Tag: teaching

Animal>>> Cyborg>>> Machine (2009)

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in #BlackLivesMatter, #ProfessionalBlackGirl, African Americans, art, automation, Blackness, blogging, civic culture, comics, communication, persuasion, politics, teaching, professional writing, composition, computers, cuteness, cyborgs, design, ethos, family, fashion, feminism, film, gender, higher education, hip-hop, information design, LGBT, rhetorics, robotics, science, sex & sexuality, sexual politics, sexual politics, space & spatiality, spatial justice, spatial rhetorics, style, technology, time & temporality, visual literacy, whiteness studies

This video is much racier and sleeker than the previous montage vid I posted; more sound effects and video clips.

Professional Black Girl: Video Series Celebrates ‘Everyday Excellence’ of Black Women

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in #ProfessionalBlackGirl, African Americans, beauty, communication, persuasion, politics, teaching, professional writing, composition, cute, cuteness, design, digital literacy, ethos, fashion, feminism, feminity, gender, hair, media, play, politics, professionalism, race, rhetorics, sexual politics, style, technology, video, visual literacy, YouTube

Professional Black Girl: Video Series Celebrates ‘Everyday Excellence’ of Black Women and Girls and explores the love language shared by black women, and how we twerk and work with unmatched professionalism. 

Episode 1

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#ProfessionalBlackGirl

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DURHAM, N.C. — Dr. Yaba Blay, renowned activist, cultural critic, and producer, launches Professional Black Girl, an original video series created to celebrate everyday Black womanhood, and to smash racist and “respectable” expectations of how they should “behave.”

Seventeen Black women and girls ranging in age from 2- to 52-years-old were interviewed for the series. Each episode features a candid discussion with personalities such as Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Rapsody; Joan Morgan, author of the Hip-Hop feminist classic When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost; and 13-year-old world traveler Nahimana Machen, sharing what it means to be a “Professional Black Girl.”

“‘Professional Black Girl’ looks like Taraji P. Henson at the 2015 Emmys jumping up to hug Viola Davis. It looks like Mary J. Blige and Taraji and Kerry Washington in that Apple commercial. It looks like me rolling up to a room full of people in Berlin to speak with my bamboo earrings on,” explains Tarana Burke, a non-profit consultant and fashion blogger featured in the series.

Limited edition Professional Black Girl merchandise, created in partnership with Philadelphia Printworks, is available now onphiladelphiaprintworks.com. The first full episode, featuring Dr. Blay, will air September 9, 2016, with an episode airing each Friday onYouTube and yabablay.com until December 23, 2016.

“The terminology that is often used to describe and define Black girls—such as bad, grown, fast, ghetto, and ratchet—are non-affirming and are words that are intended to kill the joy and magic within all Black girls,” says Dr. Blay. “We are professional code-switchers, hair-flippers, hip-shakers, and go-getters. We hold Ph.Ds and listen to trap music; we twerk and we work. We hold it down while lifting each other up, and we don’t have to justify or explain our reason for being. This is us.”

Follow #ProfessionalBlackGirl across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to celebrate and affirm the everyday excellence of Black women and girls.

For more information, or to interview Dr. Yaba Blay, please contact Shakirah Gittens at 718-687-6231 or by email at info@DynamicNLyfe.com.

FSU Office of Faculty Development

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in comics, computers, design, digital literacy, higher education, media, rhetorics, social media, technology, visual literacy, visual rhetoric, writing, Writing, YouTube

The FSU Office of Faculty Development (OFD) provides professional development opportunities to enhance educational endeavors at FSU and promote innovative pedagogical and technological practices that meet the needs of the student body. OFD’s vision is to provide an environment for collaboration and interaction among faculty members that lead to improved student learning… and they decided to feature me in a cute little video they made
(^_−)☆*

Cut-Pasta Scrolling as Literal Tactic for Computer Writing & Composing

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in computers, cute, digital literacy, education, play, rhetorics, space, technology, visual literacy, writing

Whew! Almost done!

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My cutting, pasting, and scrolling with Word.doc is a literal tactic for composing with a computer. After stealing whatever time I could throughout this summer for this particular writing project, it took me only 3 hours with paper, scissors, tape, and stapler to assemble my fragmented rants of cut-pasta into something meaningful and cohesive.

You should have seen my living room floor — scraps and scribbles were scattered everywhere. Rudimentary, for sure. Not cute; just cut. I need to hold and manipulate the printed-out letters inside my hand to process my words and lay out my ideas into an actual verbal horizon.

Obama holding pen and printed speech with heavily edit marks.
Even the president’s speeches go through a messy stage before they become a final published product.

True true. The virtual world is cool and all that, but give me a kinetic activity over staring at a computer screen any old day. Do I feel trepidation about so honestly revealing my writing process? Sure I do. Though if I were truly brave I would post video. (Let’s file that one under “never gonna happen” M’kay? :~)

So many act as though good writing can only occur through some special, innate gift or pretend as though they’re picking up on frequencies from some sort of otherworldly copia. Have I ever experienced the metaphysical phenomenon of feeling as though I was possessed by writing? Yes. I have on occasion. To be honest, I envy those people who have the writing bug and can’t ever seem to quit. For my part, I struggle to make regular blog posts at times!

Writer’s block can set in at any time, but it can be helped. When it comes down to it, the real world requires us to write when sometimes we just don’t have time (or think we don’t have time). It could happen during a period of life when you’re falling in love or maybe you’re dealing with difficulties related to your job and family. And then there are those times when we would all rather be at the beach. The thing about writing is you have to make the time to simply do it in whatever way it wants to be done — with the hopes that you’ve made the right de/cisions for re/visions.