Author Archives: Joseph Glennon

New book edition updates history of black hair in America

Over the past decade, the internet has impacted the way to do just about everything – right down to how we talk about hair.

A headshot of Lori Tharps With such a game-changing phenomenon, Lori Tharps, an assistant professor of journalism at Temple’s School of Media and Communication, released a new edition of a book she co-authored, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, which chronicles how the conversation about black hair has evolved since the 15th century.

“Hair Story is still the only book that does that,” she said. “No other book talks about black hair so comprehensively.”

Tharps said it’s much more than a book about hair. It’s about history.

“Black hair represents the black experience is this country,” she said. “As a people we were enslaved and systematically told that our physical features were inferior. We have to unpack those ideals of beauty and respectability when it comes to our hair. Until we as a complete society have done that, it’s never going to be ‘just hair’.”

Tharps, who co-wrote the first edition in 2001 with journalist Ayana Byrd, realized that black hair was going through an undocumented renaissance and warranted an update to their text.

A busy decade
“We committed to telling the history of black hair in America from the past to the present,” said Tharps. “The book ended in 2000 and we [caught up] in 2013. A lot of things have happened in the world of black hair since the beginning of the 21st century.”

Leading the list of what’s affected hair the most in the last decade? The internet.

With the rise of YouTube and social media, the conversation about black hair has opened up to the non-black demographic. Hashtags like #TeamNatural, terms like “co-wash,” (the process of washing with conditioner and not shampoo because of the adverse effects of sulfates) and “protective styling” are branching out to the general public. The internet has also encouraged a new wave of entrepreneurship.

“You see the rise of a lot of female entrepreneurs who have launched businesses that they would’ve never made it had the internet not given them a distribution model,” said Tharps. “These are really big changes in the world of black hair that we felt had to be documented.”

Now, hair care blogs, consultants and manufacturers have found a way to build a business and a brand online.

In two new chapters, Tharps and Byrd bring to light the cultural and political questions many now face within the black community. Is she trying to “look white” with her straight hair? Is her natural hair a political statement? They examine how the opinions of black people, when it comes to their hair, are changing and being vocalized.

“The problem has been that black people have always compared their hair to white hair as if white hair was the standard and we’re always trying to emulate that, which makes sense because they’re in the majority and they told us that’s what we should be trying to do. But if you’re always comparing it, it’s never going to meet up to the standards,” said Tharps.

A window into a culture
Tharps said the book’s topic is vital to cultural understanding in America and is often overlooked in race-related dialogue.

“It’s very easy to not know what’s going on in the world of black hair and yet you come in contact with black hair through friends, colleagues, employees or celebrities,” she said. “If you don’t understand the background you’re missing a large part of our culture and you’re creating the potential for ethnic miscommunication.”

Tharps hopes in the future people will read her book with the same level of interest they have in other cultural phenomonon that has shaped American history . She wants them to be in awe of the past generations’ triumphs.

“I would hope that we get to place where we can just celebrate our hair and not have to justify, explain or apologize for it,” said Tharps. “What I hope, is that we will finally make it to a point where black people’s hair is just hair.”

On the web: hairstoryonline.com.

-By Sofiya Ballin
SMC Communications

Seven new faculty members join SMC’s ranks

You might see a few unfamiliar faces around the School of Media and Communication this year, as SMC welcomes seven new professors to the faculty. Here’s your chance to learn a little bit about them before the first day of class.

Murali Balaji, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Specializing in critical media studies, namely political economy and the study of masculinity, Balaji spent the previous three years at Lincoln University, including two as the chair of the mass communications program. A former award-winning journalist, Balaji has written the critically acclaimed The Professor and The Pupil (Nation Books, 2011), which examines the lives of W.E.B Du Bois and Paul Robeson, and has co-edited two others, Desi Rap (Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and Global Masculinities and Manhood (University of Illinois, 2011). He is the co-founder and former executive director of The Voices of Philadelphia, a media education organization dedicated to citizen journalism and media fluency training among marginalized populations within the city.

Guillermo Caliendo, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Strategic Communication

Receiving an MA in communication studies from California State University, Los Angeles, and a PhD in rhetoric with a concentration in media studies from the University of Pittsburgh, Caliendo’s research focuses on discourse analysis dealing with race/ethnicity and gender/sexuality. Besides serving in various editorial boards, he has published numerous book reviews and chapter contributions. Most recently, his article “MLK Boulevard: Material Forms of Memory and the Social Contestation of Race Signification” appeared in the Journal of Black Studies. He is currently working on “Disciplining Sexuality: Milk, Cultural Amnesia, and the Rhetoric of Sexual Containment.” At Temple, he will teach Persuasion, Rhetorical Theory and Political Communication

Joseph Glennon, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Advertising

For the last 15 years, Glennon has been a highly sought after copywriter and creative consultant working with both advertising agencies and directly with clients. He has taught courses in a range of advertising topics, specializing in the art of copywriting. His professional writing career began as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, working with the producers of Cheers, Frasier, Home Improvement and other comedies. His work also included feature films. Glennon is a native of Boston and an unapologetic member of the Red Sox nation.

Stacey Harpster, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Advertising

Since receiving her MBA in marketing from the Temple University Fox School of Business and Management and her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising from the Temple University School of Media and Communication, Harpster has served a diverse list of clients in industries including: automotive, hospitality and tourism, consumer goods, homeopathy, fashion, higher education, finance and technology. She began her career at the Temple University Small Business Development Center (SBDC), where she founded and led the SBDC Creative Department. After the SBDC, she moved on to hold senior level account management positions in various Philadelphia firms, including Kanter International (now Finch Brands) and Brownstein Group.

Adrienne Shaw, Assistant Professor

Department of Media Studies and Production

Since receiving her PhD in communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Shaw has held postdoctoral posts at the Mudra Institute for Communication Ahmedabad, the University of Pittsburgh and Colorado State University. Her research focuses on popular culture, the politics of representation, cultural production and qualitative audience research. Her primary areas of interest are video games, gaming culture, representations of gender and sexuality and the construction of identity and communities in relation to media consumption.

Kristine Weatherston, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Weatherston is a PhD candidate in the interdisciplinary Media, Art and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her interests combine theory and practice in areas of video production including genre studies, screenwriting and literary adaptation, documentary and nonfiction, producing and directing for film and television, as well as editing and post-production design.

Laura Zaylea, Assistant Professor, (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Since receiving her MFA in film from the San Francisco Art Institute, Zaylea has served as a film lecturer in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University. Zaylea has written/directed a feature film, has created many short films and media art installations and is currently converting her award-winning screenplay into a multimedia digital novel. Her research and creative production interests include experimental film making and media production, LGBTQ media and the process of adapting traditional media into new media forms and formats. Her feature film Hold The Sun was awarded Best Avant-garde Film from the 2010 Amsterdam Film Festival and her screenplay Closer Than Rust was one of the winners of the 2012 Atlanta International Film Festival Screenplay Competition.

MMC faculty announced

The Mass Media and Communication Program’s faculty for the 2012-13 has been announced. MMC is the School of Media and Communication’s PhD program.

They are:

Undrahbuyan Baasanjav, Assistant Professor, MSP

Deborah Cai, Professor, STRC

John Edward Campbell, Assistant Professor, MSP

Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Associate Professor, JOUR

Brooke E. Duffy, Assistant Professor, ADV

Jan Fernback, Associate Professor, MSP

Susan Jacobson, Assistant Professor, JOUR

Tom Jacobson, Professor, MSP

Carolyn Kitch, Professor, JOUR

Matthew Lombard, Associate Professor, MSP

Michael Maynard, Associate Professor, ADV

Andrew Mendelson, Associate Professor, JOUR

Nancy Morris, Professor, MSP

Patrick Murphy, Associate Professor, MSP

Priscilla Murphy, Professor, JOUR

Donnalyn Pompper, Associate Professor, STRC

Hector Postigo, Associate Professor, MSP

Adrienne Shaw, Assistant Professor, MSP

Kaibin Xu, Assistant Professor, STRC

Professor Chiment creates dead body for crime scene at Fox event

Professor Marie Chiment and the gunshot victim she created for a Department of Legal Studies event.

With only a head and hands (and no budget) Chiment had to get creative when she built the body.

Wrapped in fiber fluff, the tubes and boxes make a pretty good torso.

The Theater Department is on the receiving end of a lot of strange requests.

One came early this summer that Professor Marie Chiment couldn’t ignore — the Fox School of Business’ Department of Legal Studies needed a dead body.

On Aug. 1, Professor Samuel Hodge will lead members of the Pennsylvania Bar Association through a crime scene investigation as part of its continuing education program.

“Dr. Hodge and I have created a based-on-real-life crime scene that we will be using as a springboard for a more general discussion of how a murder investigation is handled, from the homicide through to trial,” says Legal Studies Administrative Coordinator Nicole Saitta.

With Chiment’s dummy in the starring role, the attendees will be able to examine the crime scene at the event and view a video that recreates the scene as well.

A Playwright’s Clues

Chiment, a big fan of crime dramas, stepped up to the challenge. She uses crime scene investigation techniques in one of her design classes (which she’s dubbed “DSI: Design Scene Investigation”).

“A playwright, when they’re writing a play, they’re dropping clues,” she says. “So as a designer, I search for clues.”

As part of the design class, Chiment provides her students with the first couple of pages of a play and has them design a set and costumes using only the scripted dialogue.

For the crime scene project, Chiment put into practice the techniques she teaches. She was told that a young white male was found dead in an alley of a gunshot wound to the right temple – and that “the rats had gotten to him.”

Collecting Body Parts

Assistant Technical Director Marka Suber pulled a head and hands from Temple Theaters’ stock of props. Chiment built the body from items she found around her house – delivery boxes, paper towel rolls and plenty of fiber fluff to make it humanlike. What resulted is a six-foot male dressed in a hoodie, jeans and Converse sneakers, who ended up on the wrong end of a handgun.

She tapped into the knowledge of a make-up artist for advice on how to build a realistic gunshot wound, and studied the wounds she saw on TV crime shows.

Chiment says the biggest challenge was mimicking the nuances of a human skeleton – making sure the joints are bent at a realistic angle and that everything is proportional. She ensured everything was sewn together so the body will remain intact on its trip to the event.

“I do get to do some interesting things in my profession,” she says.

Two Journalism professors rank among journalismdegree.org’s Top 50

Professors Christopher Harper and Carolyn Kitch have been included on journalismdegree.org’s “Top 50 Professors in 2012.”

The website, it says, helps “current and prospective students find the right program to fit their needs.”

“The list was created using independent research with the sole purpose of being a resource for our readers,” the site says.

CLICK HERE to see the full list.

Professor Morris to study Chilean protest music through Fulbright award

Professor Nancy Morris, BTMM, has received a Fulbright Scholar Award to continue her study of Chilean New Song music, a genre that became the soundtrack to 1960s social movements in the South American country.

“The story of New Song has yet to be told, and there is a need to collect oral histories of key participants before it is too late,” Morris said.

She will spend the fall semester in Chile (where she will also teach at the University of Chile) and then return to Philadelphia in the spring to write up her research.

“The musicians’ claims that they were combating cultural imperialism piqued my interest and led ultimately to my academic specialization in international media,” she said.

Why does music unite?

With 50 years of history to examine, Morris has decided to focus on the music’s ability to unite people more closely behind a cause.

“The genre reflects and interacts with Chilean political events of the past 40 years,” she says. It has pervaded, “a Marxist presidency, a military coup d’etat and subsequent 18-year dictatorship, the return to democracy and the ongoing massive student protests of the past year.”

This fall, she plans to speak with the musicians, promoters and producers of New Song, including some of the people she interviewed while studying abroad in Chile in 1983.

“I expect these interviews to be fruitful, as these are thoughtful and articulate artists whose vocation is to express their ideas,” she said. “The founders of New Song have been involved with this music for over 40 years, and those younger musicians who allied with this musical current did so with conscious motivations. In all cases, their perspectives have matured, allowing a degree of reflection that simply was not feasible in decades past.”

Watch New Song in action at this 2011 demonstration for greater government support for education.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Hunger Games symposium discusses the messages behind the cultural phenomenon

Osei Alleyne encouraged the devoted fans of The Hunger Games who gathered May 23 at Temple University Center City to “put your three-sign up.”

They all responded appropriately by mimicking the sign of defiance and unity that Katniss Everdeen, the main character in the hit book and film, uses to communicate with the people of Panem. The audience enjoyed taking its turn flashing the symbol they saw as a sign of their hero taking power from her oppressive government.

Leah Wilson, editor of The Girl Who Was On Fire.

Sherri Hope Culver brought an invitation to a Hunger Games-themed birthday party. She said it was an example of how children are sometimes immune to violence in the media.

Fans of The Hunger Games gathered at TUCC to learn more about its messages.

Angela Cirucci, MMC, compared Katniss to Kim Kardashian.

Guests throw up the "three-sign" made famous by Katniss Everdeen.

Osei Alleyne discusses some of the similarities in real-life riots, like after the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, and the District 11 riot in the film.

Barry Vacker: the professor who was on fire?

photos by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Then Alleyne, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, showed the photo of Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their black-gloved fists during a medal ceremony in Mexico City in 1968. The similarity was immediately apparent.

“Put your three-sign up again,” said Alleyne. “It feels a bit different, doesn’t it?”

This moment of connection between the themes of The Hunger Games and the real world was one of many revealed at “Our the Odds in Our Favor?: The Hunger Games on Fame, Fashion and the Future of Humanity,” a symposium co-hosted by Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple’s School of Communications and Theater and the Center for Media and Destiny.

“The Hunger Games is already true,” said Associate Professor Barry Vacker, BTMM.

Alleyne and Vacker were joined by Assistant Professor Sherri Hope Culver, BTMM, as well as Leah Wilson, editor of The Girl Who Was On Fire and Angela Cirucci, MMC, an adjunct professor at Lincoln University.

During her turn at the podium, Cirucci compared Katniss to Kim Kardashian. She said both have to appeal to the public for success, both need to keep their sponsors happy and both keep their relationships – whether real or staged – in the spotlight.

Culver said The Hunger Games is so popular because people sense something familiar in the story – “a comfortable, secure, paradigm-affirming familiarity” of the worst things we watch on the news and reality television.

As director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy, Culver is well-versed in the relationship children have with media. She takes pause when she hears that young girls aspire to be Katniss.

“They picture themselves as the teen hero; the savior of their towns,” she said, an ignore the horrors of her fight to the death. “As a mom, I’m simply concerned.”

But she admits that the element of danger is vital to the story’s success. “Danger is actually an attraction in itself. So we read and we watch.”

SCT announces 2012 faculty awards

The School of Communications and Theater honored four faculty members at its May 1 faculty assembly.

Associate Professor Gregg Feistman, Strategic Communication, Service Award

Associate Professor Christopher Harper, Journalism, Creative Award

Associate Professor Donnalyn Pompper, Strategic Communication, Research Award

Associate Professor Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Theater, Service Award

After a life in TV, Lew Klein donates papers to Temple – Philadelphia Inquirer

When Lew Klein started working in broadcasting, television was not yet a household word. After a career that has run the gamut, Klein has donated his papers to Temple Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center. Margery Sly, director of the SCRC, said many of the 10,000 items would be digitized and posted online. Klein and his wife worked closely with Temple archivists for about two years to gather the material.

Click here to read the full story.

Owls flock to Arden Theatre stage in recent show

During the Arden Theatre Company’s recent run of Clybourne Park, the 2nd Street venue could have been renamed “Temple Theaters South.”

The show, which ran from Jan. 26 to March 25, was directed by Assistant Professor Ed Sobel and starred Associate Professor David Ingram; Josh Tower, THEA ’95, and former theater student Maggie Lakis.

Watch the SCT-ers involved in the production talk about performing in Philadelphia and how the Theater Department prepares its students for the professional world.

Video by Ryan Geffert

Clybourne Park footage courtesy of Jorge Cousineau and Arden Theatre Company