Monthly Archives: March 2015

Madeleine explaining Pathfinders to visitors to her poster at SURCA

Madeleine Brookman and I are in Pullman, WA to show the work that Madeleine has done on the Pathfinders multimedia book to hundreds of faculty and students at WSU’s main campus.  The event is called SURCA (Student Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity) showcase. We have hauled iPads, a pedestal, laptop, and copies of Patchwork Girl, Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse, and other works of early e-lit to show to the audience.  With 102 videos and other media already organized into the Scalar environment, the book is looking robust.  Her work will be evaluated by judges and could possibly win an award––a Crimson, if it wins 1st place, or a Gray if it wins 2nd place.  She has also applied for a CAS Summer Mini-Grant and another Auvil Fellowship for next year to continue her work on the project.

The open-source, multimedia book created in Scalar that we are making for  Pathfinders is almost ready.  It will be comprised of 102 videos of authors’ and reader’s traversals and interviews + commentary by Stuart and me for each work + images and documentation about each work.  So much credit goes to my research assistant Madeleine Brookman, who edited a lot of the video, uploaded them all to Vimeo and then arranged them in the Scalar structure that Stuart and I produced. It was a very pleasant shock to realize yesterday that we are so close to completing this first phase of Pathfinders.

I am also pleased to announce that Madeleine has been invited to talk about her research with Pathfinders at the 2015  Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities at WSU Pullman at the end of March.  This is a highly competitive event and one that results in prizes for the best projects.  Needless to say, I am very proud of her.  Madeleine is a recipient of a 2014 Auvil Scholars Fellowship and has applied for the 2015 fellowship as well.  Her work on Pathfinders shows that she is very adept at independent research.

Finally, Pathfinders has been featured in the university’s Research Now! publication.  Here is a link to the article.