Over 600 first-year students slated to exchange insights and advice in the 6th Annual Writing & Research Symposium, a campus-wide capstone event sponsored by the University Writing Program. In addition, the Symposium features a Keystone Lecture by the Hon. Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment. Ms Claussen's lecture, entitled "Answering the Climate Challenge: Reflections on the Journey," is co-sponsored by the Women's Leadership Program and the University Writing Program.
2009 Symposium Poster Design by Mi Sun Kwon
Where & When
The Foggy Bottom & Mt. Vernon Campuses
of The George Washington University
Thursday-Friday, April 23-4.
The 6th annual University Writing and Research Symposium will take place on Thursday, April 23 through Friday, April 24 on the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses of The George Washington University. Over the two-day event 170 student-panelists will be speaking to a combined anticipated audience of over 600 people.
In panels of three of four speakers, in roundtable discussions, in research poster sessions, or even in dramatic readings of original works, students in the first-year writing course (UW20) present their research and writing in a public forum that includes fellow students, faculty, and members of the broader DC community.
The event offers student-researchers the opportunity to present their research in order to see how the concerns they address in their own projects connect with concerns of other researchers and matters of public interest. Since students present their work while it is still in progress, get the opportunity to see what their peers in other first-year writing classes are doing and to get useful feedback on their work. As a result, discussion at the Symposium focuses as much on the uses, values, and processes of research and research-based writing, as it does on the topics of the research projects themselves.
Dean of Freshmen Frederic Siegel describes the Symposium as "one of the year's best programs," noting that "the intellectual engagement of freshmen is one of [the University's] most important priorities and the Symposium works perfectly in this regard."
The 2009 Program includes panels on a wide variety of topics, including "Faith, Doubts, & Suspicions," "Enforcing Moralities," "Personal Transgressions," "Labor Issues," "Rethinking Constitutional Democracy," "Traumatic Events," "Holocaust Studies," "Cold War Comics," and "The Packaging and Promotion of (Post)Mdern Identities" to name just a few.
On Thursday evening at 6:45, at the Eileen Claussen lecture, student Mi Sun Kwon will be recognized as the winner of the 2009 UWRS Poster Design Contest. Congratulations are also due to runner-up Cynthia Figueroa.
The Symposium is co-directed by Professors Kathy Larsen and Michael Svoboda, of the University Writing Program.
The Spring 2009 University Writing and Research Symposium was organized by the First-Year Writing Faculty of the University Writing Program, with sponsorship and support from the UWP, the Elizabeth J Somers Women's Leadership Program, Mount Vernon Campus Life, Gelman Library, the University Bookstore, and the Office of the Dean of Freshmen.
For more information on the Symposium, please visit the Symposium Website at http://www.gwu.edu/~capstone/symposium.htm.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
University Writing & Research Symposium Held This Week
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
See My Big Break and Talk to the Director
Students in Prof. Kathy Larsen's Fame and Fandom UW20 course are working on understanding why so many of us seek fame when most of us agree that it can be so destructive. Working with the Student Association Program Board, Prof. Larsen has brought the yet-to-be-released film My Big Break along with its filmmaker to campus to explore these question. The film screens this Friday (January 30) at 7 pm in the Marvin Center Amphitheater.
This Friday at 7 in the Marvin Center Amphitheater the SA Program Board Film Series and the University Writing Program are co-sponsoring the screening of the documentary My Big Break. There will be a Q&A with the director following the screening. No admission will be charged.
Filmed over a period of ten years, My Big Break follows five roommates (four actors and a director) as they try to make it in Hollywood. More than just a behind the scenes peek, the film captures (as it is happening) the effects of the quest for fame - seeking it, experiencing it, succumbing to it, and turning away from it – on all five.
Tony Zierra’s controversial documentary puts an achingly real, and sometimes disturbing face on the actors and the industry that many of us study but rarely get to see from this perspective. Featuring Wes Bentley, Chad Lindberg, Brad Rowe, Greg Fawcett, and Tony Zierra.
For those interested in writing, My Big Break is also a marvelous study in revision. The film opens with Zierra scrapping an early incarnation of the film and then traces the sometimes painful steps he takes to reimagine his work. His own journey as an artist is as riveting as that of the actors whose loves he chronicles.
Check back here after the film to leave your comments about the film, and maybe to see video of the Q&A.
Visit the event's Facebook page here.
Visit the film's official website here.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Media Fandom is More than Just a Hobby
UW20 Prof. Kathy Larsen Never Knew Research Could be Such Fun.With her colleague Dr. Lynn Zubernis (a clinical psychologist and professor at West Chester State University in Pennsylvania), Prof. Larsen is currently working on a book titled Stalking Fandom, an exploration of media fandom from the inside.
Prof. Larsen says: “Henry Jenkins and those who followed him have done some ground breaking work in establishing fan culture as a viable area of academic research. But as we read the scholarship, we felt that as intellectuals started to take fan culture seriously, something--someone--crucial was being lost in translation. No one was talking directly to either the creators or to the consumers of media culture. We wanted to put real people back into the discussion.”
The first step was to choose a fandom small enough to get to know thoroughly, and active enough to demonstrate a range of fan practices. They decided on the cult hit series Supernatural.
For the last year and a half they have been interviewing everyone connected with the fandom: the fans themselves, the creator of the series, writers, directors, actors, journalists, bloggers and fan convention organizers.“We didn’t count on the effect we would have on the fandom. In one case we explained fan fiction to an actor and a week later he turned up at a fan convention wearing a teeshirt announcing that he read fan fiction – just to see what the fans would do. The fallout from that lasted for days!”
For more on Prof Larsen’s project, check out her blog (http://spnfans.wordpress.com/). She’ll also be screening My Big Break, a documentary about making it and not making it in Hollywood featuring Chad Lindberg (Fast and the Furious, October Sky, Supernatural), on January 30 at 7:00pm in the Marvin Center Amphitheater at GWU. Both the director and producer of the film will be available for a Q&A after the screening.
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