Professor Edits New Book

Dr. Shawn Long, Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, is the editor of a forthcoming book, Virtual Work and Human Interaction Research. From the promotional flyer:

Virtual Work and Human Interaction Research uses humanistic and social scientific inquiry from interdisciplinary and international perspectives to explore how individuals engage in the new virtual work paradigm. This book explores a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, boundary management in virtual work, shadowing virtual work practices, creative workers’attitudes in virtual work, high-touch interactivity in virtual experiences, surveys, interviews experimental, ethnography grounded-theory, and phenomenology in virtual work contexts.

Professor Conducting Study on the Meaning of Marriage

Dr. Ebony Utley, Assistant Professor of Communications at California State University Long Beach, is part of a research team conducting a study on the meaning of marriage for African Americans. They hope to expand the literature with the quantitative and qualitative results from their study. The team is inviting anyone that self-identifies as African American and is at least 18 years old, to take approximately 20 minutes to complete their confidential online survey about the meaning of marriage to African Americans. The goal is to have 1,000 participants and upon completion of the survey, participants are eligible to win a $50 gift card. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Utley at ebony.utley@csulb.edu

Black Herstory: Rosa Parks Did Much More than Sit on a Bus

By Rachel Griffin
Ms. Magazine Blog

As a Black feminist scholar, every February I find myself troubled by the ways that we simultaneously remember and forget women who look like me. Not that I’m satisfied with the memory of Black women every other month of the year but February–Black History Month–can be especially disappointing. I find myself wanting to rant to anyone within earshot, “Rosa Parks did more than sit on a bus!!!”
My urge to scream is rooted in our common cultural practice of remembering Parks only as a demure and delicate old seamstress who sparked the civil rights movement. The common assertion is that Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. But we must confront this assertion, because each time we confine her memory to that moment we erase part of her admirable character, strategic intellect and indomitable spirit.
Read the rest here