Weave News 10th Anniversary Conference Presenters
Weave News is thrilled to introduce your 2017 panelists and presenters for the Weave News 10th Anniversary Conference. They represent a dynamic array of media scholars, activists, artists, and students from around the globe.Register for the conference here, and learn more from them on September 22-24! #WeaveNews10
SPECIAL GUESTS
Taína Asili y la Banda Rebelde
Guest performer, Presenter: Making Social Media Videos with musical guest Gaetano Vaccaro
Taína Asiliis a Puerto Rican activist, singer, songwriter and bandleader combining powerful vocals with an energetic fusion of Afro-Latin, reggae and rock. Her music offers a sound that spans continents, exuding strength of Spirit, inspiring audiences to dance to the rhythm of rebellion. Visit the band's website. Ms. Asili's visit is supported by the ALCOA Foundation Cultural Affairs Program and the Arts Collaborative at St. Lawrence University.
Quester Hannah
Featured filmmaker, Panelist: Shaking the World From Within
Quester Hannah is a recent graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts. While at NYU, his second year short film KING OF GUANGZHOU was screened at various national and international film festivals and has garnered many awards. Quester’s thesis film, NEVER GIVE UP NEVER KEEP SILENT, is a documentary film about African asylum seekers struggling to gain status in Israel. NEVER GIVE UP NEVER KEEP SILENT was a finalist for the 2016 Richard Vague Production Fund and was awarded the Deans’ Award in the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Prior to attending NYU, Quester earned his MFA in acting from Pennsylvania State University. He also studied classical theatre at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Watch the trailer for Never Give Up, Never Keep Silent here. Mr Hannah's visit is supported by the Arts Collaborative at St. Lawrence University. Read our interview with Quester Hannah here.
Bill Yousman
Keynote speaker: "Clinging to Sanity: The Urgent Need for Critical Media Literacy in the Post-Truth Society"
Bill Yousman earned his doctorate in Communication from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is the former Managing Director of the Media Education Foundation and the current Director of the Graduate Program in Media Literacy and Digital Culture at Sacred Heart University, where he is an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Media Arts. Bill’s research focuses on media literacy education and the construction of racial ideologies in media images and narratives. He has published numerous essays in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies. His first book, Prime Time Prisons on U.S. Television: Representation of Incarceration, was published in 2009. His most recent book is The Spike Lee Enigma: Challenge and Incorporation in Media Culture (2014).
PANELISTS AND WORKSHOP PRESENTERS (in alphabetical order)
Wyatt Adams
Panelist: Weaving the Streets & People's History Archive
Wyatt Adams is a senior at St. Lawrence University from York, Maine. He is majoring in Global Studies with a focus on European and Peace Studies. Last semester, Wyatt studied in Vienna, Austria where he wrote for Weave News.
Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo
Panelist: Shaking the World from Within
Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo is a multimedia artist and educator who sometimes poses as a guerrilla filmmaker. While at St. Lawrence University, from which he graduated in 2015, Tzintzun served as the coordinator for the Big Questions project and the Global Dialogue Center. Tzintzun worked with John Collins and Osman Mohammed Ali to develop and expand the Holot: Crossroads of Global Violence multimedia project.
Osman (Kedy) Ali
Panelist: Shaking the World from Within
Osman Ali, who goes by Kedy, is a survivor of the ongoing genocide in Darfur currently seeking refuge in Israel. He is one of the prominent activists for human rights and advocacy in Israel. Kedy is a citizen journalist who covered the Holot detention center while imprisoned inside in the series, Silent Voice from Holot.
Ben Boyington
Panelist: Activism & Storytelling, Presenter: Critical Media in the Classroom
Veteran high school teacher and researcher Ben Boyington, M.Ed., founded his high-school media studies work on the idea that skepticism and activism are essential to citizenship. He believes that depth of understanding comes from integration, design, and students teaching students, and that heutagogy is more important than pedagogy. His research into the 1:1 screen initiative is published in Media Education for a Digital Generation (Routledge, 2016). Boyington is also vice president of the Action Coalition for Media Education and coordinator of the Global Critical Media Literacy Project.
Allison Butler
Presenter: Connecting Citizens to the Story: Use and Application of Critical Media Literacy
Allison Butler is a Lecturer, Chief Undergraduate Advisor and the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, MA, where she teaches courses on critical media literacy and representations of education in the media. Butler co-directs the grassroots organization, Mass Media Literacy (www.massmedialiteracy.org), where she develops legislation, teacher training, and curriculum for the inclusion of critical media literacy in Massachusetts K-12 public schools.
John Collins
Panelist: 10 Years of Citizen Journalism, Presenter: News Analysis 101
Dr. John Collins (Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 2000), Professor of Global Studies at St. Lawrence University, is a founder of Weave News, which began as a project in his seminar on global news analysis. He is currently serving as an Editor and as Director of Development for the organization and has been blogging about Palestine (his main area of academic research) since 2007. You can find him on Twitter @djleftover.
Savannah Crowley
Panelist: 10 Years of Citizen Journalism, Panelist: Weaving the Streets & People's History Archive
Savannah Crowley recently completed her Master's degree at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. As a student at the Kroc School, Savannah has focused her studies on the dynamics of the San Diego border region to understand how U.S.-Mexico relations affect systems of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs. After receiving training in restorative justice facilitation, her research has focused on how restorative practices can be implemented to combat opioid abuse among young adults.
Ajok Deng
Panelist: Weaving the Streets & People's History Archive
Ajok Deng is a Southern Sudanese refugee studying at St. Lawrence University. She is a rising senior and double majoring in Global Studies and Spanish. Following graduation she plans to pursue a career within the diplomatic realm.
Christian Exoo
Panelist: 10 Years of Citizen Journalism, Presenter: Online Investigation
Christian Exoo is an Editor at Weave News. His work has appeared in Salon, Alternet, Extra!, the magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and others. He is a Library Building Supervisor at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.
Sarita Farnelli
Presenter: Strategic Corporate Research and Institutional Divestment, Public Relations Activism, Student Activism 101
Sarita Farnelli is a reporter and student/community organizer from Susquehanna County, PA, currently based in Philadelphia. Her work primarily focuses around academic labor issues and environmental issues, particularly fossil fuel development. When not writing and organizing, she can be found designing banners and protest art for actions around Pennsylvania.
Jana Morgan
Panelist: 10 Years of Citizen Journalism, Activism & Storytelling,
Presenter: Big Data for Citizen Journalists 101
Jana Morgan is a founder of Weave News as well as the Outreach Director, and has been with Weave News for nine years. She is also the Director of Publish What You Pay - United States, a 40 member coalition of US non-profit organizations focused on creating a more open and accountable oil, gas and mining sector.
Jessica Prody
Panelist: Activism & Storytelling
Jessica M. Prody is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Coordinator of the Sustainability Program at St. Lawrence University. Her research in environmental rhetoric, sustainable advocacy, and feminist rhetoric has been published in the journals Argumentation & Advocacy and Women's Studies in Communication, as well as in edited book collections, including Voice and Environmental Communication and Environmental Communication Pedagogy and Practice. Recently, her research has involved the use of rhetorical field methods, specifically oral history, to map the narratives and networks of the global climate change movement.
Raina K. Puels
Panelist: Weaving the Streets & People's History Archive
Raina K. Puels is a Creative Writing MFA candidate at Emerson College. She's the Nonfiction Editor for Redivider and a reader for Ploughshares Solos. She's passionate about the intersection of text and art, feminism, and cats. Twitter: @rainakpuels
Jon Rosales
Panelist: Activism & Storytelling
Dr. Jon Rosales (Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 2004) is an associate professor of Environmental Studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York where he teaches classes that apply the motto, “Think global; act local.” Jon’s expertise and scholarly focus is on climate change. His current research focuses on the impacts of climate change on native subsistence villages in Alaska, making their concerns visible, advocating for their assistance, and calling on governments to act on climate change. Jon was born in Ecuador to American parents and grew up in Latin America before moving to the U.S. in his teens, imprinting an international perspective on him since infancy.
Cathy Tedford
Panelist: Weaving the Streets & People's History Archive, Presenter: Activist Sticker Making
Catherine Tedford (MFA) is gallery director at St. Lawrence University and has collaborated with Weave News since 2013 on the Weaving the Streets & People’s History Archive projects. She writes about street art stickers on her research blog Stickerkitty.
