Remixing Rural Texas

Publications about RRT
Carter, Shannon and Kelly Dent. "East Texas Activism (1966-68): Locating the Literacy Scene through the Digital Humanities." College English, Special Issue on Rhetorical Historiography and the Digital Humanities (September 2013), Guest Edited by Jessica Enoch and David Gold. Invited.

Abstract: This article suggests ways the digital humanities can help researchers capture the local and global forces that interanimate local literacy scenes. As a concrete example, we offer “Remixing Rural Texas” and the way this digital tool works to capture a targeted literacy scene: the civil rights efforts of two African American students on a recently desegregated campus in 1967-1968. RRT features an 18-minute documentary about these efforts, remixed almost entirely from existing archival materials, and a data-source annotation tool that connects the local literacy scene to global events. Concludes with an extended treatment of local stakeholders and the way RRT enables more sustainable, reciprocal, and participatory partnerships with local communities.

Carter, Shannon, Jennifer Jones, and Sunchai Hamcumpai. “Beyond Territorial Disputes: Toward a ‘Disciplined Interdisciplinarity’ in the Digital Humanities.” Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities. Ed. Jim Ridolfo and William Hart-Davidson. U of Chicago [D1] P. Under contract.

Abstract: This chapter suggests the digital humanities is uniquely positioned to serve what Charles Bazerman calls "the disciplined interdisciplinarity of writing studies" (RTE, 2011), providing unprecedented access to multiple disciplines to answer our field's key questions about writing and writers. Identifies two DH approaches, insisting the most common one (DH as situation) is also the one least compatible with this objective; challenges rhetoric and composition to instead approach DH as a situation enabling Bazerman's disciplined interdisciplinary. Concludes with an extended treatment of their NEH ODH-funded project "Remixing Rural Texas" as a concrete example of the latter approach.

Publications about Research Informing RRT
Carter, Shannon and Jim Conrad. “In Possession of Community: Towards a More Sustainable Local” College Composition and Communication 64.1 (September 2012): 81-121. Print.

This article summarizes various applications of oral history interviews at local sites to represent the writing of underrepresented groups. The coauthors (a rhetorician andan archivist) discuss the important disciplinary implications for tending to the local, especially at sites where formal archives are hard to come by, offering three principlesfor sustaining the local by combining research design with archival development.

Carter, Shannon. “A Clear Channel: Circulating Resistance in a Rural University Town.” Community Literacy Journal 7.1 (September 2012): 111-33. Print.

An extended treatment of two social justice efforts in a rural university town-- both initiated by African American students (one in 1967 and another in 1973)--as historical examples of civic engagement with contemporary implications for Writing Democracy and similar projects. As a student at this local college John Carlos, the sprinter best known for his heroic, silent protest against racism with Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics, found his local attempts to mobilize the community against ongoing racism to be relatively unsuccessful. Five years later students established the Norris Community Club (NCC) in partnership with residents of Norris, the historically segregated neighborhood, to provide what they called “a clear channel of communication” between Norris and city officials. This later attempt yielded far more significant community changes. Uses “a clear channel” as both the object of study and interpretive lens to examine these local efforts and their many implications for today.

National Presentations
Carter, Shannon, Jennifer Jones, Kelly Dent, and Deborah Mutnick. “Remixing Oral History: Toward a Federal Writers’ Project 2.0.” Oral History Association Conference. Oklahoma City, OK. November 2013. (Accepted)

Carter, Shannon, John Carlos, Joe Tave, Belford Page, Jennifer Jones, and Kelly Dent. “Racing the Local, Locating Race: Rhetorical Historiography through the Digital Humanities.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. The Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. 16 Mar. 2013. Roundtable Discussion. Respondent: Adam Banks, University of Kentucky

Carlos, John. “The Silent Protest: Open Hands, Closed Fists, and Composition’s Political Turn.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Las Vegas, NV. 14 Mar. 2013. Featured Session.

Carter, Shannon, John Carlos, Joe Tave, and Belford Page. “The Political Turn: Writing Democracy for the 21st Century.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Las Vegas, NV. 13 Mar. 2013. Workshop.

Carter, Shannon. “The Public Work of Composition: John Carlos, Remixed.” Remixing Rural Texas: Local Texts, Global Contexts. Converging Literacies Center (CLiC). Video. March 2012. Web. Conference on College Composition and Communication. The Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. March 13 (Workshop), 14 (Featured Session), and 16 (Roundtable Discussion)

Carter, Shannon. “Locating 'A Clear Channel': Rhetoric and Race in a Rural University Town.” Thomas R. Watson Conference on Writing and Rhetoric. Louisville, Kentucky. October 2012.

Carter, Shannon. “Why We Write: How Ordinary Citizens (Can) Change the World.” Florida WPA Affiliate/Bedford St. Martins Symposium. University of Central Florida. September 21, 2012. Keynote.

Carter, Shannon, Deborah Mutnick, and Steve Parks. “This We Believe: A Federal Writers Project 2.0.”Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. Manhattan, New York. October 2012.

Carter, Shannon. “Community Literacy and the Digital Humanities.” NCWAC Summit. National Consortium of Writing Across Communities. July 12-15, 2012. Sante Fe, NM.

Carter, Shannon, Kelly Dent, Sunchai Hamcumpai, and Donna Dunbar-Odom. “Locating 'A Clear Channel': Rhetoric and Race in a Rural University Town.” Thomas R. Watson Conference on Writing and Rhetoric. Louisville, Kentucky. October 2012.

Carter, Shannon and Deborah Mutnick. “Writing Democracy 2012: A Federal Writers’ Project for the 21st Century.” CCCC. St. Louis, MO. March 2012. Paper.

Carter, Shannon. “The Federal Writers’ Project: Then and Now.” CCCC. March 2012. Respondent.

Carter, Shannon. “Community Literacy and the Digital Humanities.” NCWAC Summit. National Consortium of Writing Across Communities. July 12-15, 2012. Sante Fe, NM.

Carter, Shannon (keynote). “From Silent Films to Talkies, Transparencies to Digital Media: Teacher Responses to the ‘Always New’ in Digital Media.” Florida Writing Symposium. September 21, 2012. University of Central Florida.

Carter, Shannon, Deborah Mutnick (Long Island University-Brooklyn), Steve Parks (Syracuse University), Jerrold Hirsch (Truman State Universty). “This We Believe.” Imagining America. October 2012. New York City.

Carter, Shannon, Donna Dunbar-Odom, Sunchai Hamcumpai, and Kelly Dent. “Race/Class: Narration’s Currency and Exchange Rates in the Economies of Writing.” Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition. October 2012. Louisville, Kentucky.

Area/Campus Presentations about RRT

Carter, Shannon. Introduction, John Carlos (keynote). John Carlos and Dave Zirin, Book Signing, The John Carlos Story (Haymarket Press, 2011). Texas A&M University-Commerce. November 7, 2011.

Carter, Shannon (moderator), Gwendolyn M. Lawe, Ted Lawe, Angel Delgado, Opal Pannell, Billy Reed, Harry Turner, McArthur Evans, Belford Page, Henry Ross, Joseph McCowan. “Segregation to Desegregation: A Conversation from Experience in Texas Schools.” Texas A&M University-Commerce. November 28, 2011.

Carter, Shannon. (Robin Reid, chair). “Remixing the Archives.” Digital Methodologies. Texas A&M University-Commerce. October 2011.

Carter, Shannon, Kelly Dent, Jennifer Jones, Sunchai Hamcumpai, Christina Clay, Chad Miller. “Remixing History.” THATcamp. University of Texas at Arlington. March 2012.

Hamcumpai, Sunchai and Christina Clay. “Remixing Rural Texas: A Digital Humanities Project.” Federation Graduate Symposium. Texas Woman’s University. April 2012.

Archival Development

Public Programming

Evans, McArthur and Opal Pannell (with Shannon Carter, chair). “Why the Local Matters.” CLiC Talks. February 7, 2012 (10:00-12:00). Texas A&M University-Commerce. SRSC, Conference Room A.

Evans, McArthur. Black History Month Speaker Series. February 7, 2012 (2:00-3:30). Texas A&M University-Commerce. SRSC, Conference Room C.

Page, Belford. Black History Month Speaker Series. February 14, 2012 (2:00-3:30). Texas A&M University-Commerce. SRSC, Conference Room C.

Ross, Henry. Black History Month Speaker Series. February 21, 2012 (2:00-3:30). Texas A&M University-Commerce. BA 221.

Cooper, Carlton. Black History Month Speaker Series. February 23, 2012 (2:00-3:30). Texas A&M University-Commerce. BA 221.

Lawe, Gwendolyn M. Black History Month Speaker Series. February 28, 2012 (2:00-3:30). Texas A&M University-Commerce. SRSC, Conference Room C.

Documentaries

Carter, Shannon. “A Clear Channel.” Remixing Rural Texas: Local Texts, Global Contexts. Converging Literacies Center (CLiC). Video. Aug. 2012. Web. 2 Aug. 2012. <http://faculty.tamuc.edu/RRT> and <http://www.youtube.com/remixingruraltexas>

A Clear Channel: Part I is a brief (18:16 minute) documentary about East Texas activism in 1967-1968, remixed from primary source materials (oral histories, images, video), native audio and video, and a range of scholarly and contemporary texts.

Synopsis: A brief documentary about the complexity of communicating about race relations in America, drawing attention to this this issue as it played out in one local context (a rural university town) at a particularly complex time (after 1964, as the first African American students set foot on this campus that had been segregated since 1889) and featuring two student activists and their local efforts to enact change: John Carlos (ETSU, 1966-1967), a Harlem native best known for his part in the Silent Protest alongside fellow medalist Tommie Smith at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, and Joe Tave (ETSU 1965-1969), a political science major from one of the area’s segregated communities who helped establish a remarkably effective student advocacy group in 1968 (Afro-American Student Society of East Texas), ushering in unprecedented change across the campus and the community.

This narrative remixes collective memories of 1968 drawn from existing source materials to explore attempts by local African American student activists in a newly desegregated university to communicate about race in ways that promote social justice during one of the most turbulent years in our nation's history.

Credits: Writer, Shannon Carter; Researchers, Kelly Dent, Jennifer Jones; Video Editor, Adam Sparks; Production Assistance, Sunchai Hamcumpai and Adam Sparks; Narrator, Shannon Carter. Also features John Carlos, Joe Tave, Belford Page, and other local African American students and citizens.

In Development

Still Searching (16:04 minute) documentary remix about desegregation at East Texas State University, drawing from primary source materials (oral histories, images, video), native audio and video, and a range of scholarly and contemporary texts

Synopsis: Remixed almost entirely from existing scholarly and primary source materials, this video builds upon a first-person account of archival research from the perspective of Jamar Mosley, an African American student athlete struggling to find images of other student athletes in the historic photos of this campus. His assignment was a remix of existing artifacts designed to tell a meaningful, purposeful, personally relevant, locally significant story (see assignment description at “Resources”). The story Mosley told for this assignment in an undergraduate writing course taught by Carter (PI) articulates through images and text the "absent presence" of race Catherine Prendergast has identified common in most any composition classroom. Mosley's original remix ("I Searched for Myself") inspired the current one ("Still Searching"). The latter version was created for this larger digital humanities project about desegregation in region. "Still Searching" expands Mosley's narrative through a wide range of scholarly and primary source materials to help explain why he was unable to find representations of African American athletes in the local history collections earlier than 1964, the year desegregation reached this campus--and why that absent presence still matters. A rough-cut of the 16-minute long video is available upon request, revisions are currently under construction and will be available to the public shortly. Until then, please see the trailer either with or without annotations.

Credits: Writers, Shannon Carter, with Jennifer Jones and Kelly Dent; Video Editor, Adam Sparks and Christina Clay; Production Assistance, Sunchai Hamcumpai; Narrator, Noah Nelson. Also features Ivory Moore, McArthur Evans, Larry Matthis, Allen Hallmark, Opal Pannell, Billy Reed, Joe Tave, and other area African American citizens and students.

A Clear Channel: Part IIis currently in development. This 10-minute remix will focus on an activist group that builds upon the successes of ASSET, extending related benefits to residents of Norris, the historically segregated neighborhood in town (see Carter, “A Clear Channel”). The second part of this brief documentary will feature the Norris Community Club (NCC), a partnership established in 1973 between university students and local African American citizens to represent Norris, the historically segregated neighborhood in a rural university town. Focuses on NCC’s key accomplishments and challenges, especially with respect to Ivory Moore’s role as a founding member and liaison to both the city and the university. Narrative unfolds through primary source materials (oral histories, images, video), native audio and video, and a range of scholarly and contemporary texts.

Credits: Writers, Shannon Carter, with Jennifer Jones and Kelly Dent; Video Editor, Adam Sparks; Production Assistance, Sunchai Hamcumpai; Narrator, Noah Nelson. Also features Ivory Moore, McArthur Evans, Larry Matthis, Allen Hallmark, Opal Pannell, Billy Reed, Joe Tave, and other area African American citizens and students

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