Social media – News

Countdown! The Top 10 �ֲ��ý Instagram posts for 2019

�ֲ��ý News — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 17:41:10 +0000

With a new year on the horizon, �ֲ��ýNews has decided to lead you down Memory Lane, social media style, and share �ֲ��ý’ Top 10 Instagram Posts of 2019.

If every picture tells a story, what are the stories that �ֲ��ý tells about itself on Instagram?

The popular social media channel “is a visual way to inspire feeling — what it’s like to be here, especially as a student or an alum, but also as a staff or faculty member,” explains Phyllis Graber Jensen, the college’s director of photography and video and a prolific poster on the college’s Instagram account.

“And it’s a bit of a reality show for all those family members, or prospective students and their families, who might imagine the quotidian �ֲ��ý experience but can’t claim it for themselves.”

Whether on campus or off, Instagram has captured plenty of eyes and imaginations for �ֲ��ý. The college’s account totaled 13,518 followers as of Dec. 4, 2019. And here are a few other measures of the college’s Insta presence and popularity in 2019:

More than 450 posts
368 Instagram Stories
10.6 million impressions — the total number of times �ֲ��ý Instagram content was displayed to users
189,599 likes
1,624 comments

That’s a lot of numbers, and here’s one more. Measured by audience “reach” — the number of unique users who see a given Instagram post over time — here are the college’s 10 most popular Instagram posts of 2019.

10. Sept. 4 — Students leave their first classes

It works out neatly that this Top 10 begins with a beginning. Phyllis Graber Jensen, �ֲ��ý director of photography and video, was on Alumni Walk when she spotted juniors Stella Santucci, Thomas Hiscock, and Robbie Hodin back on the move after their first classes of the 2019–20 academic year.

The post reached 8,745 viewers and garnered 759 likes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by (@batescollege) on Sep 4, 2019 at 12:57pm PDT

9. May 24 — Class of 2019 group portrait

�ֲ��ý photographers traditionally immortalize each student class in pixels when they arrive and again just before they graduate in May, but the imaging team went all out for the May 2019 edition with a time-lapse video, still images, and drone photography.

The post reached about 8,800 viewers and won 1,443 likes.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on May 24, 2019 at 4:48pm PDT

8. Oct. 4 — A student’s dad skateboarding

Another Graber Jensen find on Alumni Walk, always a fertile spot for photos and all the more so when Back to �ֲ��ý Weekend rolls around.

The post reached about 9,300 viewers and 1,017 of them gave it a like.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Oct 4, 2019 at 10:53am PDT

7. May 15 — African Fashion Show

“Many look at Africa as one country and fail to realize that it is a continent that contains many countries,” Nicole Kanu ’15 told us when she founded the African Fashion Show, then called Inside Africa, in 2012.

Celebrating a continent’s worth of cultures, as expressed through songs, dances, spoken word, and, of course, apparel, the annual show has been chipping away at that misconception ever since.

Samuel Mironko ’21 captured these images depicting the eighth edition of the popular event on May 10. The post reached approximately 9,500 viewers and earned 810 likes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by (@batescollege) on May 15, 2019 at 9:44am PDT

6. June 16 — Father and son carrying on, then and now

In October 1998, Halsey Platt ’88 was back on campus for Back to �ֲ��ý Weekend with his wife, Julie Sutherland Platt ’88, and their 21-month-old son, Gordon. As Gordon perched happily on Halsey’s shoulders, classmate Marc Glass took their photo.

Twenty-one years later, �ֲ��ý photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen recreated the image on the occasion of Gordon’s graduation.

The posted reached about 9,800 viewers and attracted 1,485 likes, including one from John Ambrosino ’01, who commented, “This is one of the best �ֲ��ý photos ever!” We agree.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Jun 16, 2019 at 6:11am PDT

5. Oct. 20 — Women rowers notch fourth Head of the Charles win

“I think there probably wasn’t a single stretch of that entire river where we couldn’t hear alumni, or we couldn’t hear someone, screaming ‘�ֲ��ý!’” senior captain coxswain Maya Seshan told t after the women’s first varsity-eight made history at the Head of the Charles Regatta.

The rowers captured first place in the Women’s Collegiate Eights for the third consecutive time and fourth time overall. “It’s not our river, but it felt like it for a little bit,” Seshan said.

This triumphant post reached 10,100 viewers and won 1,514 likes.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Oct 20, 2019 at 3:22pm PDT

4. Sept. 2 — Labor Day, Lisbon Street

Phyllis Graber Jensen’s photo evokes the lighthearted spirit of late summer as three juniors take a beverage break in downtown Lewiston.

The image reached roughly 10,500 viewers and garnered 1,011 likes, as well as an “ooooooo” from Syd Beres ’18.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Sep 2, 2019 at 10:10am PDT

3. Aug. 28 — Baptism by bucket begins AESOP 2019

Slop in the name of love? As first-year students meet their trip leaders at the start of �ֲ��ý’ Annual Entering Student Outdoor Program, it’s become a rite of passage — and gesture of solidarity — for the program coordinators to receive a dousing with nameless ooze at the program’s first meeting.

All told, between the costumes and the buckety baptism, it’s a great way to introduce the newest �ֲ��ýies to the fun side of the college.

The post reached 10,500 viewers (we hope they were wearing aprons) and earned 1,255 likes.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Aug 28, 2019 at 2:55pm PDT

2. Oct. 6 — Men’s soccer brings Hedley Reynolds Cup back to �ֲ��ý

Why the “Hedley Reynolds Cup”? �ֲ��ý’ fifth president, serving from 1967 to 1989, Thomas Hedley Reynolds came to �ֲ��ý after 18 years as a member of the history faculty at Middlebury, where he was an early coach of the nascent men’s soccer team. He continued his strong support of the game at �ֲ��ý.

Samuel Mironko ’21 sprinted the two blocks from a football game at Garcelon Field to the Russell Street soccer field to grab this exuberant team shot.

The post reached 11,100 viewers and netted (sorry) 1,380 likes.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Oct 6, 2019 at 8:17am PDT

1. Sept. 20 — �ֲ��ý students and faculty take part in Global Climate Strike

Organized by �ֲ��ý’ Environmental Coalition, a large contingent of �ֲ��ý students and faculty joined some 2,000 other demonstrators in Portland, Maine, and millions around the world who went on strike Sept. 20 to demand climate action ahead of the U.N. Climate Action Summit.

In addition to Muskan Verma ’21 of Shimla, India, Environmental Coalition president Dianna Georges ’22 of Clifton, N.H., was another of the dozen or so speakers at the Portland event.

“It’s not good enough to just talk about issues and solutions — we have to really get involved,” Francis Eanes, visiting assistant professor of environmental studies, told �ֲ��ý writer Alexandra Cullen ’20 during the demonstration. “I personally would feel like it’s the antithesis of what I’m teaching if I’m not willing to make space for that in my life.”

The post reached some 13,100 viewers and earned 1,059 likes.

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A post shared by (@batescollege) on Sep 20, 2019 at 1:19pm PDT

Imani Perry: What if digital activism, such as via Twitter, doesn’t really do anything?

Eleanor Vance '21 — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 19:24:31 +0000

Speaking to a �ֲ��ý audience on March 7, Princeton professor Imani Perry did what many would deem impossible: give a persuasive argument against social media to an audience of college students.

Perry, the 2019 speaker in the Office of Equity and Diversity’s social justice speaker series, questioned the effectiveness of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook in the age of online activism and social justice. “What if hearing and witnessing and circulating and retweeting doesn’t do anything?” she asked her listeners in the nearly full Olin Concert Hall.

The Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Perry has both a J.D. and a doctorate in American civilization. An interdisciplinary thinker who looks at law, cultural studies, and African American studies, she’s published an extensive assortment of critical essays and reviews and, just in the past year, three books.

Imani Perry, the 2019 Social Justice Speaker, talks about the pitfalls of online activism on March 7. (Samuel Mironko ’21/�ֲ��ý College)

More recently, she said, she’s been interested in the backlash that follows movements for social change and how politics enters artistic expression.

In her talk, “Nice for What?” (named after a Drake song, to the amusement of her audience), Perry made a case for the reevaluation of technology and our relationships, as activists, to social media. She broke down the goods and bads of today’s social media landscape, from Twitter-trending violence and Facebook battle royales to “cancel culture” and the possibilities of social transformation.

Underlying these debates are questions of how we communicate with one another, the ways in which we disagree, and how we can transform ourselves and others.

The case for digital activism

Social media has reshaped the public sphere, Perry acknowledged.

“We’ve seen the use of digital platforms to open up discourse about social ills, inequality, and also function as a landscape in which networking around organizing is possible,” she said.

Providing examples from movements such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and even as far back as Occupy Wall Street, Perry credited social media sites as establishing networks among people who are doing similar work around the world.

“There’s a great deal of power and possibility there,” she said.

Police violence

Perry’s skepticism about social media’s effectiveness in activism dates back several years, when people began to circulate images and videos of police violence towards African Americans, particularly killings.

“I wasn’t convinced from the outset that they would change anything,” Perry said of such footage.

A protestor records video with her smartphone during an anti-government demonstration called by the Yellow Vests “Gilets Jaunes” movement in Nantes, western France, on March 02, 2019. (Sipa via AP Images)

Not only, she argued, did sharing the videos fail to create substantive change, but the witnessing of suffering itself potentially desensitized its viewers to violence and increased stigma.

“What was seen as a vehicle for possibility for drawing attention to an issue could not necessarily function as a vehicle for greater sympathy or moral outrage,” she said.

Conversation or face-off?

Speaking of an economy driven by social media traffic, Perry explained that “drawing our attention to an issue doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll interpret it in the ways it’s intended.”

Misinterpretations of social movements that become “Twitter famous,” such as #MeToo, can sometimes become as popular as the movements themselves.

Perry cited #ThemToo, a group of Twitter users who claim that sexual assault unfairly targets black men. It is misinterpretation that makes “the structure of digital activism so easily become a minefield,” she said.

Anytime someone posts on social media, the post is a replicable artifact that becomes “proxy for one’s identity…and even a form of self-marketing,” Perry said.

“Drawing our attention to an issue doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll interpret it in the ways it’s intended.”

So, when a post generates pushback, what happens is not a conversation, but what Perry identified as a “face-off” with a Battle Royale structure. Because someone’s post represents their identity, they tend to double down on their argument instead of opening up to criticism.

As a result, “the argument becomes a matter of who wins and who loses,” Perry said.

Though the arguments can seem incredibly trivial, Perry pointed out the larger implications of these online boxing matches. They “create situations where democratic spheres are easily morphed into spheres for amplified public humiliations, celebration of conflict, and gleeful insult,” she said.

Transformation, not cancellation

Perry’s biggest concern was the culture revolving around the “canceling” of those who say awful or offensive things online.

Perry identifies the punishment model of society as a reason behind this online phenomenon. Members of society tend to identify failure and oust those responsible for it. “To cancel someone is to cast them out,” she explained.

“Every time I see people being canceled I think, ‘What happened to transformation?’”

Pointing to a frequent Twitter phenomenon, Perry questioned the effectiveness of excommunicating or expelling individuals from online communities geared towards progress.

“Every time I see people being canceled I think, ‘What happened to transformation?’”

She continued, “What you want to do is seduce people into a vision of liberation they can share with you. It seems there’s something counterintuitive about the process of expulsion when what we’re trying to do is make revolution irresistible.”

So, while identifying online offenses can be useful, it can also halt any kind of transformation geared toward showing the offending individual the error of their ways.

As a possible remedy, Perry asked her audience to consider the practice of a transformation in which we can shape our community and individual relationships to incline toward justice and equity. “To what extent,” she asked, “are we willing to be transformed?”

Imani Perry speaks with a student at her talk on March 7. Perry encouraged her audience to think about how to engage in transformation. (Samuel Mironko ’21/�ֲ��ý College)

Perry concluded her talk by explaining philosopher Stanley Cavell’s idea of a “passionate utterance.” Unlike a “performative utterance,” which could be any social media post leading to a general conclusion, a passionate utterance “invites an exchange rather than invoking a procedure.”

Perry explained that this exchange is “essential to social transformation,” yet it is difficult to achieve on social media due to the superficial nature of Facebook and Twitter posts that so often fail to identify what the posters really mean.

The activist’s goal is to engage in a way that recognizes the messiness of life underneath the surface presentation of social media, Perry said.

“One of the things I’m recommending is openness,” she said.

Video: The student-run Instagram account taking �ֲ��ý by storm

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:44:53 +0000

Last year, men’s lacrosse player Otis Klingbeil ’20 of Columbus, Ohio, took on a team task: keeping his teammates informed about the fickle Maine weather so everyone comes to practices and games with the right gear.

“I didn’t want to have to repeat myself 40 times to the guys on the team,” Klingbeil said. “So I figured, what better way than to start an Instagram account?”

Thus was born a phenomenon:

From Assistant Sports Information Director Aaron Morse, here’s a video about the student-run Instagram account �ֲ��ýmlaxweather.

At first, �ֲ��ýmlaxweather did only what the name says, providing game-day weather forecasts for players. Klingbeil’s initial posts featured marked-up screen shots from a weather app, plus hashtags like #catsloverain.

Otis Klingbeil ’20, “chief meteorologist” for �ֲ��ýmlaxweather, which has morphed into a weather/comedy site. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

But soon, trading on his audience’s knowledge of �ֲ��ý and NESCAC, Klingbeil, the self-styled “chief meteorologist” for �ֲ��ýmlaxweather, veered toward humor.

And it turns out that the Bobcats, perennial NESCAC powers, are pretty good when they give comedy a shot.

Mining rich territory covered a few generations ago by National Lampoon and more recently by websites like College Humor and Funny or Die, Klingbeil, along with collaborator Jack Maritz ’18, began offering good-natured videos rich in satire and parody, like “The Most Interesting Cat in the World.” (He asks Security for their IDs.)

Jack Maritz ’18 is the “hydration expert” for �ֲ��ýmlaxweather. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

In a parody of Matthew McConaughey’s Lincoln car commercials, Charles Harker ’19 drives around a snowy downtown Lewiston before an early March game vs. the Wesleyan Cardinals, drawling nonsensical comments about cats and birds: “In the wintertahm, there are a lotta hungry cats around.”

Halfway through the video, Klingbeil snaps at Fein, “You keeping up with this?”

In another sketch, Klingbeil and Maritz lecture Director of Athletics Jason Fein, a relative newcomer, on the NESCAC pecking order. (The Continentals won’t pose a threat, advises Maritz, because no one makes musket ammo any more.) Halfway through the video, Klingbeil snaps at Fein, “You keeping up with this?”

From left, Klingbeil, Maritz, and �ֲ��ýmlaxweather’s “unpaid intern,” Spencer Fox ’21.

With nearly 1,000 followers as mid-April, �ֲ��ýmlaxweather is the second-largest student-run Instagram account at �ֲ��ý. (Tops is the �ֲ��ý Photography Club, with more than 1,100 followers.)

Head coach Peter Lasagna is proud of what his players have created. “It shows that we have smart, funny, and interesting people in our program.” (Ironically, the coach himself is famously Internet-averse: He has no social media accounts of his own.)

With useful information, an authentic feel, and entertaining content, �ֲ��ýmlaxweather does what we’ve long been told social media should do: In this case, create community among a group of �ֲ��ý students, families, and friends. Says Maritz, “It’s been a lot of fun to engage the community like this.”

‘From Selma to Ferguson: 50 Years of Nonviolent Dissent’ is MLK Day theme

�ֲ��ý News — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:44:38 +0000

Peniel Joseph, author and historian. (Tom Kates for Tufts University)

In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015, �ֲ��ý will examine the great civil rights leader’s commitment to nonviolent action — and place it in the context of recent events in Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island, N.Y., and on the international stage.

Beginning Sunday, Jan. 18, and continuing through the King Day holiday on Jan. 19, the �ֲ��ý observance addresses the theme From Selma to Ferguson: 50 Years of Nonviolent Dissent.

�ֲ��ý students staged a die-in at Commons on Dec. 2, a way “to interest people and to get them to think,” in the words of one organizer, about the Michael Brown case. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý will explore historic and contemporary forms of nonviolent dissent in the U.S. and abroad. The events will fall broadly into three categories: past and present activism, activism in the arts, and activism and the interconnected world.

Taking place at various campus locations, MLK Day events at �ֲ��ý are open to the public at no cost (but certain events require tickets; see below). For more information, please call 207-786-6400. See a complete program at: bates.edu/mlk.

Highlights from the �ֲ��ý programming include:

the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Service, with an address by Najeeba Syeed-Miller, internationally known for her work in peacemaking (7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18, Gomes Chapel, 275 College St.);
an MLK Day keynote address by Tufts University historian and author Peniel Joseph, whose lecture is titled “Reimagining Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Obama and the Age of Ferguson” (9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 19, Gomes Chapel);
a rich schedule of workshops, described in more detail below, in concurrent sessions starting at 10:45 a.m. and 1 p.m. (see the online program for a complete listing with times and locations);
the annual Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays ’20 Debate with students from �ֲ��ý and Morehouse Colleges (3:15 p.m., Olin Arts Center Concert Hall; tickets required)
and the annual performance by the �ֲ��ý student group Sankofa, this year presenting Black Voice: The Life of Evelyn Ola Johnson (7:30 p.m., Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St.; tickets required).

More about 2015 MLK Day programming at �ֲ��ý

Najeeba Syeed-Miller, internationally known for her work in peacemaking.

Najeeba Syeed-Miller is assistant professor of interreligious education at Claremont School of Theology, and is the director of the Center for Global Peacebuilding. Her work as a peacemaker has made her a go-to adviser for state, federal and White House initiatives and in international conflicts.

Peniel E. Joseph is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and a professor of history at Tufts University. He founded the interdisciplinary subfield that he characterizes as Black Power studies.

A frequent national commentator on issues of race, civil rights and democracy, Joseph has written for The New York Times and historical journals, and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, MSNBC and other national media outlets.

He is the award-winning author of Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America; Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama; and this year’s Stokely: A Life, a biography of Black Power icon Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), which the New York Times Book Review described as “insightful, highly engaging and fluently written.”

�ֲ��ý student performers in the organization Sankofa answer questions from the audience following their performance during the evening of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

MLK Day Workshops: Featuring Syeed-Miller, Joseph and other guest scholars along with �ֲ��ý faculty, staff and students, the workshop schedule is jammed with sessions. Here’s just a quick sampling from across the range of topics: tools for nonviolent communication with adversaries; an experiment using texting to overcome a reluctance to discuss hot-button social justice issues;

Also, a reading by �ֲ��ý people including President Clayton Spencer of their own writings or historic texts honoring King’s work; a look at the role of athletics in protest and dissent; a review of recent challenges to the Voting Rights Act; and a panel discussion about events in Ferguson.

The Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays ’20 Debate: The ever-popular debate with Morehouse and �ֲ��ý students honors the Rev. Mays, a �ֲ��ý debater, longtime president of Morehouse College and pioneer of the civil rights movement. This year’s motion: “This House Believes that Violent Resistance to State Oppression is Justified.” Free, but tickets required; please visit or call 207-786-6400.

The Evening Program featuring Sankofa: Founded by �ֲ��ý students in 2010, Sankofa explores the history and diverse array of experience of the African diaspora through dance, music, theater and spoken word, and many other forms of art and expression.

Sankofa’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day production has become a symbol of pride and accomplishment for the African diaspora at �ֲ��ý, and an educational and diversifying experience for the entire �ֲ��ý community. This year, with Black Voice: The Life of Evelyn Ola Johnson, Sankofa explores black voice nationally and internationally in events linked by the theme of activism.

The featured performance takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, but as an alternative, an open dress rehearsal will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18. Both are free, but tickets are required; visit for the dress rehearsal and for the Monday event, or call 207-786-8294 or 207-786-6400.

Exhibitions: �ֲ��ý’ 2015 MLK Day programming includes two exhibitions. Paintings Related to the Civil Rights Movement comprises work by Camden artist Jonathan Frost. Created following Frost’s visits to historic civil rights sites in the South, the paintings illustrate key episodes from the movement, including a voting rights march by black teachers and, depicted moment-by-moment in an 18-image series, the police killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson. (Monday, Jan. 12 through Sunday, Feb. 22, Ladd Library, first floor)

�ֲ��ý Students and Alumni in Action: A Story in Images documents marches and protests, on campus and across the country, in which �ֲ��ý students and alumni have participated. Compiled by the �ֲ��ý the Office of Intercultural Education, the exhibition reveals events and causes that have stirred �ֲ��ý people then and now. (Sunday and Monday, Jan. 18-19, Pettengill Hall, Ground Floor Lobby)

Trade screen time for inner view, Belsky urges

Doug Hubley — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:55:28 +0000

Andrews lecturer Scott Belsky, left, speaks with audience members after his talk, including, Alexey Bobko '13, of Minsk, Belarus.

There are tragedies, and then there are tragedies.

Earthquake, tsunami and uncontained nuclear radiation in Japan.

Tornadoes ravaging the American heartland.

Losing your iPhone — wait, what?

Yes, this too is a tragedy. Or so said 41 percent of Stanford University students polled in a on smartphone use.

That statistic came out during a Nov. 8 address by Scott Belsky, an expert on technology and creative work who helped �ֲ��ý kick off a campus-wide experiment in going unplugged.

With our time and consciousness increasingly ruled by electronic media, the Nov. 8-15 initiative Present Tense: Being Here and Now in a Nonstop World encourages a break from the little screen and a re-engagement with the spiritual self.

Belsky, in the college’s annual Bertha May Bell Andrews Lecture, described the psychic toll taken by constant connectivity — and offered a few suggestions for reclaiming inner peace.

Scott Belsky discusses the importance of reflective thought amidst the information onslaught in the annual Andrews Lecture on Nov. 8.

Multifaith Chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace welcomed about 100 people to the �ֲ��ý Chapel for the event. Among them were Cindy Andrews ’74 and Kristy Andrews ’12, members of a family whose long �ֲ��ý lineage includes Dr. Carl Andrews ’40, who established the Andrews Lecture to honor his mother in 1975.

Belsky is the author of the national best-seller Making Ideas Happen, and is founder and CEO of , a company that develops products and services for the creative industries. As someone whose work straddles the realms of high-tech and inner inspiration, he also has, he admitted, his own struggles with the tempting distractions of constant connectivity.

Belsky based his talk on the concept of “sacred space” — the conditions that are conducive to deep and reflective thought. Without such contemplation, he said, it’s difficult to bring good ideas to fruition, and easy to lose sight of what’s most important to us.

“We’re obsessed with the present tense,” he said, alluding to the �ֲ��ý initiative. “We want real-time information. The past tense is old news, the future is dreaming, but the present tense is real.”

Constant connectivity “threatens both your quality of life and your ability to make an impact on what matters most to you,” Belsky said. We cease to be present in our own lives. Instead, we’re “just hacking away at the collective inboxes all around us, just trying to stay afloat.

“In some ways we are living someone else’s to-do list.”

He said, “In our professional lives, I call this the era of reactionary workflow. In our personal lives, it’s reactionary living. . . .With endless streams of information always flowing in, we have become increasingly reactive . . . rather than being proactive with what matters most to us.”

One of Belsky’s most compelling concepts was “insecurity work” — the compulsive checking of e-mail, feeds, texts, tweets, posts and other e-stimuli in a futile effort to assure ourselves, as he put it, that everything is OK.

“We want to know that our family and friends are there for us,” that our jobs still need us, that our stocks haven’t tanked and the world hasn’t ended while we were checking Facebook.

But through this constant vigilance, he said, “we are losing interest in ourselves,” he said.
At the same time, we’re increasingly ignoring life’s serendipitous gifts of surprise, accident and coincidence. “As we become more connected and wedded to our devices, we become less open to circumstance. Quite simply, we stop noticing what’s going on around us.”

Belsky noted that he met his wife because of a chance meeting between their mothers, strangers until then, who chatted in a nail salon while their nails dried. “I have to wonder,” he said, “if these two women had had their smartphones and their iPads, would they have even started talking?”

“I encourage you to value the circumstantial, recognize how powerful it is and then mine the circumstantial more intentionally.”

Belsky’s key prescription for his audience was to build into the daily routine opportunities for deep thinking and for focus on true priorities. “Create windows of non-stimulation during your day and life, whether they are habits or rituals or both.”

In that spirit, a group of Jewish artists launched a project called the Sabbath Manifesto, through which they (as explains) have “adapted our ancestors’ rituals by carving out one day per week to unwind, unplug, relax, reflect, get outdoors and get with loved ones.”

In 2010 the group declared a National Day of Unplugging, and issued an Unplug Challenge, wherein celebrities disconnected themselves from the e-hive mind for 24 hours. Participants included actor Josh Radnor.

“The 21st century challenge is to keep your focus, and preserve the sanctity of mind that is required to create, and ultimately make an impact on what matters most. Imagination happens when your mind has the freedom to run rampant,” Belsky said.

Belsky also advised his listeners to “recognize the insecurity work that you do and compartmentalize it”; and to learn to rely on their own mental resources. “Nothing should resonate more than your own intuition.”

“It’s all really difficult to do,” he concluded. “But we’re all part of the future, so we really need to figure this out.”

In the years to come, he said, “I believe that focus and the ability to be present will be the greatest competitive advantage for success professionally, and certainly personally.”

CANCELED: Race in a Post-Human World lecture

Doug Hubley — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:59:11 +0000

A talk scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, by author Lisa Nakamura has been canceled due to illness.

Titled Antisocial Media: Understanding Racism and Homophobia in a Digitally Connected World, Nakamura’s lecture was to be part of the series , sponsored by the �ֲ��ý Lectures Committee. The committee hopes to reschedule Nakamura. The series will include two other lectures in 2011 and a dance performance, all of which will be open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact this jgovinda@bates.edu.

'Antisocial Media' opens 'Race in a Post-Human World' series

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:53:06 +0000

As part of a �ֲ��ý College series exploring the impacts of social and technological progress on concepts of race, author Lisa Nakamura offers a lecture at 7:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, in Pettengill Hall’s Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Nakamura’s lecture, titled Antisocial Media: Understanding Racism and Homophobia in a Digitally Connected World, will address social media’s influence on concepts of race and homosexuality, and will touch on the recent suicide of Rutgers first-year Tyler Clementi.

The talk is the first public offering in the series Race in a Post-Human World, which explores the collapse of social categories caused by advances in technology. Sponsored by the �ֲ��ý College Lectures Committee, the series will include two more lectures and a dance performance, all of which will be open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact jgovinda@bates.edu.

Post-humanism is a term expressing what many believe is our current condition as human beings. Thanks to technological advances — such as medical interventions like smart prosthetics and implanted defibrillators, and human-emulating capabilities such as artificial intelligence — the old boundaries between animal and machine are increasingly blurred.

Similarly, post-humanism challenges long-held notions of other categorizations of humanity such as gender, race and species — making post-humanism a concept that is highly controversial, but extremely idea-rich across a wide range of academic disciplines.

Nakamura is the director of the Asian American Studies Program and Professor in the Institute of Communication Research and Media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has published numerous books including Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) and Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (Routledge, 2002).

The series continues in 2011 with the lecture Ring, Ring, Ring: Popular Music and Mobile Technologies by Alexander Weheliye, associate professor of English and African American studies at Northwestern University, at 7:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14, also in Pettengill Hall’s Keck Classroom.

Weheliye teaches courses in African American and African diaspora literature and culture, critical theory and popular culture. He is the author of the book Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke University Press, 2005).

Alondra Nelson, associate professor of sociology at Columbia University, offers the lecture Roots Revelations: Genetic Ancestry Tracing and the YouTube Generation at 7:15 p.m. Thursday, March 3, again in the Keck Classroom.

Nelson specializes in race and ethnicity in the U.S.; gender and kinship; sociohistorical studies of medicine, science and technology; and social and cultural theory.

Race in a Post-Human World concludes with a performance by acting director and assistant professor of dance at �ֲ��ý, Rachel Boggia. Her performance, In the Very Eye of the Night, takes place in May (date TBA) and is conceived and directed by Marlon Barrios Solano, a Venezuelan dance and new media artist, teacher and researcher.

Boggia, who has been on faculty at Wesleyan University, Dickinson College and Ohio State University, specializes in multidisciplinary collaboration with scientists, dance documentaries and multi-media performance.

Divine a nation's mood from its blogs? Danforth '01 explains how

�ֲ��ý News — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:26:22 +0000

Chris Danforth ’01, a University of Vermont mathematician who has devised a system for assessing widespread happiness from blogs, explains his work at �ֲ��ý College at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, in Pettengill Hall’s Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk). (Please note that the time for this event has been changed since it was first announced.)

Danforth’s talk, titled The Hedonometer: A Remote Sensor of Global Happiness, is open to the public at no cost. It is sponsored by the departments of mathematics, psychology and economics, and the Division of Social Sciences.

Danforth, an assistant professor in the UVM department of mathematics and statistics, and department colleague Peter Dodds have created a system for measuring the national mood by compiling expressions of happiness or displeasure collected from Web texts.

According to this research, Election Day 2008 was the happiest day for Americans in the past four years. The day Michael Jackson died was the unhappiest.

Danforth and Dodds began their work at the Web site www.wefeelfine.org, which searches more than two million blogs for sentences beginning with “I feel” or “I am feeling.” They then applied to their search results a standard psychological methodology for associating particular words with degrees of happiness.

They argue that blogs are an adequate indicator of happiness among the overall U.S. population because they are written from all over the country and bloggers are racially diverse and almost evenly split between genders. (More recently, the pair have applied their methodology to Twitter updates and song lyrics.) They hope their insight into how the population feels will improve public policymaking and the understanding of social phenomena.