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Links for the day
Links for the day
Links for the day

Over on my old blog, I wrote about my interest in constructing a “Virtual Peace Garden” as MEmorial to civilian harm and loss in global conflict. My site would be a “peripheral” MEmorial, attached to the physical International Peace Gardens located on the Manitoba-North Dakota border. I decided I had better do a bit more research on the IPG first, however. Here are some things I found out.

1. The garden just celebrated its 75 anniversary, July 14, 2007.
2. The IPG has been under-funded for a number of years now, but during the last legislative session in ND, the state decided to increase its commitment to the gardens–5 million for this year, $32 million total (although the Canadians are going to chip in half, as I understand the agreement).
3. A 9/11 memoiral was erected in 2001, with beams from the WTC transported to the IPG by Canadians, erected on the US side.

I found out a variety of other facts, but in general, I was impressed with the vision the Director and the governments have for the IPG. My own plans for the Virtual Peace Garden seem, in fact, parallel to their vision of increasing the traffic and function of the site. A new interpretive center and conflict resolution center (Camp David style) are in the plans for the IPG. The park is currently open only 3 months of the year, but the goal is 12 months. The IPG plan probably isn’t quite as ambitious as my own vision: turning both the physical and virtual IPG into a kind of mecca, a pilgrimage site for peace activists from around the world.

Greg Ulmer, primary theorist of Electronic Monuments / MEmorials, talks about the work of virtual memorialists as the work of “consultants without portfolio” and “unsolicited consultations.” I do wonder how the IPG board of directors would respond to my “unsolicited consultation” and I wonder what compromises I would need to make if I functioned as a consultant with portfolio? Seems like I need to keep pushing my project further, define it more clearly, and then see about contacting the Director.

Links for the day
  • Smyth Dissertation Conclusion brief discussion of imagology as successful experimentation with new apparatus of computeracy (electracy). Ulmer not mentioned, but Smyth is a regular contributor to invent-l
Links for the day
  • Sound(Career)Track Primarily theoretical engagement with Ulmer's popcylce, applied specifically to music and career. One good screen/page of application--looks engaging and do-able.

The Official (for now) Home Page of Kevin Brooks, Associate Professor of English, North Dakota State University.


Working at the interface of literacy and electracy, print culture and visual culture, text and image, visual and acoustic space. What better way to hold these things together than SuprGlu?

Online Publications

"Changing the Ground of Graduate Education: Wireless Laptops Bring Stability, not Mobility to Graduate Teaching Assistants." (Abstract only.) Going Wireless.

"The Classical Trivium: A Heuristic and Heuretic for New Media and Digital Communication." Kairos 11.3 (2007).

"What's Going On? Listening to Music, Composing Videos." Computers and Composition Online. 2006.

"Remediation, Genre, and Motivation: Key Concepts for Teaching with Weblogs." Into the Blogosphere, 2004.

"The McLuhan Retrieval Reviewed." Kairos 9.1 (2004).

Online Projects, in Progress

"Career Compass and Multimedia Lab: The MyStory as Pedagogical, Problem-finding Genre." Presented at the North Dakota Humanities Summit, Oct. 2006.

"Strangers in a Strange Land: A MEmorial for the Lost Boys of the Sudan*." Presented at Computers and Writing 2007.

"Understanding Weblogs: A Visua-Verbal Probe." Presented at the Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference. Reviewed by Catherine Hooper (slightly different title).

Something Personal

Family Photo Album"

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