This will be an excellent opportunity to teach and do research in a diverse and expanding media market, and I look forward to making new friends, working with colleagues, and learning from students.

I am grateful to be joining a great university and school, and I am thankful for everyone who has helped along the way — including all of the great places I got to visit (and people I was able to meet) during the job search.

In the fall, I will be teaching Multimedia Production and Writing Strategies. This will be fun!

The abstract reads:

“This study provides a glimpse at myth within newswork created at the local level during a time of death. Through an analysis of news coverage of the drownings of 10 young men in Wisconsin over 13 years, we examine how myth and narrative are used not just for larger, national or global moments, but within the local newspaper, in news stories that may be influenced by the needs of the local community.”

The event, in collaboration with Working Group Theatre, was part of the monthly Was the Word series, this one focused on stories about crossing borders in our community. Take a look at the video from that evening, below.

Local community members, performers, and students from the Broadway Street Neighborhood Center shared stories and maps about their experiences in Iowa City.

The event was a great way to involve the community in stories that they may not usually hear from people whose voices are often silenced in Iowa City, and I am thankful for all who participated, including (but not limited to) Raquel Baker and Belinda Valdez, who both gave amazing and touching pieces of art.

Past storytelling

This March 18 furthers work I have done with CrossingBorders.us, a community storytelling website, to engage people with telling stories about their experiences in Iowa City.

This semester, I have been spending time volunteering with the Broadway Street Neighborhood Center, working with youth on photojournalism projects.

The first photo essay – done by the Broadway Youth Media Club — focused on issues of inequality with the city’s bus system. Some of the photos appeared in the local newspaper, The Iowa City Press-Citizen in early March.

A second photo essay — this one shot by preschoolers (yes, preschoolers) — was completed later in the month. Take a look at that project here, which also appeared in the Press-Citizen.

These projects combine progressive pedagogy about teaching racial justice, research on teaching and critical race theory, and notions of civic engagement to provide journalism and art to the community through local journalism.

In fall 2011, art students at Iowa City’s South East Junior High School worked with CrossingBorders.us to tell their stories of life in their neighborhoods. Beyond drawing their tales, we talked about how maps themselves tell stories, how they shape space and create place.

And this Spring, I have been teaching in the English department at Iowa, where we are talking about space and place in how we tell stories about our geographic communities. All of these efforts are a way to combine research, teaching, and civic engagement.

Future storytelling

I am working on other community events for this semester, including a free, community performance of Mayberry, a play about Iowa City’s Southeast Side. The event will be May 1 at Southeast Junior High School.

A community discussion about the play will immediately follow and will continue the next night at The Spot.

There, other stories about the Southeast Side and “border-crossing” will take the stage, hopefully from some of the students in an English class I am co-teaching with doctoral student, Raquel Baker.

This paper was presented at the 2011 AEJMC conference.

The abstract reads:

“In 2010, The New York Times compared comedian Jon Stewart to the legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. Through qualitative textual analysis of news and opinion blogs following the paper’s comparison, this article argues that collective memory can serve as means for mainstream journalism – and the blogosphere – to maintain journalistic boundary lines. The analysis explores how both mainstream media and the blogosphere used collective memory of Murrow to negotiate membership boundaries of journalism itself.”