed not only as a means to present selected videographic work, but to create a context for understanding it – and validating it – as a new mode of scholarly writing for the discipline of cinema and media studies and related fields. This goal will be achieved through editorial curating of exemplary videographic works, through critical analysis and appreciation, pre-publication open peer review and ongoing peer commentary.

Most posts on [in]Transition features three elements: a videographic work, a statement by the creator of the video, and one or two signed peer reviews solicited by the editorial team. These peer reviews indicate the gatekeeping process that preceded the publication of the video, with experts evaluating the project, offering feedback for potential revisions, and recommending publication. Reviewers have a chance to revise these reviews for publication, focusing on how the video and accompanying statement function as scholarship. The goal of presenting these reviews openly is to set the terms of evaluation for videographic work, and contextualize it for acceptance and validation by our discipline.

We hope that the process of peer review does not end upon publication. [in]Transitionis committed to a vigorous open peer commentary process. Registered users of MediaCommons are invited to comment on and engage in dialogue with other readers and creators about published work. This commentary is a crucial component of the disciplinary dialogue that must take place if videographic works are to be accepted as scholarship. This dialogue can serve to further define the formal criteria we expect from distinguished videographic work. We invite readers to register with MediaCommons and engage with us in this stimulating and important dialogue concerning the future of videographic work as a scholarly form.

Note that for the first four issues of [in]Transition, the co-editors and invited members of the editorial board selected existing videographic works to present as exemplary of the form. These issues select and organize works thematically, around the various formal features that have already begun to take shape in videographic practice. Each selected work is accompanied by a short critical essay that explains and justifies the work in two ways: for its creative use of multi-media tools; and for the way it creates a ‘knowledge effect’ – that is, for its impact as scholarship. These initial curated works and conversations set the groundwork for the ongoing presentation and validation of videographic criticism.

Middlebury History Online

Website: http://go.middlebury.edu/mho

Project Team: Special Collections and Archives

About: “In Fall 2005, Middlebury College was approached by Judith Tichenor Fulkerson, Class of 1956, with a proposal to create a digital archive of documents related to the history of Middlebury College beginning with its founding in 1800 through the early 20th century. These documents include manuscript letters, journals, diaries, and archival records, as well as books, journals, other published works, and photographic images that directly relate to the College’s founders, faculty, students, and alumni.  Mrs. Fulkerson, an alum and former member of the College Board of Trustees, is a descendent of Isaac Tichenor, the Governor of Vermont who granted and signed the original Middlebury College Charter in 1800. The donation was Mrs. Fulkerson’s 50th Reunion Gift to the College.

Middlebury History Online is a work in progress. As digitized archival materials are created, this online archive will continue to grow. The essays under the category Architecture & landscapes are taken from Glenn Andres’ Walking History of Middlebury and are used with his permission. The essays for several of the twentieth and twenty-first century College presidents are adapted from David Haward Bain’s The College on the Hill and are used with his permission.”

Contact us at specialcollections@middlebury.edu

The South China Sea

Website: http://www.southchinasea.org/

Project Team: David Rosenberg

About: “Bordered by some of the world’s most rapidly industrializing countries and traversed by some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the South China Sea is also a unique ecosystem and a repository for valuable natural resources. Countries around the South China Sea, however, have usually been more concerned with maximizing national economic growth and ensuring adequate energy supplies than in preserving their common maritime environment. Consequently, this oceanic hub of the industrial revolution of Asia is becoming a sink for regional environmental pollution and an area of conflicting territorial claims. 

What are the countries around the South China Sea doing about their growing problems of regional environmental pollution and conflicting resource and territorial claims? How will the expanding and urbanizing coastal population achieve sustainable development? Based on the premise that regional problems require regional solutions, this website aims to provide scholars and policy-makers with an online guide to information and reference resources about common regional development, environment, and security issues around the South China Sea.”