At WC's Interactive Photography Exhibit, Viewers Scan QR Codes for the Full Story

A new interactive photography exhibit at the Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College gives new—and positive—meaning to the phrase “phone it in.” The exhibit, “Photography Exposed,” provides QR Codes, or “Quick Read” matrix barcodes, that can be scanned by any iPhone, Android phone or new generation iPod (those with cameras).

While anyone can enjoy the 50 photographs in the exhibit for the beauty and interest of the images themselves, the QR Codes open up a world of additional information, from the techniques the photographer used to the story or emotions behind a shot.

Viewers with the requisite smart devices can install free QR scanning applications, then read the barcodes next to each photograph to access a video or text message from the artist.

The curator of the new exhibit, which officially opens during a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on Monday, January 31, is Brian Palmer, Manager of the Multimedia Production Center at Washington College. Most of the images were created in workshops or photography club trips Palmer led, or by students in Art Department classes including Digital Imaging, Fundamentals of Design, and The Creative Process. The subject matter ranges from New York City streetscapes to fashion close-ups and light-paintings taken with longer time exposures.

Palmer created a video tour of the exhibit, with a demonstration of how to use the QR codes, and posted it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3UZnhAn8CA

The exhibit will be mounted in the William Frank Visual Arts Hallway, adjacent to the Kohl Gallery in the Gibson Center for the Arts, through Sunday, February 27.

Photos: Top, an image from the exhibit. Below left, a QR Code that, when scanned, opens an invitation to the exhibit. At right, the "Snappy" icon curator Brian Palmer created for the show.

From Descartes to Sinatra, Oxford Scholar To Discuss Impact of Religion on Culture

CHESTERTOWN—A distinguished Oxford scholar will talk about the role of religion in social life, from the European Enlightenment to the present day, when he visits Washington College on Monday evening, January 31. The lecture by Dr. Nicholas Wood—playfully titled “Do Be Do Be Do,” or “Descartes, Sartre and Sinatra: Religion, Culture and the Modern World”—will take place at 7 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. Sponsored by the Washington College Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture, the event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Wood is a member of the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, and director of the Oxford Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture. An expert on the relationship between faith, culture, and society, he has been an important partner of the new Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture (IRPC) at Washington College. While in Chestertown, Wood will meet with students who will be participating in the Oxford Research Seminar this coming June.

That Oxford seminar will each summer welcome up to 12 high-achieving Washington College students for seminars that explore the impact of religion on politics and society. Participating students will reside at Oxford, meet in tutorials with Oxford professors and conduct research at the renowned Bodleian Library. In addition, students will engage in faculty-led study trips to culturally significant sites in the region.

Established in fall of 2009, the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture is dedicated to the objective study of religion’s influence on American and world history and its contemporary role in political and cultural life. For more information, please visit http://irpc.washcoll.edu/. 


Coal Summit Draws Journalist and Filmmakers To Discuss the Toll of Strip Mining on Communities, February 8 and 9

View Photos: On Coal River | Documentary Workshop | Reckoning at Eagle Creek

CHESTERTOWN—Washington College launches a series on labor journalism Tuesday evening, February 8 with the screening of a documentary film about one community’s experience with strip mining, followed the next afternoon by a reading from a recent book about the human costs of extracting coal.

The program, Coal Summit: Unearthing the High Price of Energy Independence, begins with the screening of On Coal River at 7 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts on the College campus (300 Washington Avenue). A Q & A session with filmmakers Adams Wood and Francine Cavanaugh will follow the screening. Michael Buckley, program manager for the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, will serve as moderator.

On Wednesday afternoon, February 9, award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers will read from his 2010 book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (Nation), at the Rose O'Neill Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue. The reading will begin at 4:30 p.m. and will be followed by a book signing.

On Coal River features a group of activists in West Virginia's Coal River Valley who unite to move a school they fear is imperiled by ever-increasing amounts of toxic mining wastewater building up behind an earthen dam. Filmmakers Cavanaugh and Wood tell their story with compelling characters, and the cinematography captures the beauty of the mountains and the wreckage left by strip-mining. The film makes the health costs of silica dust in the air and toxic chemicals in the water horrifyingly personal. The Huffington Post called it "a the most inspiring and triumphant story of a possible clean energy future."

Prior to their work on On Coal River, Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood co-directed and produced Boom—The Sound of Eviction (2002), a feature-length documentary about the social repercussions of San Francisco's dot-com boom and bust; and Miami Model (2003), about the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americans pact and the protests and police response it sparked

While on campus, Cavanaugh and Wood, who grew up in Queen Anne’s County, will partner with Washington College technology instructors Brian Palmer and Nancy Cross to offer a student workshop on documentary filmmaking

The next day’s special guest, Jeff Biggers, is author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek, The United States of Appalachia (Counterpoint, 2007) and In the Sierra Madre (Illinois, 2007). He has worked as a writer, educator, and radio correspondent across the United States, Europe, India, and Mexico. His award-winning stories have been heard on National Public Radio and Public Radio International, and have appeared in print and online journals such as The Washington Post, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, and Salon. A contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review, he regularly blogs for Huffington Post and Grist.

Biggers is also a playwright and a member of the multimedia theatre performance company The Coal Free Future Project. His work has received numerous honors, including an American Book Award, the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, a Plattner Award for Appalachian Literature, and the Delta Award for Southern Illinois literature.

While on campus, Biggers will meet with students in a literature class taught be Mark Nowak, the director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House.

The semester-long "New Labor Journalism" series will examine how the media investigates and reports on the effects of the current economy on working people, immigrant workers, and the working poor. Journalists and photojournalists from The Washington Post, The Nation, Huffington Post, NPR, and social media networks will be visiting the Rose O'Neill Literary House for readings, talks, and panel discussions.

The New Labor Journalism series will continue on February 28 with a visit by Pulitzer Prize-winning collaborators Dale Maharidge, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, and Michael Williamson, a Washington Post photographer. On April 13, a "New Labor Journalism" symposium moderated by radio host Marc Steiner of Baltimore’s WEAA radio will feature authors Gabriel Thompson (Working in the Shadows) and Kari Lydersen (Revolt at Goose Island).

The programs are sponsored by Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and Rose O’Neill Literary House. Attendance at Coal Summit is free and open to the public.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Learn more on The Chestertown Spy.

W.C. Alum Roy Kesey To Read from New Novel February 1 at Rose O'Neill Literary House

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Fiction writer Roy Kesey, a 1991 graduate of Washington College, will read from his work Tuesday evening, February 1 at the Rose O’Neill Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue. The 5:30 p.m. reading will be followed by a book signing of his new novel, Pacazo, being released next month by Dzanc Press.

Pacazo tells the story of John Segovia, an American historian who teaches English at a small university on the desert coast of Peru. The narrative moves between John's obsessive search for his wife’s killer and his attempts to build a new life for himself and his infant daughter. With the sweep of an epic, Pacazo explores and celebrates the ways we construct the stories we tell about ourselves and those we love.

Chosen as both a Rumpus Book Club Selection and a Newtonville First Editions Book Club Selection, Kesey’s first full-length novel has been praised as “intense, hypnotic and stunningly visceral,” and “like a cannonball rolling downhill.” Ron Currie, whose 2007 novel God is Dead won the Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, wrote that, with Pacazo, “Kesey strides up alongside Graham Greene, melding intrigue, religion, and exotica into a story as edifying as it is entertaining. Ultimately, though, Kesey's greatest achievement lies in his ability to illuminate all that is grand and horrible in love.”

During his senior year at Washington College, Kesey learned he was waitlisted for graduate studies at Iowa and decided to move to Paris to live and work, instead. Four years later, he traveled to Peru, where he met his wife, a Peruvian diplomat. After a stint in China, the couple and their children now live again in Peru.

Kesey’s fiction has been published in some of the world’s most respected literary journals, including McSweeney’s, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, American Short Fiction, New England Review, and New Sudden Fiction. His novella, Nothing in the World won the Bullfight Short Fiction Prize in 2006, and his short story “Wait” appeared in the collection, Best American Short Stories 2007.

The Feb. 1 visit will be Kesey’s first time back on the WC campus since his graduation. "It's been twenty years since the last time I was in Chestertown, but Washington College has never been far from my mind. It's where I started learning to write, and where I wrote the first story I ever published, and I can't wait to get back."

Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the February 1 reading is free and open to the public.

Author of Alone Together Examines How Texting, Tweeting and Facebook Affect Our Relationships

CHESTERTOWN, MD—In the brave new world of Facebook, “smart phones” and Twitter, where both teens and adults would rather type than talk, are we more in touch but more isolated than ever before?

Psychologist Sherry Turkle, who has researched technology’s effects on society for more than three decades, explores this seeming contradiction in her new book, "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other," released this month by Basic Books. She will share her insights (face-to-face!) in a rescheduled presentation on Thursday, March 24 at Washington College. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a book signing, followed by a 7:00 p.m. talk in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

"Alone Together," which the Boston Globe called "an important, controversial new book," has received a deal of buzz in the media. The Guardian (UK) noted that the book is a "cri de coeur for putting down the BlackBerry, ignoring Facebook, and shunning Twitter," applauding it for its success in sparking debate about the merits of social networking.

Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also the founder and director of MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self. Dubbed “the Margaret Mead of digital culture” by an MIT colleague, she has been profiled in The New York Times, Scientific American, and Wired Magazine and has been a featured media commentator for CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and NPR, as well as a recent guest on The Colbert Report.

“Anxiety is part of the new connectivity,” Turkle finds, and these “anxieties migrate, proliferate.” Places like Facebook foster self-expression, but that “self” is often a fabrication. The same is true in social networking games such as Second Life, where participants create avatars that are better-looking, smarter, and more accomplished than themselves. This constant and intense connectedness often gets in the way of building a more real, face-to-face network of friendships, and may even interfere with pyschological development. Turkle argues that this generation of teenagers, accustomed to interacting with others through machines, are less empathetic than their predecessors, less mindful of the feelings of those around them.

In addition to examining the ways in which our virtual worlds are affecting our real-world relationships, Turkle has spent decades observing how the younger generation is being affected by seemingly benign robotic creatures that promise love and comfort—from Furbies to increasingly sophisticated machines such as Cog and Kismet. “The prospect of loving, or being loved, by a machine changes what love can be,” she writes. Turkle promises no easy answers, but she does remind the reader that we humans should determine how to keep technology busy, not vice versa.

"Social media has become an ingrained part of most of our lives," says Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust - Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which is sponsoring the event. "But as Sherry Turkle reminds us, it's not something we should embrace without question."

The lecture and book signing are free and open to the public. Co-sponsors include the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, the Department of Psychology, and two student groups, Psychology Club and Psi Chi, the Washington College chapter of the national psychology honor society. For more information on Turkle’s visit, please contact the Starr Center at 410-810-7161. For more on the book, visit http://www.alonetogetherbook.com.

Check out Sherry Turkle on The Colbert Report.

About the Starr Center
Based in the Custom House along Chestertown's colonial waterfront, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College fosters the art of written history and explores our nation's past - particularly the legacy of its Founding era - in innovative ways, through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America's democratic experiment. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Hadaway Reading, Tribute to Chester River, Rescheduled for Thursday, January 27

CHESTERTOWN—A book-launch event that celebrates the Chester River in words, images and music has been rescheduled for 6 p.m., Thursday, January 27, in The Egg performance space in the Hodson Hall Commons, Washington College, 300 Washington Avenue.

Originally scheduled for tonight (Wednesday, January 26), the celebration will feature poet Meredith Davies Hadaway reading from her newly published collection, The River is a Reason (2011, Word Press), plus work by artist Marcy Dunn Ramsey, whose painting is featured on the cover of Hadaway’s book, and performances by local musicians.

The event is sponsored by the College’s Center for Environment & Society and the Sophie Kerr Committee.

Hadaway, the College’s vice president for college relations and marketing, has taught literature and composition courses as an adjunct in the Department of English. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Fellow poet Peter Campion described her work as “a blend of down-to-earth congeniality and genuine intensity.” Of her latest collection, he wrote, “ . . . these poems are dignified throughout by a master’s feel for sentence and line.”

Hadaway’s home sits some 30 feet from the bank of the Chester River and the water is visible from nearly every room. “You cannot live beside a river and not be influenced by it,” she observes. “A river, with its tidal flux and constant motion, is the perfect metaphor for our lives on this planet.”

Hadaway has been published in numerous literary journals and serves as poetry editor for The Summerset Review. She has been a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and has received two Pushcart nominations. A poem from her new collection received honorable mention for the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Poetry Prize in 2010. Another will appear in the forthcoming anthology, Best Millennium Writings.

The River is a Reason is available online and at local bookstores including the Washington College Bookstore (located in the ground floor of the Casey Academic Center on the College campus). For information on the reading and reception, call the Center for Environment & Society at 410-778-7295.
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Partnership with Oxford Caps Initiatives from New Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture at Washington College has announced a new partnership with Oxford University that will provide students with research and study opportunities during the summer and prepare them for possible graduate studies at the renowned British institution.

Starting June of 2011, up to 12 high-achieving Washington College students will be selected to participate in seminars that explore the impact of religion on politics and society. Participating students will reside at Oxford, meet in tutorials with Oxford professors, conduct research at the renowned Bodleian library and, at the end of their stay, present their research to their Oxford professors. In addition, students will engage in faculty-led study trips to culturally significant sites in the region.

Joseph Prud’homme, PhD., director of the Institute and a member of the political science faculty at Washington College, says another invaluable aspect of the new partnership is its commitment to mentoring students interested in pursuing graduate work at Oxford. As a culmination of that mentoring, Kellogg College, one of Oxford’s largest and most international graduate colleges, has agreed to reserve a spot each year for a qualified Washington College student interested in further studies in religion, politics and culture.

Additional partnership arrangements between the Institute and Oxford are under development, including yearlong stays for highly qualified students and joint programming with the Oxford Centre for the Study of Religion in Public Life.

The Institute celebrated its relationship with Oxford with a November 2010 visit and lecture by Marilyn McCord Adams, the first female and first American to be named Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The prestigious Regius professorship was created in 1535 by King Henry VIII, and Adams held the position from 2004 to 2009. Continuing the close partnership, Oxford professor of theology Nicholas Wood will come to the Chestertown campus on January 31 of this year. He will lecture on religious pluralism and meet with Washington College students.

The Adams visit capped a week of special events sponsored by the Institute that included a panel of national experts discussing the role of Bible studies in public schools.

Participants included the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Dr. Diane Moore of Harvard University’s Divinity School, and Dr. Daniel Dreisbach of American University’s School of Public Affairs.

Such events reflect the mission of the Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture, which was launched in September 2009 as a forum for the objective study of religion’s influence on American and world history, as well as its contemporary role in political and cultural affairs.

Washington College president Mitchell Reiss says that in an age when religion, politics and culture continue to intersect and frequently clash, with profound effects on communities and countries, there is great need for the kinds of study and contemplation the Institute promotes. “The Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture presents events and programs that respect both religious faith and rigorous intellectual inquiry,” he says. “It is an approach that this country’s Founders—and our founding patron George Washington—would endorse, and one Washington College is proud to embrace.”

In its first year, the Institute has already accomplished important initiatives, including:

• Academic partnerships not only with Oxford, but also with Charles University in Prague and, soon to be announced, a new partner in Rome.
• An impressive list of distinguished speakers and visitors.
• Several symposia on the role of religion in American history, including “The Forum on Faith, Freedom and the American Founding,” and “The African American Church and American Ideals.”
• A peer-reviewed book series, entitled Washington College Studies in Politics, Religion & Culture, edited by Professor Prud’homme and published by Peter Lang Press. The first title is scheduled for release in August 2011.
• The Cincinnatus Leadership Scholars Program, which honors Washington College patron George Washington and exposes undergraduates to the importance of civic engagement through public and community service.

Director Prud’homme says Washington College is the perfect setting for the Institute by virtue of its history. “The College was founded in 1782 by a devout Anglican cleric yet was from its beginning a non-sectarian institution,” he points out. “And Washington evinced this duality even as he proclaimed in his farewell address, ‘Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.’ Our close relationship to the nation’s first president strengthens our role in discussing the vitally important questions of faith, citizenship and culture.”

Poet Hadaway to Read from Her New Collection

CHESTERTOWN—Poet Meredith Davies Hadaway will read from her newly published collection, The River is a Reason (2011, Word Press), on January 26 at Washington College. The book launch event—a tribute to the Chester River in words, images and music—­­features work by artist Marcy Dunn Ramsey, whose painting is featured on the cover of Hadaway’s book, and performances by local musicians.

The event takes place at 6 p.m. in Tawes Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the Washington College campus (300 Washington Avenue). It is sponsored by the College’s Center for Environment & Society and the Sophie Kerr Committee.

Hadaway, the College’s vice president for college relations and marketing, has taught literature and composition courses as an adjunct in the Department of English. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Fellow poet Peter Campion described her work as "a blend of down-to-earth congeniality and genuine intensity." Of her latest collection, he wrote, " . . . these poems are dignified throughout by a master's feel for sentence and line."

Hadaway's home sits some 30 feet from the bank of the Chester River and the water is visible from nearly every room. "You cannot live beside a river and not be influenced by it," she observes. "A river, with its tidal flux and constant motion, is the perfect metaphor for our lives on this planet."

Hadaway has been published in numerous literary journals and serves as poetry editor for The Summerset Review. She has been a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and has received two Pushcart nominations. A poem from her new collection received honorable mention for the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Poetry Prize in 2010. Another will appear in the forthcoming anthology, Best Millennium Writings.

The River is a Reason is available in area and online bookstores. For information on the January 26 reading and reception, call the Center for Environment & Society at 410-778-7295.