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Journal Reports: Decade in Review (A Special Report): China’s Growing Power, and a Growing Backlash

December 18, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article "Journal Reports: Decade in Review (A Special Report): China’s Growing Power, and a Growing Backlash."

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Published in: Wall Street Journal
Ciara surprises Georgia students using STEM to remix her songs

December 17, 2019

EarSketch, a computer program created by School of Literature, Media, and Communication professor Brian Magerko with School of Music professor Jason Freeman, was mentioned in an article in USA Today on Dec. 17, 2019.

EarSketch is a free-to-use program that teaches students the programming languages Python and JavaScript in the context of creating and manipulating songs in a "digital audio workstation." It is used by more than 375,000 students and instructors in 50 states and more than 100 different countries.

The program got some celebrity exposure recently when star R&B singer Ciara came to Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross to speak to students and listen to remixes of her songs that students created in EarSketch. Students could submit their creations for the Ciara Remix Competition, run by Amazon and Georgia Tech.

Excerpt:

Ciara spoke to the class and watched students rework her music as they participated in a competition sponsored by Amazon’s future engineer program. The teenagers used EarSketch, a platform developed by Georgia Institute of Technology, that teaches computer science through music remixing, research engineer Roxanne Moore told WSB-TV.

The students will submit their creations for judging and could win Amazon gift cards or a trip to Seattle to present their work, according to the competition rules.

Read the full article here.

Published in: USA Today
Contest merges music, coding to lure students to computer science

December 17, 2019

EarSketch, a computer program created by School of Literature, Media, and Communication professor Brian Magerko with School of Music professor Jason Freeman, was mentioned in an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec. 17, 2019.

EarSketch is a free-to-use program that teaches students the programming languages Python and JavaScript in the context of creating and manipulating songs in a "digital audio workstation." It is used by more than 375,000 students and instructors in 50 states and more than 100 different countries.

The program got some celebrity exposure recently when star R&B singer Ciara came to Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross to speak to students and listen to remixes of her songs that students created in EarSketch. Students could submit their creations for the Ciara Remix Competition, run by Amazon and Georgia Tech.

Excerpt:

Using Georgia Tech’s learn-to-code-through-music platform, EarSketch, high school students have the opportunity to win prizes by composing an original remix featuring the song “SET” from Grammy-Award winning singer-songwriter Ciara. The competition is intended to get young people excited about computer science and coding.

High school students across the country can enter the competition through Jan. 20.

“I always get students who come in and say they don’t know anything about programming and they may be a little intimidated at first,” said Philip Peavey, digital technology teacher at Paul Duke. “But once they get going they realize that it’s something they can do … it opens their eyes to career possibilities that they maybe hadn’t thought of before.”

Read the full article here.

Published in: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A ‘Star Wars’ actor sparked a conversation about gender fluidity. Women have been using sci-fi to explore gender and sexuality for centuries.

December 8, 2019

Lisa Yaszek, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was featured in The Lily, the world's oldest feminist magazine, in an article about gender fluidity in science fiction, "A ‘Star Wars’ actor sparked a conversation about gender fluidity. Women have been using sci-fi to explore gender and sexuality for centuries."

Excerpt:

For women, in particular, science fiction has long been a space to stretch the bounds of traditional gender roles and imagine a more gender-equal future.

Lisa Yaszek, a professor of science fiction studies at Georgia Tech, describes the feminist appeal of science fiction like this: “We can imagine spaces that radically break from our own world and from what we know or at least believe to be scientifically or socially true about sex and gender.”

Read the full article.

Published in: Live Science
The China Complex

December 5, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was featured in the Al Jazeera English documentary titled "The China Complex."

Watch episode 1 and 2 on Al Jazeera's YouTube channel.

Published in: Al Jazeera English
The banking sector and the uprising

December 5, 2019

Rana Shabb, a doctoral candidate in the Sam Nunn of International Affairs, wrote "The banking sector and the uprising" in The Daily Star.

Therefore, as the Lebanese public demands transparency, accountability and good governance across the board, the financial sector should not be thrown out with the current political elites. It is important that the Central Bank - the regulator - be subject to high scrutiny and abide by stringent transparency and accountability measures. However, the collapse of the commercial banks is not a solution to 30 years of political mismanagement nor is it an avenue for fruitful revenge.

Read the article on The Daily Star.

Published in: The Daily Star
NATO Debrief with General Philip Breedlove (Ret.)

December 4, 2019

General Phil Breedlove, USAF (ret,), former 17th Supreme Commander Europe of NATO and now Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow in the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies, was interviewed in The Cipher Brief article "NATO Debrief with General Philip Breedlove (Ret.)."

The bottom line is we’re living in some of the most uncertain times of our history. We used to understand our opponents, who they were and where the lines on the ground and the lines in the sand were. Now, there are no lines out there for us to understand. There are all kinds of gray zone conflicts going on. Russia is attacking us in cyber every day. They’re engineering social media against the West every day.

Find the article in The Cipher Brief.

Published in: The Cipher Brief
Sale of .org Domain to Private Equity Firm Sparks Battle over Internet Privacy

December 2, 2019

Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy Professor Milton Mueller was recently quoted in the article "Sale of .org Domain to Private Equity Firm Sparks Battle over Internet Privacy," which was published by Financial Times on November 28.

Here's an excerpt:

The future of one of the internet’s most irreproachable neighbourhoods has just been thrown into doubt — and some of its residents are up in arms. The .org internet domain is a potent symbol for non-profit groups around the world, conveying such a strong sense of rectitude that some organisations have even included it in their offline names. So it was a shock to many users when the Internet Society, the US non-profit that owns .org, agreed earlier this month to sell the domain registry for an undisclosed sum to a newly established private equity firm called Ethos Capital.

Read the full story here.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Financial Times
Southern Reading List: Karen Head

November 20, 2019

Karen Head, executive director of the Naugle Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the associate chair and associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was interviewed by GPS News in an article published on November 18 entitled "Southern Reading List: Karen Head."

Read an excerpt:

Karen Head is executive director of the communication center at Georgia Institute of Technology. She's also the Waffle House Poet Laureate. The designation came after a Waffle House fouondation-funded poetry tour project for under-served Georgia high school students.

Head's newest collection of poem is called Lost on Purpose. She stopped by On Second Thought to share her recommendations for the "Southern Reading List." For the series, we invite authors and readers to talk about books that define and reflect the South.

Read and listen to the full interview here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Published in: GPB News
China defends Xinjiang crackdown after massive document leak

November 18, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in "China defends Xinjiang crackdown after massive document leak" in the France 24.

Excerpt

"The leaked papers clearly reveal and confirm what has been going on in Xinjiang with regard to the all-out suppression and control of the non-Han peoples there (and elsewhere in China), including the massive detention and forced education camps," Fei-Ling Wang, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told AFP.

Read the article on France 24.

Published in: France 24
Reading Nam June Paik

November 11, 2019

Gregory Zinman, an assistant professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Literature, Media, and Communication, wrote "Reading Nam June Paik" in the Gagosian Quarterly, November 11.

Read an excerpt:

Every scholar granted access to an artist’s archive dreams of that moment of serendipity: stumbling across a passage that confirms a long-held speculation, gives voice to an artist’s intention, or unlocks a connection to an unstated influence. Even more alluring is the idea of discovering an artwork long obscured or lost altogether. This latter occurrence is rare, the academic equivalent of real-life art-historical jackpots like Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Martin Kober’s—a painting behind his couch in Buffalo may be a Michelangelo—or the six possible Willem de Koonings found by the Chelsea art dealer David Killen in a New Jersey storage locker. Yet the archive nevertheless promises the dream of discovery: opening up a new passage of art history, providing a corrective to the record and the accepted wisdom, counteracting master narratives, and expanding the possibility of finding meaning in the creation of art.

Read the full article here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Gagosian Quarterly
Bill Gates's Fortune Isn't Going Anywhere

November 11, 2019

Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies Ian Bogost wrote "Bill Gates's Fortune Isn't Going Anywhere" in The Atlantic, November 7.

Read an excerpt below:

Money: It’s a concern. But the problem it poses is different for the wealthy than it is for ordinary folks—or even for just plain rich people. When most Americans worry about money, we’re worrying about income: Will I make enough money this week, this month, or this year to cover my expenses—let alone to sock some away for vacation, a down payment, retirement, college?

Modestly rich people face the same issue, but at a different scale. A family making $350,000 might feel like they’re just getting by, because so much of that income goes right out the door again—into private-school tuition, fancy clothes, or other trappings of upper-class life that seem necessary, even if those expenditures look like luxuries from a middle-class perspective.

Read the full article here.

Published in: The Atlantic
Interview with Ilya Kaminsky

November 11, 2019

Georgia Institute of Technology Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Bourne Chair in Poetry, and Director of Poetry@Tech Ilya Kaminsky was interviewed in The Hopkins Review, November 11.

Here's an excerpt:

Dora Malech: You’re someone who has both translated and been translated a lot, and you’ve talked in the past about what is translatable—what remains versus what gets lost in translation. You’ve mentioned image as something that can survive in translation, and possibly metaphor and rhythm as elements that can come across in a translation. And I would perhaps add narrative and drama to that list. Music can get lost in translation, and cultural context can get lost in translation. In reading your new book, Deaf Republic, with its compelling narrative and imagery, I kept thinking about those elements as ones that might survive translation. I began to make much of this and wonder if you purposefully wrote a book with the ability to move beyond one language, but I’m happy to be corrected. Do you see these translatable elements as an inherent strength or even a moral imperative, or do you want to push back and say, “No, that wasn’t my intention at all?”

Ilya Kaminsky: Do you believe you have a soul? Can you tell me where in your body it is? Well, translation is the art form that thrives on that kind of certainty/uncertainty.

Read the full interview here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: The Hopkins Review
Emerging Technologies and the Future of Warfare

November 7, 2019

Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Heather Regnault, a Ph.D. student in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote an article entitled, "Emerging Technologies and the Future of Warfare," in The Cipher Brief.

Excerpt:

While the suggestion that such emerging technologies will enable a new class of weapons that will alter the geopolitical landscape remains to be realized, a number of unresolved security puzzles underlying the emergence of potentially disruptive technologies have implications for international security, defense policy, governance, and arms control regimes. The extent to which these emerging technologies may exacerbate or mitigate the global security and governance challenges that states will pose in the future to U.S., regional, and global security interests will remain an integral question as US policy-makers and leaders navigate the complex global security environment.

Find the article on The Cipher Brief website.

Published in: The Cipher Brief
5 Common Sense Questions Answered About The U.S. Exit From The Paris Agreement

November 6, 2019

Georgia Drawdown, a cross-university climate change initiative between faculty at UGA, Emory, and Georgia Tech including Marilyn Brown, was featured in "5 Common Sense Questions Answered About The U.S. Exit From The Paris Agreement." Forbes, November 5. Brown is a Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy.

Here's an excerpt:

We knew that it was probably coming. The United States formally submitted its plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. U.S. officials are trotting out the “unfair burden to U.S. argument.” Supporters of the agreement, which went into force on November 4th, 2016, say that it is a necessary step to combat one of the most significant crises facing humanity. The Trump Administration made their plans known on the first day that a country could formally announce plans to leave.

Read the full story here.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Forbes
Qatar’s Outdoor Air Conditioning Is Not the Real Climate Villain

November 6, 2019

Valerie Thomas, the Anderson Interface Professor of Natural Systems with a joint appointment in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the School of Public Policy, was recently quoted in an article entitled “Qatar’s Outdoor Air Conditioning Is Not the Real Climate Villain” for Slate, November 4.

Here's an excerpt:

Climate change is coming for everyone, but it’s coming much faster for some of us. People living in low-income communities are more likely to be affected by storms and floods exacerbated by climate change. Low-lying portions of island nations like the Maldives are projected to be uninhabitable by 2100, and researchers worry that the combination of high temperatures and humidity levels in South Asia and the Persian Gulf could make those regions virtually unlivable.

Qatar, in particular, has recently been the subject of interest in Western media. A recent Washington Post piece reported that Qataris have taken to air conditioning outside spaces, like restaurant patios and sports stadiums built for the 2022 World Cup. Air conditioning, the author wrote, is a “vicious cycle”—the energy required to run AC outdoors requires emissions, which in turn feeds climate change. GQ picked up the news, calling it “environmental lunacy.” One popular tweet linking to the piece says that by running air conditioning, Qataris are “making the heat worse as they try to cool off.”

Read the full story here.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Slate
The death of Baghdadi isn’t the end of ISIS

November 5, 2019

Jenna Jordan, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote, "The death of Baghdadi isn't the end of ISIS" in the Washington Post.

Given the recent successes in the fight against ISIS, many analysts and government officials are optimistic that Baghdadi’s death will result in substantial weakening and perhaps the demise of ISIS. Advocates of this view argue that Baghdadi is irreplaceable, given his claim of lineage to the prophet Muhammad, religious credentials and education in Koranic studies, and operational success in creating an Islamic State. Despite this belief in Baghdadi’s authority and legitimacy as a leader of the self-proclaimed caliphate, however, ISIS is not a cult of personality. Baghdadi was successful in institutionalizing essential organizational structures.

Read the article in the Washington Post.

Published in: Washington Post
Where Does the Concept of Time Travel Come From?

November 4, 2019

Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media, and Communication Professor Lisa Yaszek was interviewed in an article entitled "Where Does the Concept of Time Travel Come From?" November 2.

Excerpt:

The dream of traveling through time is both ancient and universal. But where did humanity's fascination with time travel begin, and why is the idea so appealing?

The concept of time travel — moving through time the way we move through three-dimensional space — may in fact be hardwired into our perception of time. Linguists have recognized that we are essentially incapable of talking about temporal matters without referencing spatial ones. "In language — any language — no two domains are more intimately linked than space and time," wrote Israeli linguist Guy Deutscher in his 2005 book "The Unfolding of Language." "Even if we are not always aware of it, we invariably speak of time in terms of space, and this reflects the fact that we think of time in terms of space."

Deutscher reminds us that when we plan to meet a friend "around" lunchtime, we are using a metaphor, since lunchtime doesn't have any physical sides. He similarly points out that time can not literally be "long" or "short" like a stick, nor "pass" like a train, or even go "forward" or "backward" any more than it goes sideways, diagonal or down.

The full article can be read here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Live Science
Who Was ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

October 30, 2019

Jenna Jordan, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed by NPR in an article published on October 28 entitled "Who Was ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?"

Read an excerpt:

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not the first commander of ISIS, but he was the one in charge when the group steamrolled into Iraq and Syria in 2014. That land grab allowed it to declare a state, an outlaw territory that drew thousands of recruits from around the globe. Now that President Trump has declared Baghdadi dead, NPR's Hannah Allam looks at his bloody legacy and what his death means for a movement that is trying to make a comeback.

Read the full interview here.

The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: NPR
What Happens To Terror Groups When You Kill Their Leader?

October 30, 2019

Jenna Jordan, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed by NPR in an article published on October 29 entitled "What Happens To Terror Groups When You Kill Their Leader?"

Read an excerpt:

President Donald Trump and U.S. officials have described the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a devastating blow to the group and part of its total defeat. But the history of terrorism shows that the demise of extremist groups is rarely that simple.

Counterterrorism is not a chess game that ends when you topple the king. When the leaders of terror groups are captured or killed, it can have a range of effects depending on what extremists believe, how much support they have and how they’re organized. Sometimes terror groups collapse after their leader is gone. But others are resilient and may even increase their attacks.

Read the full interview here.

The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Huffington Post