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CMS News Archives
A nice stat and a nice moment: since approval of its permanent major in 2008, Comparative Media Studies has grown to become the second-largest major in MIT's School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
While still a far cry from Economics' 90 students, Comparative Media Studies has become a clear choice of major at a time when more humanities undergraduates demand ways to apply knowledge to the challenges right in front of them.
Kudos to Dean Fitzgerald, director William Uricchio, associate director Ian Condry, academic coordinator Becky Shepardson, and groundwork-layer/former director Henry Jenkins for such great success.
Learn about the CMS major requirements.
We are marathoning for earthquake relief in Haiti. We have teams of players ready to grind it out for charity, but we need your help! Tune in to the webcam feed on the weekend of February 26th-28th to check it out, and please donate to the cause. Every little bit helps.
Check out the teams, including favorite The Stickhandlers:
Abe Stein
Andy Bouchard
Lord Generoso Fierro
A full 82 game hockey season (plus playoffs) with the beloved Boston Bruins on EA's NHL 10 on the Playstation 3. Trades will not be initiated by the players, but computer initiated trades will be reviewed. Acquisitions via free agency are fair game. We are also going to play the All-Star Game. Lots of fights will be instigated by the players. We will probably wear the alternate jersey with the bear, or throwback sweaters for the majority of the games. Also, Scott Thornton will probably be moved to the first line. Abe intends to spend the entire 25 hours speaking Canadian, Andy might knock out some teeth training for the event, and don't be surprised if Gene is wearing skates and tearing up the lab carpet. Tune in to watch the B's win the Stanley Cup, in February!
Estimated Time: 25 Hours
And watch the feed!
Above all, reward their obsessiveness by donating to help Haiti!
As we celebrate the 10th year of Comparative Media Studies, we continue to feature great items from our archives. This week: a gem from the fifth Media in Transition conference, back in 2007, the podcast of "Copyright, Fair Use and the Cultural Commons".
How has the American tradition of intellectual property law understood the relationship between originality and tradition? What rights do artists and educators have to draw inspiration from or comment on existing works in existing media? What habits, beliefs, legal and policy decisions threaten the emergence of a more participatory culture? What have people done, and what can we do to protect the Fair Use rights of artists, educators, and amateurs so that explore the opportunities created by new media and a networked society?
The full speaker list can be found at this sessions' website as well as a RealAudio stream.
Download Here!
The Media in Transitions conference is a joint effort of MIT Comparative Media Studies and the MIT Communications Forum
 Joel Burges and Wayne Marshall, MIT's Mellon Fellows in the Humanities (2009-11), will contribute to the rethinking of media studies at MIT by taking up the shared metaphor of fashion—the fashionable, the old-fashioned, the re-fashioned. Burges will talk about the turn away from the digital in contemporary cinema, particularly the case of Fantastic Mr. Fox, in an attempt to think about the uneven development of media over time. Marshall will discuss how popular but privatized platforms like Facebook and YouTube, pop culture fashion—and the negotiable refashionability of both—present crucial challenges to the study of media today.
Joel Burges works at the intersection of literary studies, critical studies, and media studies. His first book, which is in progress, is entitled The Uses of Obsolescence; it considers the fate of historical thinking in the media of late modernity, especially literature and cinema. His second book, in its very early stages, is called Fiction after TV; it considers how a major mode of imaginative processing—fiction—is altered by the introduction of TV to post-1945 mediascapes.
Wayne Marshall is an ethnomusicologist, blogger (wayneandwax.com), and DJ, specializing in the musical and cultural production of the Caribbean and the Americas, and their circulation in the wider world. Currently a Mellon Fellow at MIT, he's writing a book on music, social media, and digital youth culture. He co-edited and contributed to Reggaeton (Duke 2009) and has published in journals such as Popular Music and Callaloo while writing for popular outlets like XLR8R, The Wire, and the Boston Phoenix.
Download!
(Intro music "Sweet and Lovely", Ahmad Jamal Trio)
Continue reading "Podcast: "Old-fashioned Futures and Re-fashionable Media"" »
Congrats to Sara Drakeley '12, a double-major in Comparative Media Studies and Applied Mathematics, upon being named a 2010 Burchard Scholar! From the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences' announcement:
Thirty-four outstanding MIT sophomores and juniors have been selected as the 2010 Burchard Scholars in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Now in its 24th year, the Burchard Scholars Program brings together distinguished members of the faculty and MIT sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated excellence in some aspect of the humanities, arts, or social sciences.
The format is a series of lively dinner-seminars at which faculty present current research, often interdisciplinary in nature, followed by discussion and conversation.
Here's the full list of this year's Burchard Scholars:
- Omar Abudayyeh '12, Mechanical Engineering
- Jenna Caldwell '11, Biology
- Mengjie Ding '12, Computer Science and Economics
- Jenny Dohlman '11, Brain & Cognitive Sciences
- Sara Drakeley '12, Comparative Media Studies and Applied Mathematics
- Dora Gao '11, Physics and Ancient & Medieval Studies
- Allison Hamilos '12, Biology
- Latifah Hamzah '12, Mechanical Engineering
- Jennifer Lai '11, Biological Engineering and Music & Theater Arts
- Allen Lin '11, Political Science
- Connie Lu '11, Environmental Engineering
- Razaz Mageid '12, Brain & Cognitive Sciences
- Lauren McGough '12, Mathematics
- Asad Moten '11, Brain & Cognitive Science
- Alexandra Piotrowski '11, Chemical Engineering and Biology
- Julia Reardon '11, Chemistry and Women's Studies
- Ricky Richardson '12, Mathematics
- Khalea Robinson '11, Civil Engineering
- David Rolnick '12, Mathematics
- Emma Rosen '11, Economics
- Sarah Rumbley '12, Music & Theater Arts and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
- Mariya Samoylova '12, Biology
- Cory Smith '11, Economics
- Ethan Solomon '12, Brain & Cognitive Science
- Eduardo Sverdlin-Lisker '11, Electrical Engineering and Physics
- Adrianna Tam '11, Music & Theater Arts
- Stephanie Tong '12, Brain & Cognitive Science
- Ian Tracy '11, Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering
- Graham Van Schaik '12, Materials Science & Engineering
- Anastasia Vishnevetsky '12, Brain & Cognitive Science
- Andy Wu '12, Economics and Mathematics
- Chao Xue '12, Music & Theater Arts
- Kiran Yemul '11, Mathematics
- Michael Zomnir '11, Political Science
Burchard Scholars for 2010 announced: MIT News Office/SHASS
We're thrilled to announce that the Comparative Media Studies offices last week moved into Building 15, in the MIT Media Lab, on the third floor.
View Larger Map
Our expanded, more-open space at last puts us physically alongside our research colleagues from the Education Arcade, the Center for Future Civic Media, and--as we were in Building 14--the Convergence Culture Consortium.
Our main office address changes to E15-331, and our mailing address is now 77 Massachusetts Ave., Building E15-331, Cambridge, MA 02139. For mapping purposes, know that building E15 is located at 20 Ames St.
From "Game Changers: How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes" in Wired:
Players are using videogames in increasingly innovative ways. Lauren Silberman, a 25-year-old graduate student in MIT's comparative media studies program, wrote her master's thesis on athletes who use them to enhance their physical play -- on the football field, on the baseball diamond, on the basketball court. Of the athletes she interviewed who could play as themselves, more than 90 percent did so regularly. More and more, players at even the college level are able to practice with virtual versions of themselves. (The sims are so realistic that a class-action lawsuit has been brought by amateur athletes who want EA to share a portion of the revenue with them.) Briscoe, the University of Kansas wide receiver, told me that NCAA Football 10 -- the college-football equivalent of Madden NFL -- had successfully imported "a majority" of his team's plays into its virtual playbook.
Baseball players have gotten in on the act, too. When Vladimir Guerrero, All-Star outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels, began his Major League career with the Montreal Expos, he would spend hours playing a PlayStation baseball game as himself.
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