[Air-L] John Monberg tribute/memorial session at AoIR in Philadelphia

[Holly Kruse]

Hi all,

Now that the conference program is live, I’d like to draw your attention to an informal session on the program that’s scheduled for Friday, October 20th at 5:00 p.m., after the panels for the day have ended. It’s a session for those of us who knew John Monberg and/or who knew his work, and who would like to spend a little time together remember him. John died in April. You can read the excellent tribute to John posted by the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University, of which he was a member, at https://wrac.msu.edu/2023/07/14/wrac-mourns-the-loss-of-professor-john-monberg/ <https://enculturation.net/mapping_the_network>.

For those of you who didn’t know John or weren’t familiar with his research, let me tell you a few things about him and why I wanted to schedule some kind of remembrance time for him at AoIR. John was an STS and communication scholar who, in his own words from his biography page (which is still up at the time of this writing) on the MSU website, "My work focuses on the new media resources and information infrastructures needed for community deliberation adequate to meet the challenges of globalization. Because these infrastructures are designed, my work pays special attention to the productive practices that mediate culture, technology, and public.” (See https://jmonberg.msu.domains/ <https://jmonberg.msu.domains/>).

John was an EARLY and active participant in AoIR, having presented his research at eight AoIR conferences, starting in Minneapolis with the second annual conference . Many of you know him and his work through his AoIR presentations. Those of you who did get to know him, at least a little, know what a kind, generous, thoughtful, intellectually voracious (“curious” doesn’t quite cover it) person he was, always interested in the ideas of others and full of fascinating insights from his own research: including research from the earliest days of what was then primarily referred to as “computer-mediated communication” in the early-to-mid-1990s. I urge everyone to take a look at one of the more recent projects on which he worked in collaboration with his MSU colleague Dawn Opel – a project that drew on his personal experience and is titled "Mapping the Network of the Cancer Clinical Trial: A Toolkit for Health Equity Activism,” which is  available for all to read at https://enculturation.net/mapping_the_network <https://enculturation.net/mapping_the_network>.

I hope that any and all people interested in attending will do so. There is no registration fee or formal registration for this event. All you need to do to participate is show up. Because of friends and colleagues who want to be present but are unable to attend in person, I’ve recruited John’s longtime friend Laura Gurak to set up a Zoom option. I’m not sure whaat technology we’ll have available in the room to which we’ve been assigned, so the Zoom people may just end up as tiny heads on a laptop screen, but at least they will be there in some form. If you won’t be attending the conference and would like to participate in the session via Zoom, please contact Laura at gurakL at umn.edu <mailto:gurakL at umn.edu>.

My dream is that we will have a big, informal get-together of friends, colleagues, fans, and family – John’s wife Terese and his brother will be there – where we can share our memories of John and his work. Both Terese and I have recruited and are still recruiting people to speak – again, informally – at the session so that we don’t end up with just a few people awkwardly sitting around trying to find more things to say. I know many of you out there were affected by John and his work, and if you are interested in attending and even saying a few words about John, please email me at holly.kruse at gmail.com <mailto:holly.kruse at gmail.com>. I may privately (again) reach out to some of you. I of course don’t need a full-fledged commitment now, but if you’d be interested in attending and willing to participate – we could just all sit down and chat informally about John, which I think would be great (I have stories… ;-)) – please let me know. Because the session is scheduled for 5:00 on Friday, we will be perfectly positioned to move from the session to drinks or dinner. 

Thanks for reading this, best wishes, and I’ll see you in Philadelphia!
Holly

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Holly Kruse, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Communications
Rogers State University
1701 W. Will Rogers Blvd.
Claremore, Oklahoma 74017
holly.kruse at gmail.com or hkruse at rsu.edu