Art by Committee: The Story Behind the Writing of “Shake Girl”

in Books, Stanford | May 29th, 2008

Here at Stan­ford, a cou­ple of our teach­ers (Tom Kealey and Adam John­son) took a nov­el approach to run­ning a writ­ing class. They want­ed to see what hap­pens when 14 stu­dents col­lec­tive­ly write, edit and illus­trate a graph­ic nov­el. (A graph­ic nov­el is a type of com­ic book that fea­tures a lengthy and com­plex sto­ry­line.) Fast for­ward a few weeks, and you can see what the class pro­duced. Their nov­el, “a wild­ly ambi­tious, emo­tion­al­ly sear­ing sto­ry,” based on a series of true events, is called Shake Girl, and you can start read­ing it here. Should you want to learn more about the writ­ing of this col­lab­o­ra­tive nov­el, you can lis­ten to this pod­cast that gives you the back­sto­ry and also read this sec­tion of the Shake Girl web­site.

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Stanford Online Writing Courses

in Stanford | May 20th, 2008

A quick fyi: Yes­ter­day, Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies opened up reg­is­tra­tion for its sum­mer line­up of online writ­ing cours­es. Offered in part­ner­ship with the Stan­ford Cre­ative Writ­ing Pro­gram (one of the most dis­tin­guished writ­ing pro­grams in the coun­try), these online cours­es give begin­ning and advanced writ­ers, no mat­ter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gift­ed writ­ing instruc­tors.

Reg­is­tra­tion opened yes­ter­day, and some of the class­es are almost full. Class­es will start dur­ing the last week of June. For more infor­ma­tion, click here, or sep­a­rate­ly check out the FAQ.

Caveat emp­tor: These class­es are not free, and I helped set them up. So while I whole­heart­ed­ly believe in these cours­es, you can take my views with a grain of salt.

Sum­mer Cours­es:

By the way, if you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area and want to keep the mind engaged, give some thought to Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. Our full sum­mer cat­a­logue is here.

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Thomas Friedman (While Not Dodging Eco-Pies) Argues “Green is the New Red, White & Blue”

in Current Affairs, Stanford | April 23rd, 2008

Speak­ing at Brown Uni­ver­si­ty ear­li­er this week, Thomas Fried­man had to deal with some unfor­tu­nate extra-cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties. As he took the stage, two stu­dents call­ing them­selves the “Green­wash Gueril­las” launched pies (video here) at Fried­man and large­ly missed. But they did leave behind some pam­phlets spelling out their motives. Accord­ing to The Brown Dai­ly Her­ald, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning jour­nal­ist for The New York Times deserved this dis­rup­tion because of “his sick­en­ing­ly cheery applaud for free mar­ket cap­i­tal­is­m’s con­quest of the plan­et” and “for help­ing turn envi­ron­men­tal­ism into a fake plas­tic con­sumer prod­uct for the priv­i­leged.” Some­where the giants of rev­o­lu­tion­ary rhetoric are gri­mac­ing and won­der­ing what hap­pened to their once well prac­ticed art.

Now that I’ve got your atten­tion, I want to point you to a talk that Fried­man gave last year at Stan­ford — Green is the New Red, White and Blue (iTunes). The talk takes you into the heart of Fried­man’s com­plex think­ing about the envi­ron­ment (and all that the Green Gueril­las odd­ly take issue with). And it’s pre­sent­ed with the same intel­li­gence that you’ll find on dis­play in the sec­ond most down­loaded pod­cast on iTunes U: The World is Flat. (This sec­ond talk was pre­sent­ed at MIT, and it’s only exceed­ed in pop­u­lar­i­ty by Randy Pausch’s soul­ful lec­ture, “Real­ly Achiev­ing Your Child­hood Dreams,” which we fea­tured on Mon­day.) Fried­man’s think­ing in the Stan­ford pod­cast (give it a lis­ten, you’ll be bet­ter for it) lays the foun­da­tion for his new book due out in August — Hot, Flat, and Crowd­ed: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew Amer­i­ca.

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Global Geopolitics: A New Stanford Course on iTunes

in Online Courses, Stanford | April 17th, 2008

Today we’re high­light­ing for you a new course post­ed on Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s iTunes site. Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed by Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (where I hap­pi­ly spend my days), Glob­al Geopol­i­tics is taught by geog­ra­phy expert Mar­tin Lewis, and “exam­ines the glob­al polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion from a geo­graph­i­cal per­spec­tive. Top­ics include: how the coun­tries of the world were formed and came to occu­py their present ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­fig­u­ra­tions; bor­der con­flicts and oth­er spa­tial­ly based inter­na­tion­al issues; strug­gles for seces­sion from estab­lished states and move­ments for ter­ri­to­ri­al­ly based auton­o­my; and the devel­op­ment and enlarge­ment of supra­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions such as the Euro­pean Union (EU) and the Asso­ci­a­tion of South­east Asian Nations (ASEAN). While the course is glob­al­ly com­pre­hen­sive, spe­cial atten­tion will be giv­en to cur­rent sites of geo-polit­i­cal ten­sion. Maps will be used exten­sive­ly for both descrip­tive and ana­lyt­i­cal pur­pos­es.”

[NOTE: This is an enchanced pod­cast that allows you to see images and maps ref­er­enced in the lec­tures. To view them, click on View, then Show Art­work, in iTunes. This will let you see them on your com­put­er.]

You can now down­load the first lec­ture. Addi­tion­al lec­tures will be released in week­ly install­ments. The course is also list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties.

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History, Power and our Global Society

in History, Politics, Stanford | March 12th, 2008

Here’s a new, free course from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Taught by James Shee­han, the His­to­ry of the Inter­na­tion­al Sys­tem (iTunes) offers a his­tor­i­cal view of inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics in the 20th cen­tu­ry, explor­ing how inter­na­tion­al play­ers have attempt­ed to project their will and pro­tect their inter­ests, all while nego­ti­at­ing flu­id and not always man­age­able exter­nal forces. The course looks back at com­mu­nism, fas­cism and lib­er­al­ism, then moves through the Cold War to the present day, and ends with cur­rent events in Iraq. An impor­tant his­to­ri­an and one of Stan­ford’s finest lec­tur­ers, Shee­han was recent­ly Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can His­tor­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. So far four lec­tures have been post­ed (see here), and there will be more to come.

NOTE: This course has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es, where you can find about 120 top-notch cours­es.

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Online Writing Courses at Stanford (Spring)

in Stanford | February 24th, 2008

Quick fyi: Start­ing Mon­day, you can sign up for online writ­ing cours­es at Stan­ford. (See list below.) Offered by Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies and the Stan­ford Cre­ative Writ­ing Pro­gram (one of the most dis­tin­guished writ­ing pro­grams in the coun­try), these online cours­es give begin­ning and advanced writ­ers, no mat­ter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gift­ed writ­ing instruc­tors and smart peers. Just to be clear, the cours­es are not free, and they will start the first week of April. For more infor­ma­tion, click here, or sep­a­rate­ly check out the FAQ.

(Full dis­clo­sure: I helped set up these cours­es and think they’re a great edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty. But nonethe­less take my opin­ion with a grain of salt.)

Spring Cours­es:

By the way, if you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area and want to keep the mind engaged, give some thought to Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. Our full spring cat­a­logue is here.

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Lawrence Lessig’s Last Speech on Free Culture (Watch it)

in Current Affairs, Law, Stanford, Video - Politics/Society | February 20th, 2008

Below we have post­ed the last lec­ture that Lawrence Lessig will ever present on Free Cul­ture. It’s an area where he has spent the past decade work­ing, and this talk offers an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to Lessig’s thought and work on this issue. Giv­en at Stan­ford on Jan­u­ary 31, the pre­sen­ta­tion is one that Steve Jobs could appre­ci­ate. Very well done. So give it a watch below (or here). Also, if you’d like to get free dig­i­tal copies of Lessig’s major writ­ings on Free Cul­ture, look here.

As for what Lessig plans to do next. He has talked about com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion in Wash­ing­ton (some­thing he talks about here). That’s part of the plan, but he may do it by run­ning for Con­gress. Read this arti­cle in the Wall Street Jour­nal and check out the new site: Lessig08.com

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Online Writing Courses at Stanford

in Stanford | December 3rd, 2007

Quick fyi: Start­ing today, you can sign up for online writ­ing cours­es from Stan­ford. Offered by Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies and the Stan­ford Cre­ative Writ­ing Pro­gram (which is one of the most dis­tin­guished writ­ing pro­grams in the coun­try), these online cours­es give begin­ning and advanced writ­ers, no mat­ter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gift­ed writ­ing instruc­tors and smart peers. Just to be clear, the cours­es are not free.

Reg­is­tra­tion starts today, and the cours­es (see the list below) will go from Jan­u­ary 14 — March 23. For more infor­ma­tion, click here, or sep­a­rate­ly check out the FAQ.

(Full dis­clo­sure: I helped set up these cours­es and think they’re a great edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty. But nonethe­less take my opin­ion with a grain of salt.)

Win­ter Cours­es:

By the way, if you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area and want to keep the mind engaged, give some thought to Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. Our full win­ter cat­a­logue is here.

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