We Need Gentle Truths for Now

About We Need Gentle Truths for Now

We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. Each short episode assembles materials made over three related efforts. First, complex and consequential ideas about fake news: “hardtruths.” These were gathered in 2017 for an online primer in digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index). There you can find scores of resources about fake news by artists, journalists, activists, scholars, and more. http://scalar.me/100hardtruths. (http://scalar.me/100hardtruths) Next we offer poems that build off of, respond to, or deepen a hardtruth. These were written in 2018 and 2019, at Fake News Poetry Workshops (http://fakenews-poetry.org/): encounters that address these complex concerns through art, intimacy, technology, and poetry. http://fakenews-poetry.org (http://fakenews-poetry.org). Finally, given both the digital and viral truths wrought by the crisis of COVID-19, and to provide some small relief, we provide resources and methods to deepen connection and possibility during a time of social distancing and via technology. Each episode offers things to do with others as well as things that were done before and for you. Tender hand-offs of digital things remind us how we can use technologies that distance us physically for better. Making and making use of poetry and related knowledge can create verification engines that rely on belief structures outside the endangering logics of the internet and the fake news propelled therein. We are people, distanced but maintaining, and we need more than the transmission of messages and data. We want connection, goodness, reason, feeling, and change. In a time when we are more reliant on digital technology than ever, each episode demonstrates methods to take part in digital defiance, without collusion, and with care for our internet things and digital ways. Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found on the two websites above. Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Alexandra Juhasz

Category

arts · education · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 May 2020

Latest episode

4 Sept 2020

Latest episodes

19 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   4 Sept 2020

   The Beauty of Weirdos

   Our final episode highlights two things: the beauty of weirdos & your human hope. Project organizer, Professor Alexandra Juhasz (http://alexandrajuhasz.com/), penned these fragments, anonymously, at a Fake News Poetry Workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/toronto-list.html) held at the Toronto home of that workshop’s facilitator, Professor T.L. Cowan (http://tlcowan.net/). Later, at another workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/nyu.html) held within an NYU Performative Writing class and led by Professor Barbara Browning (http://www.barbarabrowning.info/), these words were transformed into a song—by Barbara—quite unaware of who had written them. Two fragments of poetry formed a crossroads between T.L., Barbara, Alex, and others. And, the gifts of time, thought, place, art, and care—so live in this episode—also allow it to model HardTruth #23 from the online primer on digital media literacy: "galvanize people at the crossroads of cinema and community." (http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/23-galvanize-people-at-the-crossroads-of-cinema-and-community) These words were originally penned by The United States of Cinema, a collective that organized a National Event Day in April 2017. The movie 1984 was screened across the U.S, as a way to speak against fake news, totalitarian rule, and censorship. At the intersections of moving images, artmaking, and ways of being together, we can and often do manifest power and hope. Poetry, songs, performances, movies, parties, and workshops are places where truth intersects with our knowledge, disdain, and plans for each other and the internet. This podcast has been another crossroads for people, poetry, community, criticism, activism and care. The generous, volunteer contributions of scores of poets, scholars, and activists allowed for the many connections that have been built here in the summer of 2020. The stellar efforts of director and editor, Matthew Hittle, social media specialist, Julia Gill, and copyeditor, Gavin McCormick (https://tappedoutyawning.blogspot.com/) have provided the steady pulse that underwrote and enabled it all. Thank you for listening! Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   21 Aug 2020

   Black Lives Matter - Speak and Spell, Teach and Tell, Count and Swell

   This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other African Americans by police. Poets, educators, and friends Chet’la Sebre (https://www.chetlasebree.com/)e (e) and Margaret Rhee (https://mrheeloy.com/) worked with me on two Fake News Poetry workshops on race and the media. The first was in May 2018 (http://fakenews-poetry.org/ny-list.html), with poets of color in Brooklyn; the second, in November at the home of Claudia Rankine and John Lucas (http://fakenews-poetry.org/nh-list.html), where we translated some of the poems written in Brooklyn into video-poems. Now, in a new moment of insurrection and distance, they reflect upon poetry, media, race, safety, and beauty. Each shares a poem. Then they speak together. “How do we render humanity?” Chet’la asks Margaret. By co-articulating, gently and powerfully, the relations between place, politics, poetry, and power. In so doing, my colleagues also enact the #100th, and final, HardTruth from my online primmer, a call to poetry: “speak and spell, teach and tell, count and swell (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/100-speak-and-spell-teach-and-tell-count-and-swell).” These simple rhymes set forth the hard ideas and warm feelings that unroll here, spoken with intimacy and care by two women of color poets and teachers. Speak and spell about love. Teach and tell about friendship. Count and swell our writing and conversation in a time of continuing distance and proximity, all in honor of a very simple truth: Black Lives Matter. Join us in the change! Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com (mailto:100hardtruths@gmail.com). Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   14 Aug 2020

   Resist How We Are Framed

   In this episode, we rely on poetry to resist how we are framed (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/86-resist-how-we-are-framed). A HardTruth of the same name was written for my online primmer on digital media literacy by the writer Hugh Ryan (http://www.hughryan.org/). In 2017 he offered up words of our queer heritage as one response to the dishonorable and controlling vernaculars of the internet. Hugh believes that we are “hampered because we fight using language that is stacked against us.” So, he provides something else, the poetry and wisdom of our elders. Adrienne Rich, David Wojnarowicz, and Audre Lorde. Three young people in my family read selections of their writing, learning and reading with us and from our elders. The episode ends with Hugh’s reading of Lenin D’s poem written at a Fake News Poetry workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/cathy-list.html) with the disabled writer’s troupe, Poets of Course: one more voice, or is that two, in a noble legacy of frame-breakers we have listened to and learned from here: I felt I was in the moment of silence because I was shy, a little bit social and my identity has been changing for the better and worst of me. I was never rejected not because I have a disability, I just didn't want to talk to people in high school. Poems teach, and in so doing prove that art-making, connected to our experiences of identity, community, family, disability, and truth, can be one small part of a shared way out of, or perhaps through, our terrible troubles. So, change the internet with us! Engage in art answers to phony questions by volunteering to read a poem, a HardTruth, or your own response. Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

4. 

   7 Aug 2020

   Black Lives Matter - Ghosts Can't Tell Stories

   This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other African Americans by police. We hear readings of “A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay (https://poets.org/poem/small-needful-fact). perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, continue to do what such plants do Fellow-AIDS scholars, Drs. Jih-Fei Cheng (https://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/faculty/profile/jih-fei-cheng) and Nishant Shahani (https://wgss.wsu.edu/faculty/nishant-shahani/) (co-editors with me of the book AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (https://www.dukeupress.edu/aids-and-the-distribution-of-crises), Duke 2020) make resonant connections between ecology, blackness, strength, and violence. How plants, earth, and seeds center rather than scatter us. This reminds Nishant of the daily bounties of the earth, the mundane and sustaining connection to the food we grow and eat, another poem: Eve Ewing’s “I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store (https://poets.org/poem/i-saw-emmett-till-week-grocery-store).” The histories of violence written into plants and fruit—seeds, tobacco, and viruses—and attendant histories of pleasure, labor, medicine, and colonial and global capitalist theft will then focus Jih-Fei’s reflections, also borne from poetry and protest. Eric Garner and Emmet Till were silenced by violence. But their stories persist -- voluminous, angry, peaceful, and mundane -- through the words of poets and critics. In this way, we connect to the hardtruth #69 written for the online primer on digital media literacy, “ghosts can’t tell stories (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/69-ghosts-cant-tell-stories)” by Quito Zeigler (https://quitoziegler.com/bio/). Poems are not a solution but rather an invitation and an invocation to act and do a little differently, perhaps as plants do: help us breathe so we can engage together to better the internet and ourselves. Join us in the change! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). To read Jih-Fei and Nishant's full pieces of writing on which this episode relies, please see "Following A Small Needful Fact," by Jih-Fei Cheng and "Thinking about Small, Needful Facts," by Nishant Shahani on the Duke University Press blog: Dispatches on AIDS and COVID-19: Continuing Conversations from AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (Dispatch Three). (https://dukeupress.wordpress.com/2020/08/06/dispatches-on-aids-and-covid-19-continuing-conversations-from-aids-and-the-distribution-of-crises-dispatch-three/) Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

5. 

   31 Jul 2020

   Practice Strategic Contemplation

   This episode highlights methods to “practice strategic contemplation (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/16-practice-strategic-contemplation),” the 16th HardTruth for my online primer on digital media literacy. This is one of six “principles of feminist filmmaking” represented in Alexandra Hidalgo’s video book, Cámara Retórica: A Feminist Filmmaking Methodology for Rhetoric and Composition (http://ccdigitalpress.org/camara/chaptertwo.html). Hidalgo is an award-winning Venezuelan filmmaker, theorist, and editor. These methods of attention to and care for others, the self, and the world inspired connections across the project, which will form the words and methods of this episode. The very first Fake News Poetry Workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/ammerman-list.html) was held at the Ammerman Center 16th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology (http://www.newmediacaucus.org/intersections-the-ammerman-center-for-arts-and-technology-16th-biennial-symposium/). It was co-led by Kyle Booten (https://www.kylebooten.me/), a poet, digital scholar, and programmer. We worked with participants to generate forms and methods that might improve our engagements with the world and social media. Kyle called these psychotechnologies of care. Lisa Moren (https://www.lisamoren.com/) and Maro Perez wrote one of many poems (http://fakenews-poetry.org/poems/ammerman.html) that took the form of scripts, or algorithms, that could regulate, or better yet, open out to others our attention. Their words had been inspired by Alexandra’s. We seek such tender connections. Practice Strategic Contemplation 1. create a list of activities (with an alarm) to go off every 5 minutes for 2 hours 2. Go for a walk 3. Observe the truth of your surroundings 4. Allow for associations that relate to your observations and record during or after walk 5. If vibrations occur, then answer phone and follow your own prompt 6. Forget Associations 7. Repeat until two hours are up The episode ends with a poem that I wrote with my boyfriend and project participant, Gavin McCormick, as we follow this script through the streets of Brooklyn. Take a walk. Write a poem. Change the internet by writing yourself and others with attention. Or volunteer to read a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

6. 

   24 Jul 2020

   Black Lives Matter - African American History is Real - Peace is the Most Powerful Deterrent of All

   This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other African Americans by police. We begin by hearing “Credo (https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b227-i010),” a prose poem first written by W.E.B. DuBois (https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b227-i010) in 1904. The version we will hear was conceived and produced by Dr. John Michael Cooper (https://www.southwestern.edu/live/profiles/24307/_ingredients/templates/details/prev.php). It is a compilation of 36 voices reading from DuBois' proclamation on his philosophy of racial equality. This is a digital method to embody and share the truth that Black Lives Matter now, that Black voices speak truth to power with their poetry and music, and that all Americans can be moved and changed through a justice-focused interlocking of art, education, activism, and pride. Dr. Cooper mixes diverse and impassioned voices recorded for this project over the summer of 2020. He intercuts music written for the Credo by African-American composer Margaret Bonds (https://performingarts.georgetown.edu/margaret-bonds/#), allowing us to hear for ourselves the hardtruth #36: African American History is real (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/36-history-is-real). History feeds us in today’s struggles. This episode’s shared voicing of a call for justice also aligns with the project’s hardtruth, #98, that “peace can be t (t)he most powerful deterrent of all (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/98-peace-is-the-most-powerful-deterrent-of-all).” DuBois writes: “I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocia of oppression and wrong; and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.” Agree? Join us in the change! ......................... This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other African Americans by police. We begin by hearing “Credo (https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b227-i010),” a prose poem written by W.E.B. DuBois (https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b227-i010) in 1904 in which he outlines his philosophy on racial equality. This version, a compilation of 36 diverse voices reading from DuBois’ proclamation, was conceived and produced in the summer of 2020 by Dr. John Michael Cooper (https://www.southwestern.edu/live/profiles/24307/_ingredients/templates/details/prev.php). This is a digital method to embody and share the truth that Black Lives Matter now; that Black voices speak truth to power with poetry and music; and that all Americans can be moved and changed through a justice-focused interlocking of art, education, activism, and pride. Cooper intercuts two pieces of music: original music written in imitation of the setting of the “Credo” by African-American composer Margaret Bonds (https://performingarts.georgetown.edu/margaret-bonds/#), along with African-American composer Florence Price's arrangement of the spiritual “Some of These Days.” This allow us to hear as score and prose the project’s HardTruth #36: “African American History is real (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/36-history-is-real).” History feeds us in today’s struggles. This episode’s shared voicing of a call for justice also aligns with HardTruth #98: “peace can be the most powerful deterrent of all (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/98-peace-is-the-most-powerful-deterrent-of-all).” DuBois writes: “I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocia of oppression and wrong; and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.” Agree? Join us in the change! (For more HardTruths about African American history and the long struggle for freedom, please also see: #40, challenge the narrative of (African) American progress (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/40-challenge-the-narrative-of-african-american-progress) about the art of Edgar Arceneaux, and #56, subversion through grinning; learn truths from radical black artists who lived through civil rights (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/56-subversion-through-grinning-learn-truths-from-radical-black-artists-who-lived-through-civil-ri) written by filmmaker Stephen Winter.) ......................... To learn more about DuBois, the Credo, Bonds, and Dr. Cooper’s work on these subjects, please visit his blog: https://cooperm55.wixsite.com/jmc3/post/testimony (https://cooperm55.wixsite.com/jmc3/post/testimony) Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

7. 

   17 Jul 2020

   Choose to be Digitally Productive Rather than Reactive

   For this episode, In this episode, we focus on the founding illogics of online response and inaction, distancing and touching, by taking up the internet formats at the heart of what ails us. We will hear a reading of some of Alexandra Juhasz's more self-critical writing, “choose to be digitally productive rather than reactive (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/55-choose-to-be-digitally-productive-rather-than-reactive),” a response to feeling dirty, grim, and culpable on the 55th day of creating her online primmer. Then, video artist Orr Menirom (https://orrmenirom.com/) joins the conversation, reading and also explaining the process behind a poem written at a Fake News Poetry Workshop held at a Media Studies Conference in NYC (http://fakenews-poetry.org/orr-list.html) and created through a surrealist process called Exquisite Corpse. Like us, the surrealists were responding to the phony questions of their time--about war, nationalism, racism, and capitalism. They chose to bank on the qualities of the irrational, unconscious, or random—as well as the collective. We borrowed these tactics, and the poems rendered through them allow us real access to today’s truths. the problem now with the internet is that the past is always there… as you grow up you are going to change lives Forever oceans are drowning in plastic ......................... We know neither podcasts nor Fake News Poetry Workshops will end or even undo the internet’s current shape or violence, nor the insane logics of our time that litter our oceans with plastic. But they do offer other productive systems from which we can learn and do differently. So, change the internet with us! Engage in art answers to phony questions by volunteering to read a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

8. 

   9 Jul 2020

   Black Lives Matter - Explain Your Irrational Destruction before the Eyes of Humanity

   This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. We begin by hearing “Innocence Nevermore,” a short video made by Frances Negron-Muntaner (https://english.columbia.edu/content/frances-negron-muntaner) featuring Nuyorican poetry legend “Tato” Livaiera (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tato-laviera) performing his poem “Innocence (to 9/11)” with gifted musician Tato Torres (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/tatotorres). Locked in her archives for 16 years, this footage would be transformed into her contribution to the Visible Poetry Project (https://www.visiblepoetryproject.com/) in 2017. This video also became the 82nd HardTruth of my online primmer, pulling words and knowledge straight from Livaiera’s poem: “explain your irrational destruction before the eyes of humanity (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/82-explain-your-irrational-destruction-before-the-eyes-of-humanity).” Frances discusses the physical, emotional, imaginative infrastructures we need to decolonize ourselves and our country. Poetry is part of this, helping us articulate and create new realities, new vocabularies, and new ways of being in community. ......................... Join us in the change! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

9. 

   3 Jul 2020

   Silicon Valley’s Entrepreneurial Capitalism Leaves Rubble in its Wake

   For this episode, we consider the relations between digital tools, their corporate overlords, and the power we retain in our own bodies. We will hear a beautiful uncoiling of ideas between Natalie Bookchin (https://bookchin.net/), a media artist based in New York, and Molly Astley (https://medium.com/@mollyastley), a British artist and writer. Together they will consider HardTruth Number 59 (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/59-silicon-valleys-entrepreneurial-capitalism-leaves-rubble-in-its-wake): “silicon valley’s entrepreneurial capitalism leaves rubble in its wake.” It was written by Natalie in 2017 for my online primmer on digital media literacy. Molly is graduate of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, where she studied creative and critical writing. She attended a Fake News Poetry Workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/brighton-list.html) at the university in 2018. Molly responded to and extended Natalie’s ideas about Silicon Valley inspired instability and resultant rubble with a poem of her own: do not be distracted from the truth that you make with your own body. Later, During COVID-19, she recorded a reflection about how her ideas had altered as she considered more writing that had been generated since by her poem at later Workshops (http://fakenews-poetry.org/poems/HASTAC.html), particularly the line: “tectonic assurance in fragile ground.” These engagements demonstrate how the chilling relations between capitalism, freedom, networks, and sustainability can be understood through our bodies, as well as the poems and truths through which we render our knowledge. ......................... When we are socially distanced, we are more and less dependent on our bodies and earth. We move content and processes online where we invite you to also live and know the internet differently, by engaging. Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

10. 

    30 Jun 2020

    Black Lives Matter - Stay Open to Contradictions and Power #offline

    This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. We begin with Juanita and Henry Szczepanski reading their poems "Why?" and “Black Lives Matter.” Wife and husband, inter-racial couple, disabled older Americans stuck at home during COVID-19 -- they are ever more dependent on the digital, each other, and the art and conversation they can make together. Their poems are as different as those written by two partners can be. A conversation ensues. They agree; they disagree. In so doing, they give permission to witness the honest playing out of another of my HardTruths, Number 74: “stay open to contradictions and power #offline (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/74-stay-open-to-contradictions-and-power-offline).” ......................... Join us in the change! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: #100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter #BlackDisabledLivesMatter See other collaborations here: Juanita and Alex, essay, "Knowing Each Other Through AIDS Video (http://alexandrajuhasz.com/article-archive-doc/knowing-each-other-through-aids-video/)"; Juanita and her grandaughter, Pharah make a poetry video (https://vimeo.com/340243804/230a094b5b); Alex's CUNY graduate students and Juanita's daughter, Jahanara, make public art about youth and homophobia (https://activismvhs.omeka.net/exhibits/show/dear-j-) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

11. 

    26 Jun 2020

    Tame and Disarm Dangerous Algorithms

    For this episode, we consider hardtruth #53; “tame and disarm dangerous algorithms (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/53-tame-and-disarm-dangerous-algorithms).” It was written by Geert Lovink (https://networkcultures.org/geert/biography/), a media theorist from the Institute of Network Cultures in the Netherlands. He reads his writing for my online primer on digital media literacy where he refers to the work of mathematician Cathy O'Neill (https://mathbabe.org/contact/) and a series of questions about the viability of media literacy (https://clalliance.org/blog/media-literacy-backfire/) and fake news being raised at that time. Then, we hear from Professor Jacqueline Wernimont, (https://jwernimont.com/about/) Distinguished Chair of Digital Humanities and Social Engagement & Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College. At a Fake News Poetry Workshop in 2018 (http://fakenews-poetry.org/dartmouth.html) she fed a bot some words of decency. Programmed to help us better understand the algorthmic stupidity of AI by project collaborator, Dr. Kyle Booten (https://www.kylebooten.me/about.html), the words of Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/); Joy Harjo (https://www.joyharjo.com/), the first Native American national poet laureate; and the feminist digital pedagogy collective, FemTechNet (FemTechNet.org) allowed for poetry from which we have all learned: Voice is perfect RESOLVE is now conflict, (and) Disappearance is peace. Jacque speaks about how this poem helps her to understand the archive more ethically in these very dark times; Geert ends the episode on an upbeat (dark) note, by setting the poem to music! ......................... Join us as we work together to learn about, and thereby alter, the connections between fake news, artificial intelligence, and the stupid but powerful algorithms that underwrite the digital ecosphere. Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

12. 

    19 Jun 2020

    Black Lives Matter - A Cultural Change About How We Make Sense of Information Required

    This emergency episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. We begin with Gerard G reading his poem “Black Lives Matter.” He is a member of the group Poets of Course, a New York City-based collective of intellectually disabled adults who write poetry. The group began working with the Fake News Poetry project in 2018; we’ve made scores of poems, videos, and audio (http://fakenews-poetry.org/cathy-list.html) recordings about the relations between disability, social media, lies, oppression, and expression. As the project hopes, this collective engagement in service of artmaking leads to more conversation. We listen in as Gerard and his mother, Vanessa Grant, use his poetry as a vehicle, receptacle, and excuse to teach, learn, and listen. Together they discuss safety and danger for Black men in America. We are granted permission to hear one Black mother’s rendition of “the talk,” reinforcing her family’s daily practices of staying safe. In so doing, the Grants make manifest one example of the project’s core commitment to pedagogy, hardtruth #18: a cultural change about how we make sense of information required (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/18-a-cultural-change-about-how-we-make-sense-of-information-required). ......................... Join us in the change! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100hardtruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter #BlackDisabledLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

13. 

    17 Jun 2020

    Black Lives Matter - Make Manifest the Contingency of the Social

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. This episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. It connects to two #100HardTruths: Black Lives Matter (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/44-black-lives-matter) (#44), and Make Manifest the Contingency of the Social (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/96-make-manifest-the-contingency-of-the-social) (#96). Writer and educator Stacie Evans (https://girlgriot.wordpress.com/) reads her poem “because there will be no chance to say it then,” elucidating the quiet ways — “hey” — she expresses her rage, disbelief, and humanity as a black woman in America. She talks with Laura Wexler, (https://wgss.yale.edu/people/laura-wexler) Yale University Professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Their conversation unearths contradictions between manifest and contingency, solidity and uncertainty, protest and poetry, black and white Americans, and the hard and gentle truths we need for now. And they stay Stacie's name, as well as that of Sandra Bland and Gynnya McMillen. "If I die in police capacity, know that whatever story the police tell you is a lie. Know that because you know me. Say, that's not what Stacy would do. Then go out in the street and say my name." . ......................... Join us! #Sayhername: https://aapf.org/sayhername. See a video that Stacie and Laura collaborated on together at a Fake News Poetry Workshop on Race in the Media held in New Haven, CT (http://fakenews-poetry.org/nh-list.html), based on another of Stacie’s poems, “Anomolous (http://fakenews-poetry.org/poems/new-haven.html),” here: http://fakenews-poetry.org/media/new-haven.html. Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

14. 

    12 Jun 2020

    Call the Man of the Year a Liar

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. In this episode, we explore as the 81st hardtruth from the online primer of digital media literacy: “Call the Man of the Year a Liar (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/81-call-the-man-of-the-year-a-liar).” It consists of just one intense, angry thing: Joan Baez singing a song, “Nasty Man.” Next, we hear a poem of the same name written by Mika Judge from a Fake News Poetry Workshop (http://fakenews-poetry.org/get-lit-list.html) held in 2018 with a youth poets collective in Los Angeles, Get Lit. (https://getlit.org/) Mika has rewritten the poem for this episode to respond to some of the new lies of the Covid-Nineteen era. a coal mine has opened under our feet. and oh! we should have listened-- it is the same one he promised us all those years ago. ......................... Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

15. 

    6 Jun 2020

    Black Lives Matter - Digital Participation is Reflexive

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. This episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. It connects these serious concerns to two #100hardtruths: Black Lives Matter (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/44-black-lives-matter) (#44) and (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/77-expose-the-costs-and-histories-of-freedom)Digital Participation is Reflexive (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/97-digital-participation-is-reflexive) (#97). For this episode, we chose to play the audio from “Situation 8,” one of a series of Situation videos (https://vimeo.com/channels/situations) Claudia made with her husband, the filmmaker John Lucas, from 2015-2017. These are multi-genre responses to contemporary America that resonate with us, not only as people, but as citizens. “Between us. Between strangers. Our civic contract states. We will act in each others best interest for no other reason. Than we are here together.” (Claudia Rankine and John Lucas, "Situation 8 (https://vimeo.com/channels/situations)") Please be advised, the soundtrack from Situation 8 includes graphic audio of violence. The ethical context we suggest for this emergency is to account for our own reflexive role in these visual regimes and participate in new ways; in this instance, to not look at these and other images of viral black death, but rather to listen, breathe, attend, and then act. For more see, "How Do I (Not) Look? Live Feed Video and Viral Black Death (https://daily.jstor.org/how-do-i-not-look/)," Alexandra Juhasz, July 20, 2016 and the response, "Viral Black Death: Why We Must Watch Citizen Videos of Police Violence (https://daily.jstor.org/why-we-must-watch-citizen-videos-of-police-violence/)," by Kimberly Fain, September 1, 2016. And then, join us in each other's best interest. We are here, online, together! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

16. 

    4 Jun 2020

    Black Lives Matter - Expose the Costs and Histories of Freedom

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. This episode was made quickly during a time of uprising following the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other African Americans by police. It connects these serious concerns to two #100hardtruths: Black Lives Matter (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/44-black-lives-matter) (#44) and Expose the Costs and Histories of Freedom (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/77-expose-the-costs-and-histories-of-freedom) (#77), written by Dr. Gabrielle Foreman (http://english.la.psu.edu/faculty-staff/pgr5052) (@profgabrielle), the Founding Director of the Colored Conventions Project (https://coloredconventions.org/) and Co-Director of the Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State University. In her elegant, eloquent oration, Dr. Foreman elaborates on the connections between African-American history, photography, the advertisement and sale of slaves, and the American press, all underwritten by the basest forms of U.S. racial injustice, underpinning this moment and our ongoing efforts for freedom. She ends with three poems by her father, Kent Foreman (http://kentforeman.net/poetry_das_kaptial.htm), Das Kapital I, II, and III, as a way to testify to the linked frictions between the reality and representations of capital and its many associated lootings. A transcription of this episode is available on The Plague Journal Day 83 (https://tappedoutyawning.blogspot.com/2020/06/plague-journal-day-83-podcast.html), by Gavin McCormick, project copywriter. Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths #BlackLivesMatter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

17. 

    29 May 2020

    Look Deeper Into The Migrant Experience

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. In this episode, we focus on strategies to be truthful about the experiences of migrants from Central and South America during the cascading hostilities of the Trump administration. Lies and technologies—art and honesty—have material effects. We think about these relations by considering #100hardtruth Number 31, Look Deeper Into The Migrant Experience (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/31-look-deeper-into-the-migrant-experience), created for the 2017 digital media literacy primer. It focuses on an art show State of Exception/Estado de Excepción (https://events.newschool.edu/event/state_of_exceptionestado_de_excepcion) which "presented traces of the human experience—objects left behind in the desert by undocumented migrants on their journey into the U.S. and other forms of data," all collected as part of the research of University of Michigan anthropologist Jason De León’ (https://archaeology.lsa.umich.edu/people/deleon.php)s Undocumented Migration project. Then we hear the empowering connections mapped between Jason and a poet from the Manhattan-based collective for disabled poets, Poets of Course. Mike G shared his truths about migration, as poems (http://fakenews-poetry.org/poems/cathy.html), with the Fake News Poetry project, and then also with Jason, vivid reminders of the lived and material consequences that stem from lies and falsehoods exacerbated by our digital engagements. ......................... Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

18. 

    16 May 2020

    The Real Internet Is a Fake

    We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. This episode assembles materials made over three related efforts. First, 100hardtruths #1: the real internet is a fake (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/1-the-real-internet-is-a-fake). Then two poems written at Fake News Poetry Workshops: encounters that addressed these complex concerns through art, intimacy, and technology. "My Phones Lies to Me (http://fakenews-poetry.org/media/new-utrecht.html)," by James, Shamine, and Marcela, was first written as a poem and then later made into a video-poem at New Utrecht High, Brooklyn, NY, in May 2019. They were responding to Sam Solomon's "I Hold the Phone (http://fakenews-poetry.org/poems/brighton.html)," which was written in March 2018 at the University of Sussex. ........................... It is true: the internet is hard to see. But here, we put trust in our abilities to say so, and to learn from the thoughtful, beautiful ways we describe these contradictions. Our extended thinking and related poetry counter the cyclone of self-absorption and combat that defines cycles of fake news. A tender and respectful hand off -- from person to person, place to place, format to format -- is one tactic we model as a way to break the fakes’ hold on us. ............................. Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found at the online primer of digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index) or fakenews-poetry.org (fakenews-poetry.org). Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

19. 

    15 May 2020

    What if we aimed for gentle truths? For now

    This episode introduces three related efforts in radical digital media literacy that form the content of this podcast. First, we glean ideas from an online primer in digital media literacy, #100hardtruths-#fakenews. (https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths-fakenews/index)The primer was compiled by media scholar and activist, Dr. Alexandra Juhasz (https://open.acast.com/shows/5ebaf214613f0c1c8763ac10/episodes/complex and consequential ideas about fake news: “hardtruths.” These were gathered in 2017 for), over 100 posts that highlight efforts by journalists, scholars, artists, activists and others who were thinking against the escalating crisis of fake news in 2017 during the first 100 days of the Trump administration. There you can find scores of resources about fake news. http://scalar.me/100hardtruths. (http://scalar.me/100hardtruths)In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Juhasz moved the project into local communities and more active engagements by holding over 25 Fake News Poetry Workshops (http://fakenews-poetry.org/): encounters that addressed the complex concerns raised in the primer through art, intimacy, and technology. http://fakenews-poetry.org (http://fakenews-poetry.org/). Fake News Poetry Workshops are pedagogical experiments in resistance. Workshops are shared acts of engaged, enraged intellectual citizenship. Workshops are civic commitment as pedagogy. They are the doing of beauty and the living of hope. ................... When a book of 100 poems written by diverse participants in the workshops was stalled due to COVID-19, a small group of us decided to make this podcast to share some of the ideas, poems, resources, and methods developed through this many-yeared and multi-sited project. We hope they provide some solace, as well as motivation, as we deepen connections and possibilities during our time of social distancing. We engage in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19. ........................ Join us! Read or respond to a poem or hardtruth found on the two websites above. Organize your own Fake News Poetry Workshop. Reach out with questions or content @ 100hardtruths@gmail.com. Twitter: @100HardTruths Instagram: @100HardTruths YouTube: 100 Hard Truths Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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Contact We Need Gentle Truths for Now

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