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MCC Daily Tribune

Filling Station: A Faculty Research Presentation Series Reveals Its Spring 2018 Lineup

The Spring 2018 Filling Station Calendar has arrived. Save the date and encourage students, staff, and friends to attend the following presentations:

Professor Louis Silvers (World Languages and Cultures): February 09, 12-12:50PM, in 8-200

Born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, Louis Silvers moved to the United States in 1981 to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, and has been living in this country since. Professionally, Prof. Silvers has a background in both the corporate world and in college teaching. He has worked in marketing, sales and corporate training with the Hallmark Cards Company, both in the United States and in France, and he spent about two years as a computer linguist at AT&T. He has been teaching at Monroe Community College since September 1995. He is also one of the instructors in the Model United Nations program. Louis's Filling Station presentation will focus on the challenges of communicating with speakers of other languages by means of translation and interpretation. He will also discuss how technology influences spoken languages of today.

Dr. Mike Jacobs (Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences): March 16, 12-12:50PM, in 8-200

Before serving as Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at MCC, Dr. Michael Jacobs was Chair of English at Berkeley College in New York City and founding Director of the Consortium for Critical Reading, Writing, and Thinking. Dr. Jacobs's research examines the influence of literary modernism on documentary journalism--as well as how comparable sociopolitical conditions in the U.S. during the Great Depression and Vietnam War Era gave rise to equally comparable surges in the production and quality of works that cross over the borders of literature and journalism. His most recent publications include "Confronting the (Un)Reality of Pranksterdom: Tom Wolfe and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (published in Literary Journalism Studies) and "From Cotton Pickin' to Acid Droppin': James Agee and the New Journalism" (featured in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men at 75: Anniversary Essays--Univ. of Tennessee Press). For his Filling Station presentation, Mike will discuss his work with James Agee's and Walker Evans's seminal, Depression era text-and-picture book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Drawing on both the poetics and humanist ambitions of the so-called high modernists, Famous Men seeks to represent faithfully the lives of Alabama tenant farmers--"an undefended and appallingly damaged group of human beings." In abandoning the conventional journalistic forms of their day, which often sought to sensationalize and commodify the poor, Agee and Evans succeeded in documenting "the uncapturable beauties of existence."

Professor Jason Flack (Visual and Performing Arts): April 20, 12-12:50PM, in 8-200

Jason Flack is an Associate Professor of Photography and Video Production at Monroe Community College. As an artist, photographer, filmmaker, and "want-to-be" animator, his work has been exhibited regionally and nationally, and has only been censored once by Bausch and Lomb. He is a member of the "For Drawing Sake" group, a "Deadwood" member, is the founder of Space 86 art space, and a self-proclaimed vinyl nerd. Jason's current body of research is focused on the use of hand-made or modified camera technology and their subsequent images. Currently, he is exploring the city space with these altered and built cameras, with plans to expand that exploration outward as I gain a better understanding of the equipment. While presenting both the cameras and the final photographic images, my plan for the lecture is to discuss my process, as well as explore the concept of the intersection of technology and knowledge with chance and luck.

As Filling Station continues to grow, more professors are incorporating some or all of the presentations into their curriculum. If you would like to tie any of the presentations for next season to your course material and bring whole sections to the events, do not hesitate to do so.

Anthony Leuzzi
English/Philosophy
11/08/2017