[Air-L] Preregistration - 13th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association June 7–10, 2012

[Janet Sternberg]

The Thirteenth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association
The Crossroads of the Word
June 7–10, 2012


Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York

Featured Speakers
Sherry Turkle
Douglas Rushkoff
Terence P. Moran
Jaron Lanier

For Registration and Preliminary Program, go to
http://www.media-ecology.org

Deadline for Preregistration: May 15

Times Square, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue in New York
City, has often been referred to as the “Crossroads of the World.”

In fact, New York City itself can be considered a crossroads of the
world. New York Harbor is home to Ellis Island, the main point of entry
for the “huddled masses” who came to the United States in search of a
better life, particularly as part of the “great immigration” of the late
19th and early 20th centuries, and who became part of America’s great
“melting pot.” The city’s five boroughs are home to the most diverse
population of any city on earth, with virtually every culture and
language group represented.

New York is also a crossroads of the media/mass media world: home to the
U.S. corporate headquarters of almost all of our major multinational
media conglomerates; home to Silicon Alley; and the indisputable news
and information capital of the United States.

It must be added, too, that the way we understand, analyze, and make
sense of our world and all things in it is through our human language,
in its spoken, written, and print forms. That is to say, our world is
all about words. And at this juncture in the history of human
civilization, in which people speak of a “post-literate culture,” after
media ecologist Walter Ong, S. J., subtitled his book Orality and
Literacy “The Technologizing of the Word,” and media ecologist Jacques
Ellul wrote The Humiliation of the Word, we can perhaps say that we
stand at a “Crossroads of the Word.”

Convention Coordinator: Thom Gencarelli (thom.gencarelli{at}manhattan.edu).

Featured Speakers

Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of
Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
author of The Second Self, Life on the Screen, and her latest book Alone
Together
(Thursday evening, June 7)

Douglas Rushkoff (http://www.rushkoff.com/), winner of the MEA's first
Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual
Activity, author of ten books including the recent Program or Be
Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, and producer of three
Frontline documentaries including “Merchants of Cool”, “The Persuaders”,
and “Digital Nation” 
(Friday, June 8)

Terence P. Moran, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New
York University, one of the three founding members of NYU’s media
ecology doctoral program, and author of Selling War to America: From the
Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror and Introduction to The
History of Communication: Evolutions and Revolutions
(Saturday, June 9)

Jaron Lanier (http://www.jaronlanier.com/), computer scientist,
composer, visual artist, author of You are Not a Gadget, and one of Time
magazine’s “100 People” for 2010 
(Saturday evening, June 9)

The program will also include plenary sessions in celebration of the
centenary of the birth of Walter J. Ong and Jacques Ellul.

Campus Housing

Campus housing at Manhattan College will be available from Wednesday
night, June 6 through Sunday night, June 10 (with checkout on Monday
morning, June 11). This housing is situated just a two-minute walk from
the buildings in which the convention will be held.

Pricing is as follows:

•    $60 US per person per night for a private bedroom in a two-bedroom
suite with a shared bath

•    $100 US per person per night for a private bedroom with a private bath

To reserve campus housing please check the following two-step process:

1) Call Fiona Delaney, the Office Manager at the College's Business
Office, at 1-718-862-7456, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Daylight Time, Monday through Friday. Tell Fiona you wish to reserve
campus housing during the Media Ecology Association Convention, and tell
her which housing option you prefer. The College accepts Visa,
MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

2) E-mail Brian Korney at bkorney.student{at}manhattan.edu with

(a) your name
(b) your housing option
(c) the dates you will be staying.

This will guarantee your reservation and ensure that we have an accurate
housing list.

Hotels

For those of you who prefer to stay at a hotel, you have two options:
You can stay at a hotel in midtown Manhattan. Or you can stay at a hotel
In Yonkers, New York - a few miles north of campus.

If you choose to stay at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, please note the
following:

(1) New York City has a great many hotels from which to choose. If you
are not happy with the ones we recommend below, you are of course free
to search for your own.

(2) The hotels we recommend are all located on the west side of
Manhattan, and are convenient to the No. 1 subway train, which will take
you right down the hill - a two-minute walk - from the Manhattan College
campus. If you choose an alternative hotel, we recommend that you also
choose one on the West Side. (Subway directions can be found below.)

(3) The recommended hotels do not offer a special convention rate, as we
are not using their services otherwise.

(4) A subway ride from midtown to the campus takes about a half hour.

If you choose to stay at one of the recommended hotels in Yonkers, New
York - both of which are located about seven miles (11.25 Km) from
campus - you will need to either rent a car or take a taxi to campus and
back. A taxi costs approximately $16.50 US each way.

Hotels in Manhattan

The following two hotels in Manhattan are presently pricing at about
$250 per person per night:

•    The Milburn Hotel - 242 West 76th Street 
Manhattan College uses
this hotel to house guests who wish to stay in midtown

•    Holiday Inn - 440 West 57th Street

In addition, the MEA has used the following hotel in the past. However,
it is presently pricing at $379 per person per night:

•    Hudson Hotel - 356 West 58th Street

Hotels in Yonkers, New York

•    Hampton Inn and Suites - 160 Corporate Boulevard
Manhattan College
also uses this hotel to house guests
Presently pricing at $179 per
person per night (or $152 non-refundable)

•    Ramada Inn - 125 Tuckahoe Road
Presently pricing at $129 per person
per night



Directions to Campus from the No. 1 Subway Line

•    Take the No. 1 subway north to the end of the line - the Van
Cortlandt Park/242nd Street stop.

•    Walk up the hill on West 242nd Street to College's main gate on the
right.

•    Signs will be posted to direct you to the buildings in which the
convention is being held

http://www.media-ecology.org