Open Stacks: A Podcast of the James E. Walker Library

This episode's guest is associate professor in the school of journalism and strategic media, Dr. Ken Blake. Ken is a native of Huntington, W.Va., and he holds bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from Marshall University and a doctorate in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ken joined the faculty of MTSU's School of Journalism and Strategic Media in 1996 and has taught undergraduate courses in writing and reporting as well as graduate courses in media theory and empirical research methodology. He heads the College of Media and Entertainment's Office of Communication Research, where Ken and his since-retired colleague Dr. Bob Wyatt co-founded the MTSU Poll, a twice-annual, statewide, scientifically valid telephone poll of Tennessee adults that ran from 1998 to 2016. His most recent scholarly project is a book, co-authored with colleague Dr. Jason Reineke, titled, Data Skills for Media Professionals. Before he earned his doctorate and joined MTSU's faculty, Ken worked as a reporter for The Herald-Dispatch, the Gannett-owned daily newspaper in Huntington. His wife, Amy, works as an inclusion teacher at Cedar Grove Elementary School in Smyrna, and they have two sons, one a senior in high school and the other a junior in video and film production at MTSU.

Books, articles, authors. and media mentioned

• Ken's website
• Data Skills for Media Professionals by Ken Blake and Jason Reineke
• Precision Journalism by Phil Meyer
• Texas Tribune Data
• GDELT Project
• How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff

Music: "Spreading the Disease" by Anthrax. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

Our guest in this episode is Professor of Music History at Middle Tennessee State University and Director of the university’s Center for Popular Music, one of the premier American music research archives, Dr. Greg Reish. Greg holds a MA and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in musicology and a BA in studio music and jazz from the University of Miami. He is active as a scholar and performer of old-time country, bluegrass, and American folk music, with interests in conjunto music from South Texas and son jarocho from Veracruz. He has released a duo album with fiddler Matt Brown (Speed of the Plow), produced various albums for Spring Fed Records, written and edited books, book chapters, and articles on a wide range of musical topics. A former Fulbright scholar to Italy, he is also one of the world’s leading experts on Italian avant-garde music of the twentieth century. A singer and multi-instrumentalist, Reish plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, ukulele, and harmonica, as well as the bajo sexto and requinto jarocho. Greg is also the weekly host of Lost Sounds on Roots Radio WMOT.

Books, articles, authors. and media mentioned

• Center for Popular Music
• Austin Derryberry & Trenton "Tater" Caruthers - Tennessee Breakdown
• Spring Fed Records
• Greetings from the Land of Blue Suede Shoes
• Flatt & Scruggs Ballad of Jed Clampett and Foggy Mountain Breakdown
• Remastered: The Lion's Share
• Elvis Presley Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Bill Monroe
• The Nashville Sound

Music: "Speed of the Plow" by Matt Brown & Greg Reish. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

Today's guest is a professor in the School of Journalism & Strategic Media Dr. Katie Foss, where she teaches courses in media studies, health communication, and research methods Dr. Katie Foss. Dr. Foss is the author of Constructing the Outbreak: Epidemics in Media and Collective Memory (2020), Breastfeeding and Media: Exploring Conflicting Discourses That Threaten Public Health (2017) and Television and Health Responsibility in an Age of Individualism (2014) and the editor of The Graduate Student Guidebook: From Orientation to Tenure Track (2020), Beyond Princess Culture: Gender and Children’s Marketing (2019) and Demystifying the Big House: Exploring Prison Experience and Media Representations (2018). She has a BA in Communication from Gustavus Adolphus College and a MA and Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota and has taught at MTSU since 2008. 

Books, articles, authors. and media mentioned

• Katie's books are linked in her bio above.
• Katie's website
• Laurie Halse Anderson Fever 1793 
• Ken Blake's website
• The Rookie (TV Show)
• Batman (TV Show)
• Dragnet (TV Show)

Music: "Dr. Feelgood" by Motley Crue. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

Jason is joined on today’s episode by lecturer in the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University and affiliated faculty member of the Women’s and Gender Studies program Dr. Shane McCoy (they/them/theirs). Dr. McCoy teaches undergraduate courses that focus on first-year composition (ENGL 1010/2020), African American Literature (ENGL 2020), and Gay and Lesbian Literature (ENGL 2020). Dr. McCoy earned their bachelor’s degree in English and a Minor in Women’s and Gender Studies at MTSU and completed their Ph.D. at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. McCoy’s research interests include instructional scaffolding and curriculum design, feminist affect studies, Africana women’s literature, cognitive literary studies, the sociology of education, and social and emotional learning. In 2018-2019, Dr. McCoy received the designation of Faculty Fellow after completing the Faculty Fellows Program offered by the Lucinda Taylor Lea Learning, Teaching, and Innovative Technologies Center at MTSU. Dr. McCoy is also certified in MTSU’s SafeZone Training, a program designed to support LGBTQ+ students, and is certified in Mental Health First Aid. Dr. McCoy currently serves as an advisory board member for the 2020 LGBT+ College Conference at MTSU. 

Books, articles, and authors mentioned

• Shane's website
• Brene Brown
• Pema Chodron
• Kristen Neff
• Patricia Jennings and Daniel Siegel The trauma-sensitive classroom: building resilience with compassionate teaching

Music: "We Know Who U R" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

Our guest on this episode of Open Stacks is Lecturer in the Department of English and General Education English Program Coordinator, 2020 Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow, and the 2020 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee Amie Whittemore. Amie is the author of Glass Harvest published by Autumn House Press, the  Reviews Editor at Southern Indiana Review, and the 2019/2020 General Education English Outstanding Instructor. She holds a BA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Lewis & Clark College, and a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, Blackbird, The Missouri Review Poem of the Week, Cold Mountain Review, and many other places. She is also the winner or finalist of many prestigious poetry awards.

Books, articles, and authors mentioned

• Amie's website
• Glass Harvest
• Brigit Kelly 
• Elizabeth Bishop
• Jim Morrison

Music: "Turn You Inside Out" by R.E.M. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

Hear some spooktacular stories about the James E. Walker Library!

Music: "John Carpenter's Halloween" by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross and Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 by J.S. Bach played by organist Hans-André Stamm. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

This episode's guest is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center, Dr. Erica Cirillo-McCarthy. Erica teaches undergraduate classes in First Year Writing, Research & Argumentation, and Tutoring Writing and graduate classes in Archival Research Methods and Directed Reading on Oral History in Rhetoric and Composition. Her scholarship has been published in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, the Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, and other edited collections. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and the teaching of English from the University of Arizona and earned her BA and MA in English at Florida Atlantic University.

Books, articles, and authors mentioned

• Erica's website 
• Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death
• Rebecca Tuvel. "In Defense of Transracialism.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy (2017), 32 (2): 263-278. 
• Erica Cirillo-McCarthy, Elise Versoza-Hurley & Amanda Wray. “Rhetorics of Interruption: Navigating Sexism in the Academy.” Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership. Eds. Holly Hassell and Kirsti Cole. New York: Routledge, 2017. 

Music: "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc. This constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law.

We will be debuting a brand new podcast on Oct. 21! In Open Stacks, the library's interim dean, Dr. Jason Martin will host conversations with accomplished teachers, scholars, and artists from all disciplines and walks of life. For more on the show, please visit library.mtsu.edu/openstacks.