In Medias Res spring 2004 The Newsletter of MIT Comparative Media Studies web.mit.edu/cms education arcade This revolution will be digitized, texturized... he Education Arcade has confirmed the final agen- games by initiating new game development projects, coor- da for a major games-in-education conference to be dinating interdisciplinary research efforts, and informing Theld in conjunction with this year’s Electronic public conversations about the broader and sometimes Entertainment Expo (E3). The gaming industry’s largest unexpected uses of this emerging art form in education. event, E3 will be held in May at the Los Angeles By working in conjunction with the Entertainment Convention Center. Software Association and organizing the conference as The goal is to spotlight part of E3 Expo, organizers hope to raise the level of visi- and build awareness of the bility of educational gaming, which has been considered use of computer and video only a small niche within the annual $10 billion gaming games by students, teachers industry. and researchers as learning Revolution is the name of the American history role- tools. Session topics range playing game being developed with assistance from from the theoretical —Are Pauline Maier of the MIT History department and from Games Educational? and staffers at Colonial Williamsburg (the From Simulation to Interaction — to the screen shots to the left are from practical—Fostering Games Literacy and Revolution). An advisory board consisting Making Tools for Making Games. Speakers of high school social science teachers from include leading scholars such as David schools in the Greater Boston area was Buckingham (University of London) and recently established, and the board will Scott Fischer (University of Southern advise the creators of Revolution on the California), and game designers such as content and classroom Will Wright (The Sims) and Sid Meier implementation of the (Civilization). game. The Revolution A complete list of sessions and speakers, as well as team is in the process of registration information may be found at: www.education- consolidating the 3D mod- arcade.org. eling and texturing work Building on work done through the two-year Microsoft by Undergraduate iCampus project Games-to-Teach, the Education Arcade is Research Opportunities a consortium of international game designers, publishers, Program (UROP) students scholars, educators, and policy makers led by Henry Cassie Huang, David Lee, Andre Sugai, James Tolbert Jenkins, Eric Klopfer and Philip Tan Boon Yew in and Edward Scholtz. Comparative Media Studies, Kurt Squire at the UROP Nicholas Hunter has been prototyping game University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Alex Chisholm at functionality using BioWare’s Aurora toolset scripting lan- LeapFrog Enterprises. The Arcade’s mission is to demon- guage and has developed non-player characters that are strate the social, cultural, and educational potentials of smart enough to converse and spread rumors, to maintain levels of friendship or enmity with player characters, to Inside In Medias Res follow the roads in the town, to congregate when they hear of meetings, and to identify and arrest lawbreakers. director’s column, 2 CMS graduate students Brett Camper and Matthew metamedia update, 3-5 Wiese have been working with the undergraduates to communications forum / cms colloquium, 6-7 develop overarching plot structures and to revise and doc- people, places, things, 8-10 ument the details of the game mechanics. The group is afghani women start radio station, 11 continued on back cover spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 2

director’s chair Amid activity, year away from cms seems like 20 by Henry Jenkins, director, CMS showed off what they have been working on this fall. The eading through this issue of In Medias Res, I feel a teachers were excited about the potentials of using this bit like Rip Van Winkle returning home after sev- game in their classes this coming fall and offered rich Reral years of napping. I was only away for a insights about what aspects of Colonial American politics year—and in the age of the Internet and cell phones, I can and culture we should be incorporating into the next phase scarcely claim to have been out of touch with develop- of game development. ments here at MIT. But, I have been amazed upon my You see this spirit of applied humanism as you read return to see how many of the things we’ve dreamed the accounts offered here by Peter Donaldson, Wynn about and worked towards for the Kelly, Gilberte Furstenberg and past four years or so have started others working on the MetaMedia to become a reality. “Applied humanism is project. As more and more mini- First, let me signal my deep archives are completed, as they appreciation for William embodied by our students, are being deployed in classrooms Uricchio’s leadership over the visiting scholars, faculty.” at MIT and elsewhere, as students program while I was away. He did discover what it is to express an excellent job of holding us themselves through this new plat- together through some financially form, as other groups seek out the and emotionally difficult times. I am certain that his calm MetaMedia team as collaboration partners, we are seeing dignity made a huge difference in how our community the fulfillment of a vision which we all had at the launch responded to some of those disappointments and setbacks. of this important initiative — of transforming humanities We have not simply endured; we have flourished even in education through the creative use of digital technologies. the worst of times. You see that same spirit when we read Sarah Kamal’s One of the core challenges we set when we launched moving account of her experiences in Afghanistan, help- the CMS program was to embody the concept of “applied ing to create a radio station which will allow women, long humanism.” I know the phrase annoys some of my col- silenced under the Taliban, a voice in their community. leagues who feel strongly that the humanities has always You see it when you read about a range of student been, in some fundamental ways, an applied field that products involving radio, digital filmmaking, or handheld speaks to those things which make us human. Yet, I see a computers or when you read about Parmesh Shahani’s value in holding up the idea that we can become even plans for a film festival focused on the Lesbian, Bisexual, more engaged with the world around us, that we can be Gay and Transsexual perspectives from South Asia, or even more committed to translating our ideas into a com- when you see the rich mixture of speakers planned for the mon language that speaks beyond the Ivory Tower, and Communications Forum and Colloquium this term or that we can be even more determined to translate out when you read about how the CMS community is working research into forms which make a difference in people’s together to develop an exhibit for a local museum on com- lives. puter games as art. As I look through the contents of this issue, it is clear The other week, I felt it when I listened to some of our that this idea of “applied humanism” is being embodied visiting scholars describe the work they are doing this by the day-to-day activities of our students, visiting schol- term—the mixture of old and new media, the attempt to ars and faculty. bring together global perspectives on media change, and Several weeks ago, I went to the Museum of Science especially the effort to do pragmatic research which can to participate in the Hi-Tech Who Done It, which was have a real impact on our changing culture. being run as an extension of the work that Eric Klopfer And I felt it when I re-entered our ongoing conversa- has been doing on the educational use of handheld com- tions with the Royal Shakespeare Company to collaborate puters. I can scarcely describe the excitement of the kids across a range of exciting projects in the coming year. and their parents as they raced around the museum, look- Individually and collectively, we are achieving our ing for clues, and teaching each other about science. vision for CMS! And all of this, amazing as it is, is just Not long after that, I sat down with American History the beginning of what we can do together. teachers from around Boston as the Revolution team spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 3 metamedia update At mit, humanities is a multi-media experience by Peter Donaldson, head, MIT Literature hear, see, ponder and discuss those meanings that cross or he MetaMedia Project began three years ago, with hover between media. Henry Jenkins, Kurt Fendt and myself as co- MetaMedia deals with both ends of the knowledge Tdirectors. Each of us had completed a major proj- spectrum in the humanities by providing tools so that ect — Henry’s was the Virtual Screening Room, an amaz- humanities teachers themselves can build media collec- ing resource for teaching film style and film editing, link- tions that are stable, well organized and easily accessible ing interactive tutorials to editing tools and an extensive and also can be easily reconfigured and added to by stu- collection of clips. Kurt Fendt and Ellen Crocker were dents as they make their own collections and prepare the authors of Berliner sehen, in materials for close analysis in which over 20 hours of conversa- class or in remotely connected tions filmed in the former East “We are in the midst of collaborations. MetaMedia and West Berlin can be freely addresses the difficult problems of reconfigured by students of a revolution in how the creating fully interoperable, cross- German literature and culture as platform archives structured by they make sense of a new (virtual) humanities are taught.” state-of-the-art metadata. It pro- environment by telling their own vides work spaces for students stories and building their own pre- and teachers to use all media to sentations. My own work was the Shakespeare Electronic support discussion and multi-media essay writing. Archive, a collection of early texts in photofacsimile, an We planned MetaMedia as a series of new collections, extensive art collection, and a number of films all linked partnering with faculty many of whom have never worked to the lines of Shakespeare’s plays. in multimedia before, aiming at creating a small collection We are in the midst of a revolution in how the humani- or “mini archive” that would support from one week to ties are taught. As in the past, we need to preserve, one month of classroom teaching. In that way, we could arrange, and make accessible broad areas of knowledge — form a growing community of faculty and students who as a college library does. But now could share their experiences in our collections are cross-media. See pages four and five for multimedia, as we have done, We also need to focus intensely throughout a wide range of fields. on particular texts, passages in individual project updates The results have been extreme- texts, even single words. We need ly rewarding — “mini archives” to collect and compare texts for ourselves and discuss on Arab Oral Epic, Early Comics, Spanish and French them with others. In literature, the skills and practices of Culture, Modern Dance, Herman Melville and Toni focused study and discussion are called “close reading.” Morrison have been among the many projects that have Now, we need to closely read not only words but the been developed in MetaMedia, and there are exciting proj- images, recorded sound, and film. We need to read each of ects in Shakespeare, Dürrenmatt and mobile museum these media on their own terms, and also need to learn to continued on page 5

Metamedia archives and project supervisors The following projects will be added to the Current MetaMedia archives include: Future projects: archive in spring 2004: • American and British Authors (Wyn • Rethinking Early Media: Exploring the • Berliner sehen (Kurt Fendt, Ellen Crocker) Kelley) Fin-de-Siècle Mediascape (William Uricchio) • Arab Oral Epic (Susan Slyomovics) • Comics and Popular Culture (Henry • China: In The 60s (Tong Chen) • Declarations of Independence (Pauline Jenkins) Supervisors to be determined: Maier) • Cultura (Gilberte Furstenberg) • International Advertising Archive • MIT-UPV Archive (Douglas Morgenstern) • Digital Dance Archive (Thomas DeFrantz) • Royal Shakespeare Performance Archive • Shakespeare Electronic Archive (Pete • España de cerca (Margarita Ribas Groeger, • Beijing Film Academy Archive Donaldson) Adriana Gutiérrez-Gonzales) • Einstein’s Life • Au-delà du regard (Johann Saddock) • Dürrenmatt’s play “The Visit of the Old • Memories and Commemoration (Dagmar Lady” Jaeger) spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 4

Archives feature interactivity and flexibility

American and British Authors a one-week study of Oscar Wilde’s produced presentations in multime- This past fall, I experimented with “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” in dia. This term, I am trying two new using the archive in two different set- which students commented on a mini- approaches. In a new section of tings. The first was a seminar archive of images presented in class Introduction to Fiction, I am now (Herman Melville and Toni Morrison) and then annotated their comments having students give five-minute oral where students delivered extensive later. presentations using image archives reports on topics like Harlem Both classes expanded their range (something I have not been able to fit Renaissance art, into a large class Melville and the before). And my Mississippi River Writing About steamboat, or rural Literature class will, African-American for the first time, be towns in 1930s creating journal Ohio. These were archives of text and lavishly illustrated images to share with and well document- the rest of the class. ed. A new feature In both classes, stu- of the archive dents seem to be allowed students to learning and using annotate their own the technology more illustrations, and other students could of visual and cultural associations quickly than in the past as the comment on their work. The results with the texts through this work and MetaMedia site improves in function- were thoughtful and well written, and also gained new appreciation of aes- ality, and they see the advantages of reflected the students’ respect for and thetic concepts like baroque, modern, bringing these resources to bear in the understanding of the imaginative sublime, or jazz through the use of study of literary texts. leaps required by this kind of study. nonverbal media. They also became The other project, in a larger more adept at deploying multimedia Introduction to Fiction class, involved information and tools and confidently --Wynn Kelly

Cultura well as texts. By exchanging visual icons and representa- ince the Fall of 2003, we have used the MetaMedia tions of their respective cultures, or comparing images of Sframework, especially its forums, for the Cultura proj- an American suburb with a French one or offering photos ect, a project that since 1997 has connected MIT students that reflect different concepts of citizenship, the realities taking an intermediate French class with students taking of one anothers’ culture become truly alive. an English class at a University in Paris. The very fact that students themselves contribute those Through a collaborative process, the students gradual- images by uploading them onto the Metamedia site brings ly construct a deeper understanding of one another’s cul- them to yet another level of exchange and involvement, as tural attitudes, values and frames of references. They use a they question each other about the context in which these comparative approach, which leads them to analyze a images were taken as well as their purpose. Students series of textual and visual materials from their respective explore further, within their respective language classes as cultures that are juxtaposed on the Web, and then to well as together across the ocean, what other cultural exchange viewpoints on the material — via online discus- aspects those images might reveal - thus creating ever new sion forums and each in their own language. meanings and insights with media. The great advantage of the forums in MetaMedia is that they have allowed students to exchange images as --Gilberte Furstenberg spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 5

Flâneurs savants (knowledgeable wanderers) small group of MIT students who spent part of their win- hrough our work with MetaMedia, we learned of a ter break in Paris for their use and feedback. Twealth of photographs and historical illustrations of The two major findings so far are not very surprising: the Marais neighborhood in Paris that had been gathered Our next phase of development will require us to visit and archived by Professor Gilberte Furstenberg for a Paris to expand the tour, and the handhelds themselves French education CD-ROM. raise some usability issues that require upgrades or With the support of Professor Furstenberg, Professor improvements in what’s currently on the market. Edward Barrett, former MIT student Raj Dandage, and We hope to expand the tour in several ways, including the MetaMedia team, we built a walking tour of the deepening the relationship between the tours and the Marais using these images, as well as newly acquired MetaMedia database. That way, we can create image-text images and our own research. We built this using modules for easier customization of tours by themes and Macromedia Flash, and designed it for use on Pocket PC routes. Since the neighborhood, like many urban neigh- hand-held devices. borhoods, is in constant flux, MetaMedia also provides a The project, titled Flâneurs Savants, is in English. It way to easily enter and catalogue updated images gathered includes architectural details and monuments, memorials, by future users and ourselves. restaurants, markets, and stores. We installed it on a few handhelds and sent them with Professor Furstenberg and a --Andrea McCarty and Rekha Murthy

Metamedia interface design Making metamedia tick s part of my graduate research assistantship with etaMedia relies on XML-based open standards AMetamedia, I have been working on the design Msuch as Dublin Core, TEI (Text Encoding and development of the Metamedia application inter- Initiative) for text documents, MPEG-7 (for video and face. audio documents), SCORM (Sharable Content Object Like any successful application, it was important Reference Model) for learning objects, and other stan- for the Metamedia interface to be easy-to-use, well- dards to ensure portability and exchangeability of all organized and aesthetically pleasing. At the beginning data in MetaMedia archives. of the design process, our team held several brain- This requires a scalable database to effectively storming sessions to identify what features we were store and retrieve the metadata (MetaMedia currently going to include and the order of their importance. uses Oracle) and powerful server software to organize As Metamedia grows and is used in more class- and generate the display of media documents (we cur- rooms at MIT, I repeat the process of getting feedback rently use the open source application server Enhydra on the latest design from the teachers, students and and XSLT). members of Metamedia, then building new prototypes Due to its modular architecture, it is possible to to reflect the comments. The layout, style sheets and exchange one of the technical components of images are then implemented in the application by MetaMedia (such as the database application) without members of our programming staff. In this manner, we having to rewrite the entire framework. can refine the Metamedia interface to create an optimal experience for our users. --Moneta Ho

Humanities from page 3 ic, daily needs of teachers and stu- media and across distance. dents in specific MIT subjects. We are extending the humanists’ learning in preparation. Every day, the goals of networked idea of the classroom as a “reading In addition, we are having excit- media educations seem closer to real- community” from text to all media; ing discussions with Institute-wide ization, as the libraries of the past are from the small seminar to discussions projects such as D-Space and supplemented by cross-media digital involving students and teachers in OpenCourseWare about ways in collections, and as the precious close other institutions; and around the which MIT can strengthen digital col- and contextual interpretive practices world. lection-building as well as the specif- of the humanities are extended across spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 6

Spring 2004 Communications Forum and CMS Colloquium Schedule

February 19 Forum: Writing and Producing in Prime Time 5-7 p.m. A writer-producer of prime-time series since the 1980s, John Romano, returns to the Forum to Bartos offer his personal report card on the state of prime time. Has the writer lost power in the dubious plenitude of the age of cable? What is the significance of the recent dominance of reality program- ming for the future of TV series and movies? A former English professor at Columbia University and the author of a scholarly book on Charles Dickens, Romano is currently working on the screenplay for Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, and is a consulting producer and sometime writer for the current prime time show, American Dreams. Among his other television credits: Hill Street Blues, Sweet Justice, Third Watch, Monk, Party of Five, and Providence.

February 26 Colloquium: Inter:ReActive 5-7 p.m. Jessica Irish, an assistant professor in the Art Department at Wellesley College, will present and 2-105 discuss “Inter:ReActive,” a local, two-year initiative that produced three alternative media literacy projects in collaboration with Belmont High School, the Urban Education Project, and local artists. Irish is former co-director of OnRamp Arts, a non-profit digital arts organization in Los Angeles, for which she continues to serve on the board of directors.

March 4 Colloquium: Cartoons and Social Protest 5-7 p.m. Ted Rall has been a leading figure in promoting the use of comics for social documentation and 2-105 protest. His cartoons now appear regularly in more than 140 publications nationwide, and he was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in political cartooning in 1996. His recent books include Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists, a collection of alternative cartoons, and To Afghanistan and Back, chronicling Rall’s harrowing experiences covering the war for the Village Voice and KFI Radio. Rall will talk about his work, his politics, and the larger contexts in which he operates.

March 11 Forum: Interactive Television -- Rethinking Interfaces 5-7 p.m. The introduction of the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) has significantly altered the ways many Bartos consumers relate to television content -- offering a simple way to access what they want to watch when they want to watch it. How has this new interface altered consumer behavior and their per- ceptions of the medium? What new models for interactive television are starting to emerge in research labs and think tanks around the country? This panel features Dale Herigstad (Schematic TV), a leading figure in the American Film Institute’s workshop on interactive television design, and Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst for Forrester Research, who has done extensive research into the ways that TiVo and other digital recorders are impacting American media consumption.

March 18 Forum: The Emerging Mediascape 5-7 p.m. National Public Radio ombudsperson Jeffrey Dvorkin and Boston Globe media critic Mark 4-237 Jurkowitz consider how new sources of information are interacting and competing with traditional forms of journalism. Are we less informed today, amid a torrent of voices and technologies offer- ing us so-called news, than citizens in olden, pre-digital days? How has the role of print or radio journalism changed since the advent of the Web and the 24-7 operations of the TV cable news net- works? spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 7

April 1 Forum: New Media, New Audiences 5-7 p.m. Betsy Frank, executive vice president for research and planning at MTV Networks, will discuss Bartos the latest research on television-viewing, the emergence of niche audiences, the battle for advertis- ing between broadcast and cable networks, and the whereabouts of audience members in the 18-26 age group (so crucial to advertisers). MTV networks include Nick at Nite, MTV 1 and 2, TVLand, VH1 and Spike.

April 8 Colloquium: The Global Impact of Japanese Popular Culture 5-7 p.m. Matt Thorn is a cultural anthropologist who examines the role of manga and anime in Japanese 2-105 culture. He is an associate professor in cartoon and comic art at Kyoto Seika University in Japan, and frequently translates Japanese comics into English, helping to make them more accessible to a global market (tentative).

April 15 Colloquium: Hindi Films in London 5-7 p.m. Rachel Dwyer examines Hindi cinema, considered the dominant form of Indian cinema. Dwyer 2-105 looks at Hindi cinema in the U.K., tracing the complex dynamic between the Indian producers and British-Asian audiences within the wider context of British culture. Dwyer is senior lecturer in Indian studies and chair of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of London. She is the co-author of Cinema India: the Visual Culture of the Hindi Film, and is currently completing two books: 100 Great Hindi Films and Filming the Gods: Religion and Hindi Cinema.

April 22 Colloquium: The Excavation of Exploitation 5-7 p.m. Eric Schaefer, associate professor of visual and media arts at Emerson College, is considered to be 2-105 a leading authority on exploitation films, and he’s authored “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!”: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959, for which he received the Theater Library Association’s Special Jury Prize for Distinguished Achievement. Schaefer is currently researching and writing a sequel to that book which deals with the early history of soft-core pornography in the United States. Schaefer will be explaining the nature of exploitation films and addressing questions about why and how they should be studied.

April 29 Colloquium: Visible Proofs and Internet Forgeries – the Chinese-Indonesian Rapes 5-7 p.m. of 1998 2-105 Karen Strassler is Hardy Post-Doctoral Fellow in visual anthropology at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Her dissertation, “Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and the Indonesian Culture of Documentation in Post-Colonial Java” (University of Michigan, 2003) examines the intersection of everyday visual practice, material culture, and political imagination. Her current research continues to center on questions of media and mediation, politics, and visuality.

MIT Communications Forum CMS Colloquium Series

For more than 25 years, the Forum has sponsored The Comparative Media Studies colloquium series is talks on all aspects of communications. The Forum was intended to provide an intimate and informal exchange founded by the late Ithiel de Sola Pool, a pioneer in the between a visiting speaker and CMS faculty, students, study of communications who taught in MIT’s Political visiting scholars and friends. Science Department. For information about the series, please contact the All Forums are open to the public. CMS Office at 617.253.3599. For more information about the Forum, see the web- Visit the CMS website at http://web.mit.edu/cms for site at http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum information about the program. spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 8 people, places, things CMS engaged in global and local initiatives

Faculty D.C., the Boulder, Colo. Public Initiative Media, and students and fac- Library, and the Honolulu Festival. ulty from Northwestern’s Media Edward Barrett’s Digital Poetry See the website for Black Ships & Management Center to examine the class, taught as a special topics course Samurai at http://blackshipsandsamu- role that genre plays in shaping pat- this term, has been approved as a per- rai.com. terns of television consumption. He is manent class listing. also continuing to research and write Kurt Fendt was appointed visiting his new book on the ways that conver- Odile Cazenave recharged her batter- professor at the Institute for Media and gence is altering the balance of power ies in the Yucatan over the break, Cultural Communication at the between media producers and con- while revising an essay on the new University of Cologne, Germany. A sumers. aesthetics of commitment in African January presentation at the Swiss literature. She also wrote a review for National Library/ Swiss Literary Christina Klein will serve as a Callaloo on the South African novel Archive lead to a new joint project that respondent on the panel “Defining Welcome to our Hillbrow. This will develop a community-based digi- America Abroad: Promoters and spring, Cazenave is a visiting associ- tal archive of manuscripts, reviews, Presenters,” during March’s ate professor at Harvard in the secondary literature as well as film, Organization of American Historians Department of Romance Languages radio, and theater versions of one the conference. She authored two forth- and Literatures. At MIT, she is teach- most prominent Swiss plays The Visit coming essays, “Martial Arts and the ing a new course for Women’s Studies, of the Old Lady by Friedrich Globalization of U.S. and Asian Film Women and Global Activism in Art, Dürrenmatt. This project will be co- Industries” in Comparative American Media and Politics. developed by CMS MetaMedia, the Studies, and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Swiss Literary Archive, and the Dragon: A Diasporic Reading” in Ian Condry has found a new interest University of Berne. Cinema Journal. in the “culture of piracy” (file sharing) among music fans, and in what cross- Henry Jenkins is back at MIT and Douglas Morgenstern and his project national comparisons between the hard at work. He is going to be pre- collaborators in Spain published an U.S. and Japan can tell us about senting his ideas about media and edu- article on the MIT-Universidad changes in the music industry. cation at nine different conferences Politécnica de Valencia (MIT-UPV) Condry is exploring these issues in between now and July, is working to Exchange in the November 2003 issue two spring classes: Cultural organize the teacher’s advisory group of Syllabus: Technology for Higher Performances of Asia and Introduction for the Revolution game and to launch Education. to Japanese Culture. the Media Literacy section of the Education Arcade homepage, is work- Jeff Ravel and his family spent the John W. Dower’s and Shigeru ing with a group of CMS graduate stu- second half of December in Miyagawa’s traveling exhibit Black dents to curate an exhibit on games as Kathmandu, Nepal, where they adopt- Ships and Samurai, will be shown in a art for the Arts Interactive, and is ed their fifteen-month-old daughter variety of places this year including working with Joellen Easton, Jason Naomi. Ravel continues work on his the National Archives in Washington Mittell from Middlebury College, micro-historical study of a notorious late seventeenth-century French legal affair involving bigamy, calumny, and Black ships and samurai migrating to mit’s opencourseware the theater. In the next month or so, the Black Ships and Samurai exhibit will migrate to MIT’s OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu). Black Ships and Samurai is about U.S. Navy Charity Scribner celebrated the Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Japan 150 years ago, and is part of the launching of her book, Requiem for Visualizing Cultures project by John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa in which they Communism (MIT Press), with a study how visual materials can provide insights into history and culture. In their February reception in the Media Lab. most recent project, they are developing a virtual exhibit site with the Sackler-Freer Scribner says her new course, Plotting Museum of the Smithsonian Institution based on the “Yokohama Prints” exhibit Terror in European Culture, might originally created by Sackler-Freer and exhibited at their gallery. well be the testing ground for an art spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 9

exhibition at the Kunst Werke in Sylvia Sensiper’s photographs, many Berlin in 2005 – “The Myth of the Red taken while she was creating a photog- Army Faction” – for which she has raphy curriculum at the Peabody been named co-curator. Elementary School in North Cambridge, have been accepted to The David Thorburn will travel to Boston Drawing Project at the Bernard Innsbruck, Austria, in April to be a Toale Gallery in Boston. featured speaker at an international conference on “Media Communities.” Inga Tomic-Koludrovic is analyzing His talk will describe some MIT initia- the role of new media in the democra- tives to utilize the Web and other digi- tization of post-socialist countries. She tal technologies for non-commercial is a Fulbright Scholar from Croatia. purpose, in service to ideals of global community and citizenship. Vera Walker-Hawkins is looking at the use of technology to increase cur- Edward Baron Turk helped launch ricular accessibility for all students, the Harvard Film Archive’s month- Kayla Jones photographed and she and her team of undergraduate long January homage to the late by Sylvia Sensiper researchers have begun work in the French film and media critic Serge Cambridge public schools. Daney by introducing the series’ open- Visiting scholars ing-night film, Marcel Carné’s classic Yuichi Washida has completed the Children of Paradise, and by dis- Maureen N. McLane has recently data collection phase of his media cussing his first-hand interactions with published several reviews on contem- environment survey, and has begun Daney. porary poetry, queer history, and looking at the results with researchers media in the New York Times, the in Sweden and the Netherlands. The William Uricchio is on leave for the Chicago Tribune, and Modern survey, conducted in the U.S., coming year thanks to a Guggenheim Philology; and forthcoming essays Holland, Sweden, China and Japan, fellowship. He’ll be based in the will appear in the New York Times and will yield an analysis of how people Netherlands much of the time, work- Chicago Tribune. Her poems recently interact with media, especially new ing to complete several projects appeared in Circumference: poetry in media. During IAP, Washida presented including a book that considers the translation, and The Harvard Review. a lecture at MIT called, “Keitai Cool: concept of television as a “new” medi- The Latest in Mobile Phone Lifestyle um. Uricchio helped to organize the Curtiss Priest presented a paper, in Japan and Beyond.” Filming Cities conference to be held at “Media Concentration: a Case of Cambridge University this March (see Power, Ego and Greed, Confronting Graduate students http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/ our Sensibilities,” at an American events2004/filmingcities.html), where University Law Review symposium R.J. Bain continued working on his he will present a paper. on Regulating Media Competition: thesis dealing with HBO’s recent orig- The Development and Implications of inal series K-Street and considering Jing Wang held a workshop in The FCC’s New Broadcast Ownership how the portrayal of actual political November that formally launched Rules. events and figures within works MIT’s multi-disciplinary China policy labeled as fiction might affect the studies program, bringing together Christoph Ribbat is working on “Six manner in which some viewers’ partner institutions (universities, gov- Prodigies: Youth, Authorship, and choose to learn about politics and gov- ernmental units think tanks) from American Cultural History,” in which ernment. In addition, as an independ- China, Australia and the U.S. While on he investigates six so-called wun- ent study, Bain is penning a screenplay sabbatical this academic year, Wang is derkind of American literature and under the guidance of John Romano, writing a book on advertising in China their media representations: Mary consulting producer on NBC’s and will return to Beijing to work at Antin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carson American Dreams. Ogilvy for two months this summer. McCullers, Truman Capote, Michael Chabon and Donna Tartt. Ribbat is a recipient of a Fedor Lynen Fellowship. continued next page spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 10

Graduate students continued potential investors at the Media Lab Rekha Murthy spent the last week of Europe in Dublin, the Stockholm December lending a hand to her for- Brett Camper is participating in the School of Economics, the Tate mer employer, NPR’s All Things ITSelf reading group in the Program in Modern in London, and the Alcala de Considered. There, amid interview Science, Technology, and Society. Henares in Spain. booking and piece mixing, she man- This spring, Camper will continue his aged to produce her final paper for research into the practices and cultures Moneta Ho spent three weeks in Edward Turk’s course in Major of computer programming, pursue China where she spent time document- Media Texts as a sound piece. some new interests around the history ing the Shanghai/Pudong City land- Cambridge-area activities have of amateur game development, and scape for a series of paintings that she included submitting to a couple of work outside of class on a miniature received an MIT Arts Council grant to conferences, watching Clash of the golf computer game. create. Back at MIT for her final Titans, Les Enfants du Paradis and semester, Ho is a teaching assistant for The Fog of War, and leading a team to Joellen Easton continues her work as Edward Barrett’s Digital Poetry victory in Henry Jenkins’ videogame an associate producer with the class, and she is working with curators design competition. BBC/PRI/WGBH co-production The at the Art Interactive Gallery in World, and related programs The Cambridge to create a website for an Parmesh Shahani helped coordinate Changing World, and The World After upcoming exhibit, Pattern Language. the MIT screening of a documentary the War. During IAP, she was in the on civil rights’ activist Brother newsroom full-time, learning various Brian Jacobson spent most of the Outsider and a talk by the film’s pro- producing roles for the daily show. winter break in North Carolina, ducer, Mridu Chandra. He presented Tennessee and Georgia developing “Spectacle, Spectactor, Specta[c]tor,” Michael Epstein is working on get- thesis ideas related to marginalized at the Graduate Arts Forum in January ting History Unwired, a mobile tech- groups’ use of media as a tool for in which he showcased two collabora- nology for the tourism industry, off the political resistance, as informed by the tive CMS projects. Shahani is current- ground and into the streets of Venice. writings of Foucault, Deleuze and ly organizing Boston’s first-ever festi- Epstein received a Director’s Grant Guattari. val of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and from the MIT Arts Council for devel- Transsexual South Asian film and opment of a radio show called News Sarah Kamal danced her way into the identity, to take place April 1-3 at MIT. Lab on WMBR, 88.1. In March, he New Year in Kabul, Afghanistan, will be speaking about edutainment in where she was working with Afghan Yannis Zavoleas will be participating schools at the South by Southwest women journalists on a talk radio pro- in the ARCO exhibition in Madrid, Conference in Austin. gram (see opposite page). Spending a Spain, during spring 2004, showing few days in Tehran, Iran, Kamal the video and architectural projects Clara Fernández is working on her wrapped up her 8-month contract as “Cannes Reloaded,” “Senses” and thesis, which combines a study of project manager for the Oxford “Fecund CityScapes.” Shakespeare and film with theatrical University Refugee Studies Centre, performance and radio drama. She which entailed gathering data on the says her favorite part of the research long-term effect of forced migration so far has been listening to old radio on Afghan refugee youth in Iran. In Medias Res programs, especially Welles’ Mercury is published three times a year by: Theatre on the Air. Andrea McCarty continues her work MIT Comparative Media Studies (CMS) on a Pocket PC-based walking tour of Mass. Institute of Technology Cristobal Garcia spent part of the the Marais neighborhood in Paris. 14N-207 Cambridge, MA 02139 winter break in Chile, and returned to Over IAP, she worked with the French 617.253.3599 / [email protected] MIT for IAP during which he attended Consulate of Boston to organize and Manuel Castells’ seminar on informa- publicize a symposium devoted to film CMS tion-age issues. Garcia continues his criticism and French film critic Serge Henry Jenkins, Director William Uricchio, Associate Director work on the Venetian mobile tourism Daney. McCarty also spent some time Chris Pomiecko, Program Administrator project History Unwired, and during consulting on a collection of 16mm Susan Stapleton, Administrative Assistant the winter break he and fellow film that included home movies, car- Brad Seawell, Newsletter Editor researcher Michael Epstein visited toons and newsreels from the 1940s. spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 11

Long silenced, afghani women find voice on radio by Sarah Kamal, CMS and trained Afghani journalists dur- f we don’t get 160 dollars ing their coverage of the per month, we’re walking Constitutional Loya Jirga in Kabul. “Iout right now,” Soraya (a pseudonym) said. The two women Radio peace standing behind her nodded. It was Perhaps my most interesting proj- the day before the launch of the first ect was working with a women’s independent women’s radio station in radio station in a very conservative the region, and the staff was threat- city in an outlying province of ening to go on strike. I don’t believe Afghanistan. this, I thought. The Institute for Media, Policy, The past week had not gone well. and Civil Society (IMPACS), a The local partner had said she was Canadian NGO, was spearheading receiving daily death threats. The the radio’s set-up. I volunteered to studio had to be stripped and hastily help IMPACS launch the station, and --photo by Sarah Kamal renovated to improve its soundproof- they accepted. And after Radio Solh ing. The faulty electrical system had (Radio Peace) was launched (the tastes, to showcase the governor’s caused the monitor to blow and the strike averted via diplomacy), I progressiveness. One can debate the CD player to smoke. Everybody was stayed to observe and support the most effective route for supporting grumpy because it was Ramadan, the women in their first week of broad- women’s rights in an environment Muslim month of fasting. And now, casts. such as hers, but making up death to top it all off, the very women we I was interested in seeing what threats is questionable by most stan- had trained and supported through all Afghan women journalists would say dards. this were threatening to go on strike. on the air, as there was substantial As for Soraya, a visit to her home The Canadian Ambassador to pressure on them locally to broadcast made a few things abundantly clear. Afghanistan, several Afghani govern- conservative material. The region is Her young children were well- ment officials, and most importantly, tightly controlled by the governor behaved, but terribly afraid of their the city’s warlord-turned-governor and his supporters, who have styled father. A harsh glare from the father were coming to the radio’s inaugura- themselves after press-unfriendly was enough to make his son shrink tion the next day. Soraya and her col- mentors in Iran. and cry. leagues had us in a corner, and they Women’s singing is forbidden in I later sat with Soraya, regretting knew it. public, and the region is notorious my earlier assumptions on her Things are often not what they for its high rates of women’s self- motives. “Life’s difficult, isn’t it,” I appear to be, as I’ve learned to my immolation. On the other hand, the said. “There are so many controlling repeated chagrin in Afghanistan. region is also well-known for its forces, aren’t there? The governor’s Soraya had reasons for her oppor- highly cultured and well-educated supporters out in the streets, employ- tunism that went beyond personal women and men. I was curious to ers at work, sometimes even hus- gain. And the local partner’s death see how women journalists would bands at home.” threats and fear of the warlord/gover- negotiate a space for their ideas in She looked down. nor were something else altogether. such an environment. “And then there’s the innocent But, I’m getting ahead of myself. The local partner who had flut- who need to be protected from that.” I’ve spent close to 4 months in tered and panicked over death threats I continued. Afghanistan over the last year, and and the anger of the governor turned She gazed directly at me. have been granted many interesting out to be a well-connected supporter “Would you eat our sorrow, opportunities. I volunteered in the of his. It later became clear that Sarah?” she asked me softly. I drafting of the country’s policy on there had been no death threats. Her squeezed her hand and we under- technologies for the disabled, con- women’s rights activism offered a stood each other, and somehow it ducted research on women’s radio veneer of a women’s movement, was enough. listening habits in a remote village, safely diluted to the governor’s spring 2004 MIT Comparative Media Studies In Medias Res / 12

Revolution from cover attempt to solve the mystery. Players took on distinct roles that provided them with differentiated clues, causing aiming to have a nine-person multiplayer demonstration groups to devise and implement collaborative strategies. level by the end of summer. The game was an unqualified success by accounts from both game participants and Museum staff. Augmented reality Throughout the fall, CMS graduate student Parmesh One of the foci of the Education Arcade has been the Shahani, working with Philip Tan Boon Yew and Henry development and exploration of educational games on Jenkins, has done interviews with leading thinkers and handheld and mobile devices. A specific emphasis has researchers in games education. The major task this term been placed on augmented reality (AR) simulation games is to develop a curricular model for a games-education that use location-aware handheld technologies to embed course that can be taught at the high school and college players in lifelike situations and provide opportunities to levels, and will be modeled on CMS’ Independent engage in critical thinking through scientific role-playing. Activities Period (IAP) workshop in game design and The first of these games, Environmental Detectives, put interactive storytelling sponsored by SONY. This year, as MIT and high school students in the role of environmental CMS graduate students Andrea McCarty, Karen scientists investigating a simulated environmental disaster. Schrier, Lisa Bidlingmeyer and Rekha Murthy and In late January, the Education Arcade debuted its newest CMS undergraduate Bryan Arbuszewski led teams in the AR game Hi-Tech Who Done It: Mystery @ The Museum design competition, scribe Parmesh Shahani and videog- as a short course at the Boston Museum of Science. rapher R.J. Bain recorded their efforts. Mystery at the Museum paired students (grades 5-8) The plan is to produce a series of short digital videos with their parents to investigate a virtual theft at the documenting the process of the design competition with Museum. Players guided by location-aware handheld the aim of helping teachers elsewhere understand the com- computers physically moved throughout the exhibit halls petition’s pedagogical goals and how to achieve them. to collect virtual clues, interview virtual characters, and

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