Du 5 au 8 janvier 2012 se tenait à Seattle le Congrès annuel de la MLA (Modern Language Association). Parmi un panel de plus de 700 sessions d’études sur les littératures françaises, espagnoles, américaines, allemandes, italiennes, l’Association des Amis d’André Gide proposait une séance consacrée à la femme dans l’œuvre et la vie d’André Gide intitulée The Feminine in André Gide’s Works and Life.

Cette session, qui avait lieu le vendredi 6 janvier 2012 au Sheraton de Seattle, était dirigée par Christine Latrouitte Armstrong, professeure associée de Français à l’Université de Denison (Ohio, USA).

Les trois interventions (en français pour la première et en anglais pour les deux suivantes selon l’ordre de passage établi par la présidente de séance) d’une vingtaine de minutes chacune ont permis de toucher à un point clef de l’œuvre gidienne dont certaines portes ne demandent qu’à s’ouvrir.

• “La place de la femme: Le second problème gidien”
  Justine Legrand, Paris Sorbonne Université, Cours de Civilisation Française de la Sorbonne ;

• “Quel deuil pour quel corps? Gide’s Elegiac Poetics in Et nunc manet in te”
  Alina Opreanu, Harvard Univ ;

• “Imagining Madeleine”
  John Sorrentino, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York.

Ces trois communications ont été suivies de questions et réflexions sur la condition féminine, et offrent de réelles perspectives de recherche sur des thèmes déjà abordés mais souvent peu développés par la critique gidienne.

Check out the fabulous photo of the three presenters: me, Alina Opreanu (Harvard), and Justine Legrand (La Sorbonne), and the moderator, Christine Latrouitte Armstrong (Denison). http://www.fondation-catherine-gide.org/2012/01/andre-gide-parisian-in-america.html

First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the panel that I had the privilege of being part of: The Feminine in André Gide’s Works and Life .  My co-panelists and I discussed different aspects of how Gide presents and deals with women in his works: Prof. Justine Legrand (La Sorbonne) presented a stunning paper on Geneviève and the ways that Gide posited lesbianism within that work; Prof. Alina Opreanu (Harvard) discussed Et nunc manet in te, Gide’s elegiac memoir about his life with and marriage to Madeleine following her death, a presentation that lead almost seamlessly to mine entitled “Imagining Madeleine” where I discussed the way that the drama of the character of Alissa in La Porte étroite articulates to an imagined/eventual future Gide’s estranged marriage to Madeleine.  The evening before my presentation, I added a reference to Charles O’Keefe’s book Void and Voice (where O’Keefe declares that the narrator of La Porte étroite, Jérôme, “lies”).  One of the people in attendance who offered some rather insightful (and hilarious) reflections during the Q&A turned out to be none other than Charles O’Keefe himself.  What a joy and honor to have him there, and what a relief that I did not know that it was he beforehand!  Special thanks to the Association des amis d’André Gide and Prof. Christine Latrouitte Armstrong (Denison) for convening and supporting the panel.

I attended some other amazing panels that I found truly inspiring.  One was a poetry panel where my department chair, Prof. Peter Consenstein, discussed Georges Perec (“Georges Perec, a Man Asleep, Is You,”), as well as a panel on disability studies that has fortified my own work with Gide’s La Symphonie pastorale with respect to the character of Gertrude, and finally a panel on the Digital Humanities that my friend and colleague Prof. Lauren Klein (Georgia Tech) convened on slave narratives.  The question I ask myself is in what ways can I use DH in the research and reading of Gide?

In all the experience was worth more than I could have expected or hoped for.  It was inspiring to be at this conference among academics in the humanities from all over the world, and a true privilege to see so many past and current colleagues in attendance.

See you all at the MLA 2013 in Boston!

I am writing this because when I tried to find information about what quirks there are to using indoor antennas and getting a digital/HDTV signal in New York City, I just couldn’t find anybody else who had documented the experience.  May this information help you and set you free!

Getting clear, free, over the air TV broadcasts in New York City

"I'll cut your heart out, Walter."

One thing to know: all channels since the digital transition in 2009 broadcast on a set of “subchannels” – Channel 2 is now 2-1, Channel 4 is 4-1, and so on… (a digital flat screen will have the little “-” on its remote control’s keypad).  Some of these channels offer alternative programming, and I was thrilled that 11-4 is Antenna TV and I can watch reruns of All in the Family and Maude! (You can get more information and see what channels you can expect to potentially receive by going to Antenna Web and plugging in your address.)

Another thing to know: there is no such thing as an “HD antenna” – if the signal is strong enough, a coat hanger can bring in a perfectly good digital HD signal.  You can, in fact, use your old rabbit ears as long as it has the UHF loop.  One example is this one from RCA that retails between $5 and $10.  If you live in an area with a strong enough signal, it should work.

Again, I live in Midtown Manhattan, on the third floor of a brick building – I’m surrounded by taller buildings and don’t see a lot of open sky.  I attached the cheap RCA antenna to my set, scanned for channels, and lo and behold, I got in Channels 7 and 11 clearly.  Channel 5 was weak, but it did come in.  But nothing else.  I was frustrated, but hopeful.  After trying different kinds of antennas, I splurged on a Clearstream Micron High Gain Indoor TV Antenna from Antennas Direct.

It’s a fairly attractive piece of equipment about the size of an 8×10 picture frame.  I plugged it in, and I got a perfect signal for channels 2, 4, 5, and 9, plus several others between 14 and 69.  But I was frustrated.  Where were channels 7, 11, and 13?  They had a sticker on their antenna that said “call to learn, don’t return.”  So I did.  What I found out was that in New York, some of the broadcast channels (7, 11, and 13) actually broadcast on VHF (which requires the rabbit ears), while the others (2, 4, 5, and 9 and the others above 14) broadcast on UHF (which requires the loop antenna). That explained why one antenna was good for some channels, and why and the other was good for the rest. I have to note that the small loop on the RCA simply wasn’t strong enough to pick up a significant UHF signal where I am, but I do know that it worked for a friend of mine who lives just a few blocks from me, which just demonstrates the fickle nature the signal in New York City despite the fact that we are right near the transmitters; this is probably because the signal gets intercepted by all the buildings.

The solution for me was to use both of the antennas I had, but how?  Turns out, there is a tiny piece of equipment that is called a UHF/VHF Diplexer that allows you to hook both antennas up to your set.  Once Antennas Direct sent me that one missing piece, I was done.  It’s kind of stunning – you can get a crystal-clear, high-definition signal that looks as good as any cable signal FOR FREE.  Yes, you do have to look at an antenna or two, and yes, you do have to adjust them a little bit for different channels, BUT, you don’t have to have an energy-sucking cable box plugged in 24/7. And did I mention, it’s FREE?

And with the addition of Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming via a Roku player you can still enjoy movies or watch current episodes of a lot of TV shows on demand for a fraction of the cable price.  Seriously, cable has gotten more and more expensive over the years, but they did it bit by bit so we barely noticed it until we were writing checks that were as high as $163 every month.  And whereas some of the features that they are able to provide us (caller ID on the TV, remote DVR programming) are really cool and useful, I have to remind myself that their level of “cool” wasn’t really worth what I was paying every month. So I’m saving $100/month having gotten rid of cable and phone service, and now I don’t have to see crap like Tia and Tamara and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Yeah, I’ll miss Food Network and HGTV, but I can stream, can’t I…???

Because that’s probably what I’m supposed to be doing.  Or what I’m supposed to be writing about.

You see, André Gide is the target author for my dissertation in the PhD Program in French at the CUNY Graduate Center.  But my site is more about me and my work than about him and his, although I do reserve the right, from time to time, to write about what I’m writing about as I establish myself as a Gide scholar, a professor of French language and literature, and an instructional technologist.

Please peruse my site.  It is a place where I can reflect on and showcase my work and interests.  Little by little, I will be posting some information and reflections regarding selected Instructional Tech Projects that I’ve tackled with students over the course of the last few years.  Eventually, I want this site to be the “portal site” not only for teaching sites that I will use for my students in various classes but also for a future project that I envision will be a site that will serve as information and support for men dealing with pituitary tumors.

Enjoy what I have thus far – I look forward to questions and feedback!

SocioWiki NYC - Macaulay Honors College/Brooklyn College, Spring 2007

The “SocioWiki” was the first wiki project (I will be posting more) I directed with Macaulay Honors College students at Brooklyn College for their Seminar 2 “The Peopling of New York City.” When we began this project, none of us – not the students, nor I, nor most of my colleagues – knew anything about MediaWiki, so the learning curve was substantial. The main reason that we decided to create our website on a wiki platform was because of the collaborative nature of MediaWiki, as well as the ability to roll back pages and keep track of changes.  For the professor, being able to see exactly who did the work based on each page’s “history,” helped him evaluate individual student’s participation.

The students worked in groups, focusing the people who live in selected neighborhoods of New York City (Hells Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, SoHo, and Park Slope).  They provided an analysis from a historical, immigration and sociological perspective, employing customized maps (using Google Maps), YouTube videos and interviews, walking tours, galleries of photos, and even a flash-based map on the home page (pictured above) that linked to the home pages of each neighborhood. The wiki worked well as a place where the projects could be built from scratch, and website visitors can look at the “history” of any page to see an archive of how the students imagined and developed their ideas.

My job as administrator involved installing the “extensions” that enabled mapping, YouTube video embedding, audio embedding, and footnoting, as well as installing and customizing the “skin” of the site.  I created and conducted workshops that aided students with MediaWiki markup, page creation, and organization, and I took what I learned back to my colleagues so they could employ them with their own students.

wayne