the time between rulers; a space between; the gap after one epoch ends and another begins; the tumultuous and exciting period after scholarly boundaries become fluid and before new academic disciplines are fully defined; the blog of New York University's Draper Program
Friday, June 26, 2009
Summer is supposed to be a quiet time at a university, yes? Not at Draper! We're reading admissions files, finalizing new faculty hires, developing courses for the fall, and taking care of various other responsibilities that must happen between now and September. We're busier than ever, which means that the coming academic year may be one of the most dynamic and exciting we've had in a long time. More on that as the autumn term nears.
And there are also, always, other tasks. I'm working on my book with feverish intensity. Called Picking Up, it asks a simple question: What is it like to be a sanitation worker in the city of New York today? The answer is fascinating (which surprises many people; go figure!). It lets me tell stories about history, about work, about time, and about how challenging it is to draw a boundary around a subject (that is, garbage and its labors) that always resists containment.
To see if the writing makes sense, I've given a few talks in recent weeks. It's a good way to test-drive new ideas (does the audience think I'm crazy or wise? or something in between? How do I squeeze 300 years of history into a 45-minute presentation, anyway?) and meet people interested in the themes I'm playing with.
A talk I gave in early May, for instance, was in a venue new to me. The GEL Conference (GEL stands for Good Experience Live) collects thinkers, shakers, doers, inspirers (it should be a word) from various walks of life and asks each to speak on his or her expertise for no more than 20 minutes. I was honored to be included, and the event was a marvelous opportunity to learn from scholars, entrepreneurs, designers, artists, and educators whom I otherwise might never have met. There will be a link to a video eventually, but for now there are pictures of yours truly and all the other speakers on Flickr, here.
In early June I spoke at the New York Public Library, which is always a pleasure. I tried to jam a few centuries of history into less than an hour, in a discussion about the parallels between public health and trash management. It worked, sort of... The audience was attentive, patient, and asked many good questions, which helped me immensely.
Then last Saturday (June 20), I gave a talk at Freshkills Park on Staten Island (that's Freshkills at the top of this post; I took the picture last March). It truly is one of the most extraordinary geographies in the world. I've visited many times, though knew it better when it was an active landfill. I loved it then and love it now. If you ever have the chance to take one of the tours run by the Parks Department, don't hesitate. You will be dazzled and amazed...!
NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute will be offering a free, non-credit 'Op-Ed Writing Workshop for Graduates and Professors in the Social Sciences' and Draper students are invited to attend.
When: Friday, September 18th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square, 6th floor
Instructors: Dalton Conley, FAS Dean of Social Sciences Brooke Kroeger, Director, NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
Per the Journalism's announcement:
"The workshop morning will cover the whys and wherefores of writing for a wide but sophisticated general public with the afternoon devoted to workshopping each student’s individual piece. Participants will submit 250-word queries (pitches) for their articles by September 8th. The edited queries will be returned promptly. Drafts of the 850-word final articles will be due by September 15th for a second edit and we will work with that edited version in class.Preparatory text for the workshop: George Orwell's Politics of the English Language."
To register: Contact rachel.pinson@nyu.edu with subject line: Op-Ed Workshop
Please include your program and school and whether you are a graduate student or a professor.
Further details will be made available to those who sign up. Class limit is 20. The workshop is being offered for no academic credit and free of charge. Admission will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Professor Thomas de Zengotita recently published "Reframing Your World" in the June 2009 issue of Harper's.
Tom (who teaches three immensely popular seminars for Draper) is a frequent contributor of non-fiction for Harper's, and this short 'fantasy essay' is part of a forum of similar pieces published in the magazine. He is also the author of Mediated, which was awarded the Media Ecology Association's Marshall McLuhan Award in 2006 for outstanding work in the field.
The full text of the story is only available to subscribers online, although you can read the beginning here.
Both current Draper students and alumni had a great deal of exciting news during the 2008 - 2009 academic year. Here are the accomplishments, scholarships, and acceptances that students shared with us this year:
Andrei Boutyline was accepted to Berkeley's doctoral program in Sociology. His initial goal is to pursue a computational/mathematical study of culture.
Katherine Carlson (Alumna, 2008) was accepted to NYU's MFA Program in Creative Writing. Katherine will start the program in fall 2009 and will be studying fiction.
Myong Yee Chin, a dual degree student at Draper and the Palmer School of Library and Information Science, was awarded the LCU Foundation Scholarship for women in Palmer's Rare Books and Special Collections concentration. Myong was awarded $8000 award for the 2008 - 2009 academic year.
Russell MacKenzie Fehr (Alumnus 2009) was accepted to doctoral programs in History at the University of California, Riverside, the CUNY Graduate Center, and SUNY Binghamton, with fellowship offers from Riverside and CUNY. Russell is currently interning at the Sacramento City Clerk's office and will be starting at UC Riverside in fall 2009.
Shayne Figueroa (Alumna, 2009) presented her paper, "Selling the Casual Dining Franchise to Housewives in Postwar America," at the 2009 Association for the Study of Food & Society conference in May 2009. Her paper was presented as part of the panel "Marjorie DeVault's Feeding the Family -- 20 years of Research on Gender and Domestic Food Labor."
Jennifer Kelly (Alumna, 2008) has been accepted to the University of Texas, Austin's doctoral program in American Studies, where she will be funded through Teaching Assistant and Assistant Instructor positions in both American Studies and the Department of Rhetoric. She will start her coursework and Assistant Instructor position in the Department of Rhetoric in the fall of 2009.
Elena Landriscina (Alumna, 2009) has been accepted into the Juris Doctorate programs at American University, Northeastern University, and George Washington University.
Pei Palmgren (Alumnus, 2008) has moved to Bangkok, Thailand and is working as the International Development Officer for the People's Empowerment Foundation. This independent Thai NGO works to strengthen civil society networks throughout the country and Southeast Asia.
Susan Rosenfeld is giving a lecture entitled "A Culture of Letters: David F. Dorr's and Frederick Douglass' Travel Narratives as Early Pan-African Texts," this summer in Ghana for the Association of the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) conference.
Kate Simpkins (Alumna 2008) was accepted to the English doctoral program at Northeastern University, where she will begin in fall 2009.
Alana Smith presented her paper, "Citizen/Terrorist: Security Problems of the Biopolitical State" at NYU's Poetics and Theory Conference "On Security" on March 7, 2009.
Claire Sommers (Alumna, 2009) was accepted to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's doctoral program in Comparative Literature.
Brooke Borel graduated from Draper in 2007. Since her graduation, she has embarked on a successful career as a freelance science journalist. Brooke took the time to answer some questions about her career path and her time at Draper.
For those who may not be familiar with the field, what kind of stories does a science journalist cover, and for what kind of publications?
I write for a few different publications: Popular Science, Cosmos, and G: The Green Lifestyle Magazine. The latter two are based in Sydney, Australia, and I interned with them there around a year ago, which is how I got started in the field. I also do research and fact checking for Science Illustrated, which is a sister publication of Popular Science here in New York.
Science journalists write about a number of different topics-- basically anything science related. Some have specialties, but right now I'm writing about any science topic that I personally find interesting. My undergraduate work in biomedical engineering covered a wide range of areas, from chemistry and biology to mechanics and electronics, so I feel pretty comfortable covering a number of different fields. My work for Cosmos has been mainly reporting on basic science. G is an environmental magazine, so all of my articles for them are green-themed. And for PopSci, I've done a number of different projects, including consumer product reviews, a book review, and basic science coverage. I write fairly regularly for their blog at PopSci.com, and I have an article coming out in their May print issue, which is the first time I'll have a byline in a print magazine here in the US (I've had a handful in Australia). It's a pretty small piece, but check it out if you see it on the newsstand!
As social awareness and interest in topics such as climate and environmental issues increases, it seems likely that scientific reporting will be increasingly in demand. How do you think the field is changing and developing, and how do you see yourself involved in that development?
I think that there has been a vast improvement in science journalism over the past decade or so, and it is continuing to improve. I think the main challenge is finding reporters who both understand the science that they are covering and can write about it in ways that the general public can understand. I see myself as part of a larger movement of people with science backgrounds who have moved to journalism as a way to participate in science communication and to bring science news to the public. I think the current issues today, from climate change and other environmental issues to medical breakthroughs and controversies, will really impact people's lives directly, and that more people are realizing this and are seeking ways in which to become better informed. Hopefully this demand will continue, and the need for people like me will continue to grow with it.
How has your interdisciplinary background been useful in your career?
Although I really liked many things about my undergraduate program, and it covered a wide range of topics in science and technology, it was a pretty narrow program on a larger scale. I had hardly any opportunity to study anything outside of science and math. I think we were required to take a total of six social science or humanities courses during our entire four years as undergraduates. I don't think this gives students a broad enough view of the world, or the opportunity to see how their field might connect with other, seemingly disparate fields.
My work at Draper allowed me to explore so many different areas of study, including the history of science and science's relationship to both social and cultural forces. I think this gave me a unique perspective on science, and I'm not sure I'd be where I am now without that perspective. Also, just on a personal note, I liked that each Draper student had a unique curriculum, yet we were all able to take classes together. Each person really brought an interesting set of skills to the table. There aren't many programs out there that allow for such a broad set of academic interests.
What were your research interests when you started at Draper? Did these change throughout the course of the program?
I was actually pretty unfocused when I first started-- all I knew is that I wanted to write and that I wanted a better basic understanding of the humanities and social sciences. After a semester or so, I started realizing that I could pull from my experiences with science in both my writing and my research at Draper. I mainly took science studies and gender politics classes, as well as some science education classes outside of Draper. At the time, I hadn't considered the possibility of being a journalist, otherwise I probably would have tried to take classes at SHERP, which is a great program. Instead, I was focusing my work on the debate on gender bias in university science and engineering faculties and labs, which is what I wrote my thesis on.
So yes, my interests evolved during my time at Draper, and they are still evolving. I think it takes some time to figure out exactly where your niche is in the world.
What advice would you give current Draper students, particularly those who are interested in pursuing a career in your field?
This is actually advice that was given to me by Andy Jewett, my thesis advisor. He said this during a seminar at Draper a couple of years ago: be tenacious. And he's right. It's easy to get discouraged when you are looking for jobs, particularly in the current economic climate. But you just have to keep trying, submitting your resume and letters of interest, networking. Something is bound to come from all of that, but you have to keep trying in order to make it happen.
For those interested in pursuing a career in science journalism, or any kind of journalism for that matter, I think the best thing you can do is find an internship. One way to get jobs is to show what you've done in the past, which means you need published clips. But it's sort of a Catch 22, because in order to get published, you first need some sort of writing job. Most internships give you a chance to write, and you have a handful of bylines by the time you are finished, as well as some good connections. After that, you just have to be tenacious until you find solid work. Also, I know the climate isn't that great right now, particularly in publishing. But even if print is dying, there is still a need for people to write content for websites and other electronic media, so don't be discouraged. Just get your name out there and see where it takes you.
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