Announcement: Digital Humanities Project, "The End of Austin," Seeks Contributors

Last year, we featured a fascinating digital humanities project, "The End of Austin," that emerged from a graduate seminar led by Dr. Randy Lewis. This week, we're pleased to share the news that a small editorial collective will be continuing the project and broadening their call for content to the community at large. Randy offers this call for contributions:

We are moving forward on the second issue of The End of Austin, a digital humanities project that explores the idea of endings in our fair city. We would love to have a contribution from you--a bit of writing, photos, video, art, a song, anything that somehow explores this idea that things are dying, ending, expiring, collapsing in the midst of our growth-obsessed sunbelt burg.If you are curious, here is an article about the original project, and here is the first installment of the project.We hope to do something bigger and wilder for issue number two. Our goal is to assemble something interesting, beautiful, meaningful, and disconcerting for release in early 2013. If you would like to contribute something, that's wonderful. But also think about sharing this with friends, students, and colleagues who might be good at exploring this nexus of art, documentary and cultural geography broadly conceived.

If you have questions, comments, or a submission for the project, get in touch with the board at endofaustin (at) gmail (dot) com. And, again, the first installment can be found here.

Faculty Research: Dr. Randy Lewis on Unplugging at Flow

Dr. Randy Lewis has a new piece over at Flow that questions why it is so difficult to imagine unplugging from the constant buzz of electronics that characterizes modern life:

Yet… are we not curious about how it would feel to experience the “great unplugging”? Would we relish the ensuing silence as we restore the old ways of communicating and connecting with one another? Or would we lapse into a languorous funk without Google and HBO, Avatar and Annoying Orange? Would we feel permanently stuck in the isolation tank of our own boredom, marooned with the hideousness of our own organic thoughts? Would we start sketching the “Real Housewives” on the walls of our condos in crayon, breathlessly narrating their erotic adventures like an ancient bards singing the tale Odysseus and the sirens? Would we pine for our iPhones, laptops, and flatscreen TVs like postmodern amputees cursing the loss of our cyborg appendages? Would we grieve for our machines?Probably. But what fascinates me is how loathe we are to even imagine this scenario. We are increasingly unwilling to contemplate the absence of the various screens that convey so much of our entertainment, sociality, and labor. Like Francis Fukuyama’s Cold War “End of History” argument in which capitalism’s apparent triumph over socialism foreclosed any discussion of alternatives, the new media juggernaut is so powerful that it has blotted out our ability to imagine anything else. We are all hopeless screenagers now.

I'm reminded here of a neuroscience experiment described at io9 last October:

A group of researchers from Germany and the UK designed a fairly complex psychological test to determine how people planned for negative events in the future. First, they asked the about the likelihood of 80 different disturbing events happening, such as contracting a fatal disease or being attacked. After they'd recorded people's responses, researchers told each subject the actual, statistical likelihood of such events happening. In some cases, people had overestimated the likelihood and in some cases they'd underestimated it.Then, after some time had passed, the researchers asked subjects again about the likelihood of these events happening to them. Interestingly, they found that people had a much harder time adjusting their expectations if the real-world statistical likelihood was higher than what they had first guessed. They had little trouble adjusting expectations for a more favorable outcome. It was as if people were selectively remembering the likelihoods of future events — forgetting the bad odds but not the good ones.

What does this mean? io9 sums it up nicely:

Basically, human optimism is a neurological bug that prevents us from remembering undesirable information about our odds of dying or being hurt. And that's why nobody ever believes the apocalypse is going to happen to them.

I think there are lessons to be drawn from these findings with respect to our reliance on technology, too. Perhaps our inability to imagine a world without these [im]material comforts, even though many of us actually lived in that world, is a chemical intervention to protect us. Because we are so individually and socially embedded in technology, maybe imagining the scenario of loss that Randy wonders about is too much for our grey matter to handle.Read the piece in its entirety here.

List: 7 Films from 2011 that American Studies Scholars Should See

Somehow, it’s already December, and you know what that means: a million year-end lists of the best (and worst) 2011 had to offer. So we’re throwing our collective hat in the ring with this list of the best movies from 2011 that are of particular interest to American Studies scholars of all stripes. We can’t vouch for the  quality of all these, of course, but they at least provide some fodder for folks to potentially research and write about.Quick note: there are a ton of worthwhile documentary films that were released this year that are worth a look, but this list only highlights fictional films. Have fun!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWX34ShfcsE]

Drive

Ryan Gosling stars in this intense homage to a very gritty Los Angeles. He plays a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver, but a botched heist leaves him with a contract on his head. Though the film’s storyline is predominantly a tale of the unnamed driver dealing with a variety of folks who try to kill him, Drive also offers a fascinating and dark portrayal of the city. Visually and musically, it’s 1980s-style noir at its best (but caveat emptor: the violence is sporadic but incredibly graphic).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH7KZD5vGBY]

Cowboys and Aliens

This is definitely not an Oscar winner, but for anyone who loves western-science fiction crossovers, it’s a must. Cowboys and Aliens is based on a graphic novel of the same name, centering on a no-holds-barred battle between man and alien in the Arizona territory, back in 1873. Bombastic visuals aside, the film also boasts a great cast and crew: it was directed by Jon Favreau and written by a crew that includes Lost scribe Damon Lindelof. And it stars Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, and Olivia Wilde.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ajv_6pUnI]

The Help

Based on a novel of the same name, The Help tracks the relationship of a white woman with her black maids during the 1960s in Mississippi. Though the film has received generally positive reviews, it’s also earned some criticism for its problematic and stereotypical portrayal of black women. The Help even prompted the Association of Black Women Historians to release a public statement critiquing its treatment of the historical moment.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JerVrbLldXw]

Captain America: The First Avenger

Comic books are often very political works, and the films that are based on these stories are no different. Captain America: The First Avenger stars Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, and a bunch of other heavy-hitters, and features the super hero in a battle with the U.S. military against a power hungry subset of the Nazi Party called HYDRA. The film is a hell of a lot of fun, but it also comments on military technology, bodily enhancement, patriotism, and the importance of PR in fighting wars. Plus it has "America" in the title - there's lots of America.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rhNrz2hX_o]

Meek’s Cutoff

Back to the West. Meek’s Cutoff centers on a small group of settlers heading west before the Civil War. They end up lost in the wilderness thanks to guide Stephen Meek, who doesn't quite know where he's going. The desperation of the situation leaves the settlers both at each others' throats and struggling to deal with their depleting resources and energy. The narrative is intense and captivating, but what really resonates is the stunning camerawork highlighting the landscape – it really is a beautiful, deadly, painful frontier.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2DqFRsPrns]

Margin Call

Margin Call examines an investment bank (based loosely upon the now-defunct Lehman Brothers) in the throes of a financial crisis that threatens both the company and the national economy. Sound familiar? The star-studded cast, which includes Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, ZacharyQuinto, and Stanley Tucci, highlights the personal stakes of the decisions made by Wall Street, so it’s worth a look if your understanding of the financial calamity that began a few years ago is centered more on numbers and formulas than on people.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzWcrXVtwg]

Contagion

At first glance, Contagion is just another apocalyptic viral outbreak film. The real story, though, lies in the human response to an international threat. You’ll see a society deteriorate in the face of panic and fear, you’ll see how quickly information – right or wrong – can spread, thanks to new media, you’ll see the impotence of a government responding to an international disaster. It’s an upper, to say the least – but stellar performances by Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow make the film worth the inevitable uneasy paranoia you'll feel after seeing it.That's all, folks! Did we miss anything? Leave a comment if you know another film that American Studies folks might find interesting!