Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Please join us for the 20th Annual Black Women's Conference honoring bell hooks


Finding Our Place: A Conference in Honor of the Work and Writings
of bell hooks

20th Annual Black Women’s Conference: April 18-19, 2014
This year is the 20th convening of the Annual Black Women’s Conference.  In its history, there are few subjects of interest and important to the lives of Black women the conference has not explored.  As we celebrate this important year of the conference, we turn our attention to the work of a native daughter of Kentucky and preeminent feminist and intellectual, bell hooks.  Over the course of her career, hooks has been a leading thinker on the complexity of the positions of black women in American society and politics.  hooks continues to challenge  us with her current work to be both creative and thoughtful about understanding and making our place. Join us in celebrating the work of this important scholar and two decades of gathering black women in community. - more info: https://aaas.as.uky.edu/black-womens-conference

Monday, April 14, 2014

Comments on Comics and Notes from Scott McCloud


from http://ceblog.sva.edu/tag/scott-mccloud/
"And what better way to reinvent the form than to toss virtually 99% of everything that's been done with it and start with a brand-new canvas, reinvent it from the ground up? Digital comics gave me the opportunity to do that, and producing things digitally gave me the opportunity to do that." - Scott McCloud

 

In the TED video above Scott McCloud, the author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art and many other works, gives a lecture about how our minds process visual information and this type of interpretation impacts comics and graphic stories. In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, McCloud establishes the five arenas of clarity for comic composition. I think these five arenas can easily be applied to our theories about digital storybooks/telling.
from http://digitalapplejuice.com/a-photographers-frame-of-mind-why-artists-should-read-scott-mccloud/
Below his theories regarding the five arenas of clarity a comic that describes the five arenas of comic composition.
from http://spoonfulofhahne.com/panel-transition/
Consider which frame is more appealing to you and why, how do images contribute to meaning in physical (print) and digital mediums.
from http://www.transatlantis.net/blog/tag/scott-mccloud/


from http://www.transatlantis.net/blog/tag/scott-mccloud/  

More info:
Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy Writing About Comics and Graphic Novels - Duke University
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/assets/comics.pdf

4 Comic Book Fan Theories Way Cooler Than the Comic Book
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-comic-book-fan-theories-way-cooler-than-comic-book/

10 Digital Comics You Should Read Right Now
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/316799/10-digital-comics-you-should-read-right-now

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Digital Storybook Assignment: Workshops 4/14 - 4/23

Digital Storybook Assignment

photo credit: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/897553.One_of_the_Problems_of_Everett_Anderson
Most of us were introduced to literature through children’s books, storybooks.  Whether the stories were narratives of fairytales, histories, or heroic epics, they helped to shape our love for narratives and very possibly creative writing.



Storybooks play a significant role in how we understand and share stories with one another in our collective society. This assignment is designed to have you create a digital storybook. Please reread and introduce yourself to traditional storybooks.  Use them as a source of literary inspiration for this digital storybook assignment. 


photo credit: http://en.paperblog.com/toni-morrison-s-other-children-s-books-11032/



















Here are a few examples of digital storybook/telling software. You may find them helpful. Be sure to do some additional research.  If you find software or an application that you think others would like, please post the link in the comments portion. 

PubbSoft - http://pubbsoft.com
Animoto - http://animoto.com
Comic Life (not free) - http://plasq.com
Storybird - http://storybird.com
Digital Vaults using The National Archives - http://digitalvaults.org
UTellStory - http://utellstory.com
The Art of Storytelling by the Delaware Art Museum - http://www.artofstorytelling.org/write-a-story