Lecture

Black-box Consumer Design and Retro Gaming Communities

Bruce Dadey — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 15:57:12 +0000

Black-box Consumer Design and Retro Gaming Communities Bruce Dadey Mon, 11/08/2021 - 10:57

Speaker: Alex Fleck

Respondent: Toben Racicot

Abstract

Responding to work in the fields of media archaeology and platforms studies that show changes in the manufacturing and design of consumer electronics after the Second World War, my research examines a shift in the ethos of technological maintenance and repair. During this period (WWII – Now), the practice of replacing parts has become the now-normalized practice of replacing whole products. Consumer repairable and understandable electronics have become proprietary and closed off, best described as “black box.” A “black box” rhetorical paradigm or set of strategies in consumer technology is rendered visible through attention to material construction (hardware), software, repair/return policies, and advertising. Today, Apple presents clear examples of black box rhetorical strategies in their repair/replacement model (AppleCare, “lease” plans for phones, antagonism toward third-party or user repair). In addition to hardware, companies that rely on data collection as part of their funding model typically employ black box, “obfuscation,” strategies in the way they withhold and deliver only certain information to their users about how user data is aggregated, bought, and sold (Brunton and Nissenbaum, 2015).

My case studies in this space – I will present some here – are drawn from communities of hardware/software enthusiasts and artists that mod, hack, maintain, and add functionality to defunct gaming platforms. These communities, their information-sharing practices and work, I argue, run counter to “black box” rhetoric and throwaway culture, presenting an alternative ideological and rhetorical model. Defunct platforms through the efforts of those maintaining, updating, and expanding them, often offer a more accessible creation space relative to the platform’s original manufacturer. New SDKs (software development kits or environments), emulators, ROM flash carts, and video up-scalers repackage and adapt older gaming platforms for an audience that might not have otherwise experienced them. The ultimate result is art, a platform archive, and levels of historical preservation that weren’t possible or viable before.

Speaker Bio

Alex Fleck’s (he/him) doctoral research studies retrogaming hardware, software, and modding/fan communities to understand changes over time to consumer culture, material literacy, and legacy platforms. He designs games with a group of other Games Institute (GI) researchers for ongoing projects and partnerships and is a part of the organizing committee for ICGaN (an international Games and Narrative conference hosted at the GI) if anyone is interested in learning more see here: International Conference on Games and Narrative | Games Institute | University of ��ݮ��Ƶ (uwaterloo.ca).

WebEx Details

Meeting number: 2318 563 9186

Password: preslecture

Meeting Link: https://uwaterloo.webex.com/uwaterloo/j.php?MTID=mc81ca9c1321069587f2d78f94b7ce7d5

Note: To add this event to your calendar, copy the meeting number into the search bar on your WebEx homepage. This should take you to the meeting information page, where you can hit the “Add to My Calendar” icon beside the event title.*

A Discussion with Author Tess Chakkalakal

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:09:53 +0000

A Discussion with Author Tess Chakkalakal Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 03/17/2025 - 14:09

About the event

Join us for an engaging discussion with Tess Chakkalakal, author of A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt, as she speaks with moderator Dr. Vay.

Whether you're interested in doing some learning over your lunch hour or a student looking to explore literary history, this is a great opportunity to hear about Chakkalakal’s work and insights.

Presented in partnership with the ��ݮ��Ƶ Public Library.

About the Author

Tess Chakkalakal teaches African-American and American Literature at Bowdoin College. Her writing has appeared in The New England Quarterly, J19, American Literary History, and many others. She is the author of Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century American (Illinois UP, 2011) and co-editor of Jim Crow, Literature, and the Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs (University of Georgia Press, 2013) and Imperium in Imperio: A Critical Edition (West Virginia UP, 2022) She lives in Brunswick, Maine.

About the Book

In A Matter of Complexion, Tess Chakkalakal gives readers the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered “mixed race.” He spent his early life in North Carolina after the Civil War. Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the Black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing. He went on to become the first Black writer whose stories appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and whose books were published by Houghton Mifflin.

Through his literary work, as a writer, critic, and speaker, Chesnutt transformed the publishing world by crossing racial barriers that divided Black writers from white and seamlessly including both Black and white characters in his writing. In A Matter of Complexion Chakkalakal pens the biography of a poor teacher raised in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction who became the first professional African American writer to break into the all-white literary establishment and win admirers as diverse as William Dean Howells, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and Lorraine Hansberry.

About the Moderator

DR. VAY, moderating the event, is a professor in the departments of Communication Arts and English Language and Literature at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ, where he is also the inaugural director of Black Studies. He research focuses on the intersections of race and masculinity in US and Canadian literature, rhetoric, performance, and sociolinguistics. He is currently completing a book of essays on teaching Black language and literature in what he terms Ameri-Canada.

PRES Talk: De-Coding Literacy: An Analysis of Ontario’s 2020 K-8 Mathematics Curriculum

Bruce Dadey — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 12:50:31 +0000

PRES Talk: De-Coding Literacy: An Analysis of Ontario’s 2020 K-8 Mathematics Curriculum Bruce Dadey Wed, 06/14/2023 - 08:50

Title: De-Coding Literacy: An Analysis of Ontario’s 2020 K-8 Mathematics Curriculum

Speaker: Sophie Morgan

Respondent: Sarah Casey

Abstract: Code surrounds us: in the subterranean texts of our technologies, in video games, in public spaces as QR codes, and, as of 2020, in the Ontario Kindergarten to Grade 8 (K-8) mathematics curriculum. In response to this recent addition, this talk explores and unearths the social and political consequences of code’s increasing ubiquity through the case of the provincial mathematics curriculum and its current positioning of code education. This talk will begin with a discussion of my motivation for the work, followed by an explanation of my methodological approach, which included a critical discourse analysis of the 2020 Ontario K-8 mathematics curriculum. I will then discuss my preliminary findings, which indicate that the provincial government positions code as a neutral implement designed for productivity, devoid of human agency and engagement. In other words, this curricular document presents code as a neutral, abstract, unquestionable mathematical tool rather than a dynamic, personal, and rhetorical literacy. Ultimately, in its current state, I argue that the curriculum dangerously shapes students’ understanding of technology and fails to address technologically driven injustices. This talk will conclude with the prompt that, if we take seriously these findings, the insights gathered here will help scholars, educators, parents, and professionals more fully understand the effects of this curricular document on the teaching of computational literacy and, in turn, on those who learn and thus enact it.

Speaker Bio: Sophie Morgan (she/her/hers) is a master’s student in the Rhetoric and Communication Design stream. She received her Honours BA from York University in 2022 in French Studies and Professional Writing with specializations in Digital Authoring and Organizational Writing. Her research focuses on rhetoric, computational literacy, literacy studies, curriculum design, and organizational communication. Sophie is currently exploring the intersections of these interests in her major research paper.

BONUS: Following the presentation, join SAGE representatives at the Grad House for a Socialize with Sage event from 4:30-6:00 pm.

IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE: Location: Hagey Hall, Room 232
ONLINE ATTENDANCE:
WebEx Link: https://uwaterloo.webex.com/uwaterloo/j.php?MTID=mf6419b9582575ae79b464a4b279a4013
Meeting number: 2313 454 3724
Password: preslecture

PRES Lecture: "Radical Labour Injustice and Resistance in The Boys"

Bruce Dadey — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 14:09:20 +0000

PRES Lecture: "Radical Labour Injustice and Resistance in The Boys" Bruce Dadey Wed, 10/05/2022 - 10:09

Speaker: Dakota Pinheiro

Respondent: sarah currie

Abstract

In his 2009 essay, published on the eve of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s cultural ascendance, Greg Smith describes superheroes as “passive” agents, noting that, “without some other person or external crisis to precipitate the drama, the superhero would remain on call indefinitely” (131). This positioning of the superhero as reactive and as deferential to traditional forms of authority, James Mulder argues, leave superheroes exposed to the “living precarity of this historical present” (1049) amidst Umberto Eco’s “immobile present” (Smith 133). As a satire that combines the genre conventions of contemporary superhero fantasy with an evisceration of corporate power and market politics, Eric Kripke’s The Boys illustrates the governing role that capitalist practices occupy in super-heroic and super-oppressive activity. Depicting “supes” as near-invincible demigods that are above the law and are protected by billions of dollars worth of PR management on the one hand and as precarious labourers in competition with one another in a rigged corporate meritocracy on the other, The Boys hyperbolizes the cascading harms of unfair labour practices under late-stage capitalism. This presentation investigates representations of superhero labour precarity and injustice in Amazon Prime’s superhero satire series The Boys to lay bare the authoritarian ideation of contemporary American labour discourse, and to illustrate the radical intersectional labour advocacies enclosed in the series’ co-option of the superhero genre.

Works Cited

Kripke, Eric, creator. The Boys. Amazon Prime Video, 2019.
Mulder, James. "Believe It or Not, This is Power": Embodied Crisis and the Superhero on Film." The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 50, no. 5, 2017, pp. 1047-1064.
Smith, Greg M. "The Superhero as Labor: The Corporate Secret Identity." The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero, edited by Angela Ndalianis, Routledge 2009, pp. 126-43.

Speaker Bio

Dakota Pinheiro (he/him) is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Literature. This is his first time presenting his research as a PRES lecture. His dissertation project critically examines representations of labour protests and solidarities in contemporary American literature. Dakota also serves as an editor at First Person Scholar, a Sessional Lecturer with the Department of English, and as an Educational Developer at ��ݮ��Ƶ’s Centre for Teaching Excellence.

Attending

In Person

Location: EBC Room at Communitech (1st Floor), 151 Charles Street West, Suite 100, Kitchener
Please fill out this short visitor registration form the morning of your visit
Check in at the Hub reception desk (sliding doors left of the elevators) upon arrival and they will help direct you to the EBC Room

Online

WebEx Meeting number: 2314 991 0793
WebEx Password: preslecture
Meeting Link: https://uwaterloo.webex.com/uwaterloo/j.php?MTID=m9a675e0b508d8394de730dd459f6d2b1

To add this event to your calendar: sign into your u��ݮ��Ƶ WebEx, then copy the meeting number (2302 396 1121) into the search bar on your homepage. This should take you to the meeting information page, where you can hit the “Add to My Calendar” icon beside the event title.

Look Up! A Media History of Aerial Communication

Debbie Nahlik — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:37:19 +0000

Look Up! A Media History of Aerial Communication Debbie Nahlik Wed, 02/12/2020 - 09:37

The Wilfrid Laurier Department of Communication Studies presents a talk by Dr. Ghislain Thibault: Look Up! A Media History of Aerial Communication.

Giovanna Riccio, "Plasticity's Bombshell"

Debbie Nahlik — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 16:19:58 +0000

Giovanna Riccio, "Plasticity's Bombshell" Debbie Nahlik Fri, 01/17/2020 - 11:19

In 2019, the Barbie doll turned 60. Plasticity in body and persona allowed the Mattel toy company to position and reposition their high-achieving money-maker as relevant by exploiting social trend, political movements and historical shifts. As a complex international celebrity and feminist bête noir, Barbie is a mirror helping us to reflect on ourselves.

This lecture is based on my book, Plastic’s Republic, a poem collection centering on the Barbie doll as an enduring cultural icon. I will examine her creation, her impact on female beauty and discuss how her mouldable nature made her a “capital doll” and free market diva. Following the book’s themes, I will elaborate the philosophical, feminist and social issues she engenders and discuss how Barbie became plastic surgery’s prophet by spawning “plastic positive” humans. Finally, plastic’s reach extends to the dollification of romantic relationships via silicone sex dolls and ends (un)naturally in our plastic infused lives and smothered oceans.

I will follow the lecture by reading from Plastic’s Republic.

Bio

Giovanna Riccio is a graduate of the University of Toronto where she majored in philosophy. Her love of poetry is her inheritance from a gifted autodidact father who penned his own verses. She is the author of Vittorio (Lyricalmyrical Press, 2010) Strong Bread (Quattro Books, 2011), and Plastic’s Republic (Guernica Editions, 2019) and her poems have appeared in national and international publications and in numerous anthologies. Her work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, and Romanian. Giovanna has participated in various international literary festivals including Blue Met, The Edinburgh Fringe and the University of Calabria’s Italian Diaspora Conference to name a few. Visit her website at giovannariccio.com.

Talking Trash

Maha Eid — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 13:37:24 +0000

Talking Trash Maha Eid Mon, 03/18/2019 - 09:37

"Multi-tasking"

Maha Eid — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 17:29:17 +0000

"Multi-tasking" Maha Eid Tue, 02/26/2019 - 12:29

Dr. Christine Bold, “Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange”

Bruce Dadey — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 20:47:34 +0000

Dr. Christine Bold, “Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange” Bruce Dadey Fri, 01/25/2019 - 15:47

Dr. Christine Bold, Professor of English and Killam Research Fellow, University of Guelph, will give a talk at U��ݮ��Ƶ, “Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange.”

As the University of Guelph writes: “Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange” is part of “a research project that [Bold] says upends long-held notions of the role Native peoples played in the popular culture of the late 1800s and early 1900s. “I am thrilled that the Canada Council of the Arts, through the Killam Fellowship, is investing in the recovery of these Indigenous performers, recognizing the importance of their stories, lives and careers to our understanding of who made popular culture and modernity,” Bold said. Early twentieth-century books, plays and movies often portrayed Indigenous characters as stock representations in the “cowboys and Indians” mould of popular westerns. At the same time, vaudeville, the first global system of mass entertainment, had no room for Indigenous participants, on stage or in the audience – or so it seemed. Bold has spent more than a decade unearthing the stories of about 150 little-known “vaudeville Indians”— that is, Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors in North America who “played Indian” on global circuits. She will use the Killam award to complete a book called Indigenous Modernities: The Secret History of Vaudeville, 1880s-1930s.

Her project focuses on seven performing families, including members of Seneca, Mohawk, Penobscot, Cherokee and other Native nations. Those performers played on vaudeville and variety stages across North America, Europe and the Antipodes during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of those acts played in virtuoso ways with prevailing stereotypes—all in the midst of genocidal policies and practices against Indigenous peoples, said Bold. Having worked with numerous archives and digital databases in six countries – including U of G’s McLaughlin Library archives — she also plans to help “repatriate” artifacts and materials.

“These are not my stories,” said Bold. “I aim to return them to their home communities where possible. They’ve been separated by colonization.” As a non-Indigenous scholar, she is developing research relationships with Indigenous artists and scholars to guide the project’s principles, processes and outcomes.”

Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange

Maha Eid — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 18:56:22 +0000

Indigenous Performers, Vaudeville, and Building Relations of Research Exchange Maha Eid Tue, 01/15/2019 - 13:56

CHRISTINE BOLD
PROFESSOR AND KILLAM RESEARCH FELLOW

Christine Bold is Professor of English and Killam Research Fellow, University of Guelph. She has published six books and many essays on popular culture and cultural memory, most recently the award-winning The Frontier Club: Popular Westerns and Cultural Power, 1880-1924.