Author Archives: D. Anner Mitchell

Literary Event of 2015 and it’s Only February

Harper (the publishing company, subset of HarperCollins) is publishing a SECOND novel written by Harper Lee in July of 2015. The story released last week from AP says that the novel was found recently by Lee’s lawyer and is scheduled for release on July 14. The publisher first print run is 2 million copies. To put that in perspective, the best selling novel of 2014, The Fault in Our Stars, sold 1 million copies and it’s sales were certainly influenced by the movie.

That’s it. The author of one of the most well-read novels in American literature, notorious recluse, suddenly, and out of the clear blue sky is publishing a second novel.

Excuse me while I go find a paper bag to breathe through until July.

The cover of Harper Lee's new novel Go Set a Watchman scheduled for release on July 14 2015.

The cover of Harper Lee’s new novel Go Set a Watchman scheduled for release on July 14 2015.

 

Weak Ties and London

Posted in Awareness, Books, Pop Culture, Self Reflection by

I came across the term weak ties in Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson. Weak ties are people within your network, social or physical real, who are not your close friends. Thompson says,”In a world of status updates, tangential, seemingly minor ties become part of your social fabric. And they can bring in some extremely useful information.”

Reading about this made me think about my trip to London this past summer. It was wonderful, btw, and I can’t wait for an opportunity to return, but a huge part of that is due in no small part to my connection with an associate who was studying abroad in London at the same time.

I posted on Facebook that I planned to make an impromptu trip to London at the end of my own study abroad trip to Ireland. My “weak tie,” a former teammate from undergrad saw the post and responded, saying that he would be in London at the same time I was planning to go there. It was to most serendipitous thing!

The Key to this is Diversity: Digital Humanities

Posted in Assignments, DePaul, Digital Humanities by

Today was the first day of a new quarter at DePaul for me. I’m taking two electives, both centered on digital humanities, one in theory (pray for me) and one in practice. I’ll post a lot about it for at least the next 10 weeks [fair warning].

I didn’t even know what digital humanities was when I registered for these courses, but I have used my time at DePaul to try to gain as many new skills as possible. See my design struggles. My interest in libraries and library science and other social sciences in general lead me to digital humanities.

I’ve since done some reading and learned that digital humanities is the study of the integration of digital tools into the humanities [I think]. How humanities professional use digital tools in order to research, collaborate, and publish. All I could think was… so COOL! I knew I was attracted to this course for a reason.

In a way, digital humanities is sort of subcategory to new media studies, which is just the study of the integration of digital tools into society as a whole. Not a far throw from the stuff I study regularly, so after a lot of initial trepidation, I’m ready to jump in head first.

The other thing I love about digital humanities is its interdisciplinary nature. I hate working and studying in homogeneous groups. That is boring! I expect that these classes will allow me to meet and share scholarship with students from all around the humanities. That makes for great discussions and debates and that is the key to this.

More Devices, Kindle Paperwhite

Posted in Reviews by

My Christmas was awesome! I hope everyone else’s was as well. This will be my last post of 2014, so Happy New Year too!

I got a Kindle Paperwhite. I was completely floored. I had been throwing the idea around, but I had no intention of anyone hearing it and thinking to buy it for Christmas. After reading an entire book on the device, I came up with a pretty rudimentary pro/con schematic.

Kindle Paperwhite 6 inch with built in light. Image and device belong to Dilane Mitchell.

The home screen of my Kindle Paperwhite.

On the pro side, the Paperwhite is very very light. I noticed while reading how much lighter it is than my iPad Mini. The backlight is genius and the link to the Amazon Store makes impulse buying a breeze. At the bottom of the Home screen Amazon shows you books you might want to buy based on your Goodreads shelf or your reading patterns.

It’s also extremely user friendly. The entire set up took about 7 minutes and was complicated because the Kindle tried to register to my mom’s account because she purchased it. It was easily fixed and then I was on my way.

On the con side, the screen is black and white. Maybe I should have realized that, but I didn’t. I was a little freaked out when I couldn’t see the covers of my books in color. The Goodreads integration needs work. There’s very limited visibility. I always start trying to do something and then have to switch to another device. That’s a little frustrating.

Kindle Paperwhite 6 inch with built in light. Image and device belong to Dilane Mitchell.

I sat and read on my Kindle all day for the last two days. I will admit I am quite pleased. I was hesitant to jump the reader bandwagon.

It’s a device that’s built for reading and on that front, it’s fantastic. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about it.

Media in Media Series

Posted in Media in Media, Pop Culture by

I’ve noticed that my posts about new media and popular culture receive a lot of attention and interaction. I’m going to keep the posts on this theme coming regularly. Below are the links to the other posts in this “series,” yeah, that’s what I’m going to call it: the Media in Media series.

Some of my other Media in Media Series posts:

Mockingjay Part I post

Super Sad True Love Story post

Big Bang Theory post

You can also find the collection of them by clicking the pop culture category below, in case I missed some, which I’m sure I have. I just posted one (with a poll *hint, hint*) and I’m working on a great one with the show Bones, on Fox and it’s got a feminism twist too!

The Librarians on TNT

Posted in Media in Media, Pop Culture, Reviews, TV by

Posting a day early this week!

I am LOVING TNT’s new series The Librarians. To see people who love books, history, Latin, museum artifacts, and research, not holed up in some dusty basement crunching numbers, but out kicking butt and saving the world, is amazerful!

Promotional poster for The Librarians a new show on TNT. It comes on Sunday nights.

The Librarians has become apart of my already crowded Sunday night lineup, along with Downton Abbey and Once Upon a Time, which thankfully, is on hiatus until March.

The basic premise is that there’s a huge old library that exists in its own dimension. It’s contains all of these old artifacts from the famous myths we all know. Image the breadth and depth of the Library of Congress plus all the Smithsonian Institute and the National Archives in one huge maze of a room.

Continue reading →

Can’t get Typography out of my Head

Posted in Books, Classes, Movies, Projects by

It was extremely important to me that I acquired some serious design skills while earning my masters. It also happens that two design courses are required for my degree. I took them both and at some point each of them focused on typography. That was a year ago. I thought I was done.

Now, suddenly, almost a year later, my head is full of typography. I think it was prompted by the project I did for my class, which I also blogged about here, and also by my desire to design my own logo, but I notice it everywhere. I’m always trying to explain Gestalt principles to people, mostly my mom, who really doesn’t care.

It’s bad… Like this meme. LOL!

Ryan Gosling meme about typography.

My life has turned into typography. I can’t get it out of my head.

Since I can’t get it out of my head I’ve decided I only have one option… read books about it!

I’m going to start by rereading the text book for my class Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton (@EllenLupton). I’ll do some research for more in the coming weeks. Just don’t be surprised by the sudden influx of typography themed posts here. I’m just trying to get this out of my system. Please bear with me!

Books and New Media: Super Sad True Love Story

Posted in Books, Media in Media, Self Reflection by

My last post about new media and culture, RE: Mockingjay Part I, was well received, so I thought I’d do another one concerning my favorite subject ever… Books!

I read Super Sad True Love Story last year. It is so obviously a satire of our current situation as a nation that it’s more uncomfortable than funny.

IMG_1143.JPG

Everyone carries around these devices, äppäräts, the ultimate smart phone. They even can aggregate all the data produced by and about you, compare it to those around you, and spit out “hotness” and “compatibility” scores. The apparat then projects these scores constantly to all the apparats around you at all times. Imagine that your Klout score was taped to your forehead. Eek! If you haven’t calculated your Klout score… Don’t.

Needless to say this was another example of a possible path advanced tech can take that also freaks me out. The tech of itself seems fine i.e., not a weapon, but the characters dependence upon devices to determine other characters worth and value was terrifying! I was reminded of Sheryl Turkle’s Alone Together.

Reading this book, just like watching Mockingjay, made me wonder if society as a whole is really thinking about where technology is headed and if that’s a place we actually want to go. It’s the passive acceptance attitude of the characters in these works and in the real world that is just a little unnerving.