words make everything better.: spring semester, 2023 + attendant miscellany

there's not been much of anything new in my courses for several semesters now... but at long last, this spring, I am teaching a very brand new course-- brand new both to me and to everyone:

HU 145: Themes in Humanities (the art and history of podcasts)

HU 145 is a sort of catch-all lower-level Humanities credit, required of all students so we can make sure our pilots and engineers have some well-roundedness about them. I have specifically themed my version of this course around "the art and history of podcasts," because why the heck not. it has been so, so fun to plan for this little 100-level intro course. nothing like it has ever been taught on this campus. and maybe nothing like it has been taught anywhere, since I have been making it all up as I go.

the welcome note / course description I wrote for students / the course catelog goes more or less like this:

This semester, we will explore podcasts and other audio productions from a critical perspective. We will practice our listening skills while examining the conventions of radio and audio production, analyzing the styles and genres of specific productions, and thinking carefully about the cultural contexts in which audio media circulate ideas and contribute to public (or not so public) discourse. Tracing similarities and differences across the history of recorded sound, we will discuss how audio media has been used to record historical events and stories, to foster fandoms and communities, and to shape or re-shape human cultures.

alongside two sections of that awesomeness, I've got one good old standard section of COM 221: Technical Report Writing.

my students all seem pretty cool so far. it's early in the semester-- we're all still getting to know each other. I trust that learning is happening, little by little, in all of our spongey curious brains.

relatively unrelatedly, I'm gonna toss some recent photo bits in this post. do enjoy the randomness.