afterMAPH is written by the staff and alumni of the Master of Arts Program in Humanities at the University of Chicago as a service to alumni to provide alumni news and announcements, as well as a discussion forum for MAPH alumni.
Here’s a thoughtful piece from Diego Arispe-Bazan (MAPH 2011), who worked as a MAPH intern at the Smart Museum on campus after graduation. Diego talks about his work, focusing on the introduction of new technologies into the gallery experience and curatorial practice.
Here’s an excerpt:
The debate on interpretive technologies was lively among the Smart interns. It centered on the issue of how multiplicity in experience could be flattened out. The argument is not without basis: interpretive technology, used indiscriminately, can turn a gallery into an arcade. In fact, certain visitors who shared this view eschewed the iPads entirely. However, through my observation and the comments gathered from the museum guards, it became clear that those who chose to pick up the iPads were eager to embrace the integration of interactive digital media into the gallery experience.
Eric McMillan's unit, capturing an arms cache in Iraq (2007)
In response to Nick Fox’s (MAPH 2011) thoughts about military service in the wake of 9/11 Eric McMillan (MAPH 2010) offers a guest reflection on life after combat. Eric was honorably discharged from the US Army having attained the rank of Captain and is working on a book about the life of a soldier. He lives with his wife in Seattle.
Walking from my apartment to campus was like planning a patrol. First, I determined a route I would take. Then I planned an alternate route, a contingency route, an emergency route. I could never get over how many kids I saw walking around listening to iPods instead of paying attention to their surroundings. Every morning, I laid out my packing list and prepared as if I were going outside the wire. As I walked, I watched people’s hands, classified them as “threat/ no threat,” peered around every alleyway before crossing them, watched windows on the second stories of the street. I did this all year in the sun and the rain and snow. It was habit. It was survival. It was what I knew. Continued…
Nick is one of many former military officers and enlisted men and women who have come to the program after serving. Many thanks to all of you. We have you in our thoughts.
This fall, join us for at least two (!) alumni events in Chicago. And stay tuned, MAPH is taking the “Clark Street Ale House Reality Experience” on the road. We’ll be hosting alumni events in Cities That Are Not Chicago this year. We’re thinking about New York in the Fall. Would people come to a MAPH alumni Holiday Party in New York? (What are these magical events? Find out after the jump…) Continued…
Last week’s BEAR! (no wait BULL!) market reminded me of a conversation I had a while back with Brian Richards, Managing Editor at The Motley Fool, a financial services company based out of Alexandria, VA (just a hop over the Potomac in DC). Click here to see Brian’s last fifty articles.
I asked Brian how he got into finance after MAPH, where he wrote his thesis on the topic of (depending on how you look at it, either perfectly applicable to finance, or not) horror films. At the conclusion of the program, he got a job in academic book publishing, and it was this first move after graduation that helped shape his career. “That’s where I got my skills and my vocation in editing,” he says. He worked on the academic side of the publishing industry for three years before finding an editorial opening at The Fool.
Brian says he had always considered stock-watching a hobby (heeding advice from his grandfather to invest wisely and be mindful of his money), and it made sense to apply editing skills in a field where he already had interest. This was especially true, given the background of The Fool‘s founders. “We’re very stock and investing focused,” Brian says, “but the guys who founded the company were English majors.” (Hence the company’s name, a nod to Shakespeare). Today, the site aims to publish sharp analysis of stocks, providing investors with insights and leaving news reporting and aggregation to other outlets.
“We leave questions about what happened to other publications,” Richards says. “We provide the so what and now what.”
Indexes are off a percentage point today on bad news from the German economy. So……..now what?
Brian lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two children (the second of which arrived just two months ago). Congrats!
Check out this video featuring Judy Hecker (MAPH 97), Associate Curator in the Prints and Illustrated Books Department at MoMA in New York. She gives an introduction to her most recent curatorial effort, Impressions from South Africa, which runs through August 29. Judy studied art history at the University of Chicago as a MAPHer in the program’s inaugural class. Keep an eye out for her upcoming profile in Tableau. The cover story of the fall issue will be “A Brief History of MAPH” offering some perspective on the successes and challenges that the program has faced since its inception.
Check out Mike Wilson, this summer’s MAPH intern at WBEZ’s Chicago News Magazine 848. He complains about [slash] lovingly describes watching “football” in America….as a foreigner. Listen to Mike’s soothing accent, which fits in perfectly with the NPR set. There are other silly accents in his piece too.
And, when you’re done, imagine yourself working at NPR and figure out your own NPR name.
MAPH Beach, on the northern side of Promontory Point. A popular site for recent-alumni watching, and laying in the sun like an iguana.
Summer!
The long hangover from Graduation and Reunion is beginning to subside. Thanks to everyone who made our end of the year events such a success. For those of you who couldn’t make it to Reunion, we hope to see you at the upcoming alumni happy hours at what has become the official MAPH Alumni watering hole: Clark Street Ale House. Info on dates to follow.
As far as big days in summer go, today is a big day in MAPHCentral. The class of 2012 is being added to the MAPH and MAPH-etc lists, which means that the latest MAPH alums are being added to IRONY, the alumni list. Big.
To our newly-minted alumni (and any new students who want to get a better idea of who our alumni are), don’t forget to join several of our social networking groups. Rather than spamming alumni on Irony, messages from MAPHCentral about events and alumni news will appear only on Facebook. We will send ONE quarterly Alumni Newsletter to Irony, but if you want regular updates, be sure to do the following:
“Like” the MAPH Facebook Page (and while you’re at it, tell five of your friends about it! We’ll have 1600 alumni by next June, and we’d love to have as many MAPHers on the Facebook page).
Keep reading AfterMAPH for alumni profiles, tips about careers and networking, and other news from campus.
And, as always, if you have any questions or just want to check in, email me at ajaronstein@uchicago.edu. We’re working on developing even more ways for alumni and current students to work together, so stay tuned.
Click on the cover image below to open a slideshow presentation of the Official MAPH Reunion Program. We’re excited to see so many of you this Friday (June 3), and hope that those of you coming from afar have safe travels.
Included in the program is a welcome message from MAPHCentral, a schedule of events, bios and headshots of all of our panelists, and information regarding the location and transportation options for the evening event at English Bar and Restaurant at 444 N Lasalle Street in River North. Please do not hesitate to contact A-J Aronstein (ajaronstein@uchicago) with any additional questions, requests, or concerns that you might have!
You can also download a printable pdf copy of the directions to English here: Directions to English. Remember that you can reach MAPHCentral at 773-834-1201 at any point during the day in case you need more information. Program after the jump): Continued…
More of the folks who will be presenting at Reunion!
David Alm
David Alm is a New York City-based journalist and adjunct professor at Hunter College and NYU’s School for Continuing and Professional Studies. He has written for more than a dozen magazines, covering new media business, culture, and art; independent film; and his avocation, competitive distance running, for Runner’s World. He has also ghostwritten two books on new media design and digital filmmaking, respectively, for a world-renowned Web designer. From 2007 to 2010, he was the chief writer for a social issues and political blog sponsored by the fashion company Kenneth Cole Productions, covering a wide range of topics under the rubric of “raising awareness.” For that project, he also covered the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2008. As a professor, he has taught reporting, magazine writing, cultural criticism, the business of magazine publishing, and also several courses on film history and analysis, the humanities, and rhetoric. In addition to his writing and teaching work, he has sat on numerous panels and juries, evaluating screenplays, art, web design, and journalism for award and grant purposes. In his spare time, he trains for and travels to road races in the U.S. and abroad.
Andrew Rostan
Andrew Rostan was born in 1984 in Boardman, Ohio, the beginning of a three-hundred-and-sixty degree journey around America with a detour in Amsterdam. After starting his bachelor’s degree in Boston and finishing it in Los Angeles (graduating summa cum laude in film from Emerson College), he worked as a script reader and bookseller before deciding to return to school. He was accepted into the MAPH program after the six other institutions he applied to had turned him down*, and this was the best possible outcome for him, as he met so many wonderful friends and his girlfriend. His body of work includes one filmed short screenplay and five unproduced feature-length ones, a 594-page piece of utter crap which could vaguely be described as a novel, a MAPH thesis, and An Elegy for Amelia Johnson. He does not know what the future holds, except more reading and more graphic novels…he’s presently working on four of them.
*Andrew received his acceptance letter after being awake for 36 hours straight in Las Vegas, not to gamble and party but to see Akron/Family play a 2 a.m. concert.
I asked Brian how he got into finance after MAPH, where he wrote his thesis on the topic of (depending on how you look at it, either perfectly applicable to finance, or not) horror films. At the conclusion of the program, he got a job in academic book publishing, and it was this first move after graduation that helped shape his career. “That’s where I got my skills and my vocation in editing,” he says. He worked on the academic side of the publishing industry for three years before finding an editorial opening at The Fool.
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