ke ogs/sshrc - take two

This doctoral research project has two primary aims. First, to document and describe non state-based and non-corporate organizations which operate to promote photographic communication and photographic learning. De Cuyper (1998) and Braden (1983) each detail a rich history of community arts practice utilizing photography from late 20th century Britain. However, no comparable history of such practice in Canada exists at present. Through interviews and archival research, this project will begin to fill this gap by developing a history of community arts photographic practice in Ontario. The second aim of this research is to describe and define the social benefits, perceived and actual, of the activities conducted by these organizations. Given that photography-centered community arts practices exist in some form in most major Canadian cities (and in many smaller communities as well), it is apparent that a range of agents deem them of social value—both those who fund them and those who participate in them. By engaging in case study explorations of several arts-based practices, including field research in at least one community arts setting and with one visual arts cooperative organization, I intend to develop a theoretical framework that defines key activities, goals, and practices of community arts agencies and their participants. Doing so may be crucial to developing a strong policy position that argues for maintaining or increasing small-scale, autonomous, and community-supported initiatives such as these—particularly important in the face of continuously eroding funding for the arts (at least at the federal level) in 21st century Canada.

ogs/sshrc draft --comments?

hey folks--long time no chat! mind taking a gander at the following proposal and dropping in your 2 cents? thanks -k

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Several decades ago, Su Braden proposed that the new kind of critical literacy afforded by photochemical, electronic, and digital communications technologies was limited by our conventional notions of what constitutes “literacy.” The public’s capacities to understand and communicate through a wide variety of symbolic forms—not simply the written word—remained inconsequential, she argued, as long as written language predominated and was institutionalized.

Despite the proliferation of images and image-making technologies that characterize our contemporary cultural existence nearly 30 years later, our institutions seem more bound to the written word—not less—than ever before. In a culture where anti-bullying by-laws are adopted to protect a school board’s teachers as much as its students, and where the equivalent of a EULA (an End User Licensing Agreement) can dictate how one “operates” a package of fresh green grapes, it is apparent that a proficiency in manipulating the written word remains a singularly powerful ability. Yet, as I intend to argue, this is an ability that is not entirely inevitable.

This doctoral research project has two primary aims. First, to document and theorize communicative practices that exist outside of mainstream, text-centered institutional settings. This will entail a case-study exploration of several arts-based practices, including sustained field research in at least one community arts setting, and with at least one visual arts cooperative organization. The second aim of this research is to articulate how visual experience might be better developed and understood as a component of democratic participation in mainstream society. More specifically, this project will suggest how elements of a visual “literacy”—that is, learning about visual rhetoric and skill-development with image-based technologies—might complement and extend traditional literacy strategies, both to support the imperative of text-based language learning, and to provide engaging alternatives to those marginalized from traditional language learning strategies.

Notes from Congress '08

hey there from Vancouver;

the transcript to the keynote to Congress 2008 has been posted on the UBC site. the title is intriguing, tho' it strikes me as odd for someone for whom it does actually matter to ask and answer whether "universities really matter."

anyway, i look forward to reading the keynote (i've been horribly bad at attending, and selfish at taking a vacation); here it is (as a PDF file):

Stephen Toope: "Crossing Borders, Contesting Values: Do Universities Matter?"

Back to the Applicators: Payments and Restrictions

I'm still onto looking at all of my parameters for making a decision for Calgary vs. Waterloo and putting together my evaluation grid (incorporating Marta's expertise), and I am a bit confused about the funding component in terms of invisible funding "ceilings". Both Waterloo and Calgary have offered similar base funding, but now I am confused about the additional funding, which I would like to get.

For instance, at Calgary, if you receive a Faculty of Graduate Studies award, and then another award valued the same or higher, you have to GIVE BACK the FGS award. While I understand the concept, I'm now not sure if they make me reject my department award if I get a $15,000 award, and if this limits my funding possibilities.

According to Waterloo's funding guidelines if you get a provincial or national scholarship, they throw MORE money at you, not less. BUT you still have to check your departments funding guidelines on how they deal with awards (for instance, do they pull some of your base funding?).

So, while they currently both offer similar funding, I want to make sure that there is possibility of more funding potential, rather than a possibly low ceiling placed on my income for those years.
Has anyone else put some thought into this practical side?

survey from SSHRC on my funding

so in 2004 i was awarded a canada graduate scholarship (cgs) from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada in the amount of $17,500 for a year of my studies. not bad! i was hoping to get something more than a support bursary from ryerson the following year, but what can you do.

anyway, this morning i got a follow up email about a survey for scholarship recipients. a bunch of questions later (and there really were a lot of questions) i filled in the final "what are your comments?" box with the following response in an attempt to highlight a certain tendency and set of assumptions the survey (and in part the program) sshrc has about what grad research is. (so if they change funding in significant ways, particularly in ways i proposed, you have me to thank.) Anyway, my response is here:

"More funding needed to support graduate work that seeks to initiate autonomous research during grad studies, and continue it in community-based and non-profit settings following from graduation; the focus on "finding work" in this survey (and perhaps in the funding model more generally) cleaves a little too closely to the idea that grad work is merely another form of "job training," neglecting that this research may also lead to community/cultural leadership development, or other forms of social or collectivized knowledge production which exists outside a predominantly corporate domain."