Recent Press Coverage

Current News and Events

Colonialism or Philanthropy? Blurred Lines in King Leopold’s Congo

December 28, 2019

Kirk Bowman, Jon R. Wilcox Professor of Soccer and Global Politics, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote about King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin 1998) for Global Atlanta.

Excerpt:

The Congo experience provides numerous lessons for our time... I read Leopold’s Ghost at the same time that J.K. Rowling launched a three-year campaign to stop orphanage tourism. There is an oversupply of orphanage tourists and a shortage of orphans. Children are being sold or stolen into orphanages to sate the pressure from orphanage volunteers. While their intentions are far more noble than the Congo’s ruthless ruler, Hoschild’s brilliant book reminds us all that global philanthropy can sometimes be far different from what it appears.

Read the full article.

Published in: Global Atlanta
Fixing repo market a ‘trial and error’ process, former Atlanta Fed president says

December 27, 2019

Dennis Lockhart, former Atlanta Federal Reserve president and Sam Nunn School distinguished professor, was interviewed in "Fixing repo market a ‘trial and error’ process, former Atlanta Fed president says" by CNBC.

Read an excerpt:

“That’s a little bit of a trial and error kind of thing,” Lockhart said. “And they have been injecting more bank reserves into the system to try to make sure the repo market first got through year-end, which we’ll see in the next couple of days, and secondly continues without undo volatility.”

Find the article and video interview on the CNBC website.

Published in: CNBC
What Atlanta can teach Tepper about soccer

December 20, 2019

Kirk Bowman, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was quoted in Charlotte Ledger article “What Atlanta can teach Tepper about soccer.”

Read a quote:

“Arthur Blank’s genius has been to embrace soccer as a completely different animal from football,” says Kirk S. Bowman, a professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs who has studied soccer extensively and witnessed the United sensation firsthand.

Find the aricle on the Charlotte Ledger.

Published in: Charlotte Ledger
The Force of 'Star Wars': The Staying Power of a Sci-Fi Icon Explained

December 20, 2019

Lisa Yaszek, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in the article "The Force of 'Star Wars': The Staying Power of a Sci-Fi Icon Explained" in space.com.

Excerpt:

The character of Luke Skywalker was supposed to undergo his own "hero's journey" in the original "Star Wars." Lucas drew on themes of good and evil drawn from ancient texts such as the Biblical Old and New Testaments, and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" play trilogy from ancient Greece, Lisa Yaszek, professor of science-fiction studies at Georgia Tech University, told Space.com. Additionally, Lucas made sure to throw in themes that would resonate with 1970s and 1980s audiences, including strong characters who were female, or people of color.

Take, for example, the famous scene in the original film where Leia takes over during a bungled "rescue" by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. "It was the first time a science fiction heroine picked up a gun and saved herself," Yaszek said. "She says, 'Oh dude, you're too short and completely inadequate. I'm going to take care of it.' And that's great."

Read the full article.

Published in: space.com
‘Phantom buzzing’ is creeping out smartphone, smartwatch users

December 20, 2019

Robert Rosenberger, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the article "‘Phantom buzzing’ is creeping out smartphone, smartwatch users" in the New York Post, December 28, 2019.

Excerpt:

The Post previously reported that it is classified as “a real psychological phenomenon” and a legitimate hallucination.

“The phone actually becomes a part of you, and you become trained to perceive the phone’s vibration as an incoming call or text,” Robert Rosenberger, a Georgia Tech School of Public Policy professor, explained.

Read the full article.

Published in: New York Post
Is Your Phone or Watch Constantly Buzzing? It Could Be in Your Head

December 19, 2019

Robert Rosenberger, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article "“Is Your Phone or Watch Constantly Buzzing? It Could Be in Your Head" published on December 19, 2019.

Subscription required.

Published in: Wall Street Journal
Journal Reports: Decade in Review (A Special Report): China’s Growing Power, and a Growing Backlash

December 18, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article "Journal Reports: Decade in Review (A Special Report): China’s Growing Power, and a Growing Backlash."

Subscription required.

Published in: Wall Street Journal
Ciara surprises Georgia students using STEM to remix her songs

December 17, 2019

EarSketch, a computer program created by School of Literature, Media, and Communication professor Brian Magerko with School of Music professor Jason Freeman, was mentioned in an article in USA Today on Dec. 17, 2019.

EarSketch is a free-to-use program that teaches students the programming languages Python and JavaScript in the context of creating and manipulating songs in a "digital audio workstation." It is used by more than 375,000 students and instructors in 50 states and more than 100 different countries.

The program got some celebrity exposure recently when star R&B singer Ciara came to Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross to speak to students and listen to remixes of her songs that students created in EarSketch. Students could submit their creations for the Ciara Remix Competition, run by Amazon and Georgia Tech.

Excerpt:

Ciara spoke to the class and watched students rework her music as they participated in a competition sponsored by Amazon’s future engineer program. The teenagers used EarSketch, a platform developed by Georgia Institute of Technology, that teaches computer science through music remixing, research engineer Roxanne Moore told WSB-TV.

The students will submit their creations for judging and could win Amazon gift cards or a trip to Seattle to present their work, according to the competition rules.

Read the full article here.

Published in: USA Today
Contest merges music, coding to lure students to computer science

December 17, 2019

EarSketch, a computer program created by School of Literature, Media, and Communication professor Brian Magerko with School of Music professor Jason Freeman, was mentioned in an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec. 17, 2019.

EarSketch is a free-to-use program that teaches students the programming languages Python and JavaScript in the context of creating and manipulating songs in a "digital audio workstation." It is used by more than 375,000 students and instructors in 50 states and more than 100 different countries.

The program got some celebrity exposure recently when star R&B singer Ciara came to Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross to speak to students and listen to remixes of her songs that students created in EarSketch. Students could submit their creations for the Ciara Remix Competition, run by Amazon and Georgia Tech.

Excerpt:

Using Georgia Tech’s learn-to-code-through-music platform, EarSketch, high school students have the opportunity to win prizes by composing an original remix featuring the song “SET” from Grammy-Award winning singer-songwriter Ciara. The competition is intended to get young people excited about computer science and coding.

High school students across the country can enter the competition through Jan. 20.

“I always get students who come in and say they don’t know anything about programming and they may be a little intimidated at first,” said Philip Peavey, digital technology teacher at Paul Duke. “But once they get going they realize that it’s something they can do … it opens their eyes to career possibilities that they maybe hadn’t thought of before.”

Read the full article here.

Published in: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A ‘Star Wars’ actor sparked a conversation about gender fluidity. Women have been using sci-fi to explore gender and sexuality for centuries.

December 8, 2019

Lisa Yaszek, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was featured in The Lily, the world's oldest feminist magazine, in an article about gender fluidity in science fiction, "A ‘Star Wars’ actor sparked a conversation about gender fluidity. Women have been using sci-fi to explore gender and sexuality for centuries."

Excerpt:

For women, in particular, science fiction has long been a space to stretch the bounds of traditional gender roles and imagine a more gender-equal future.

Lisa Yaszek, a professor of science fiction studies at Georgia Tech, describes the feminist appeal of science fiction like this: “We can imagine spaces that radically break from our own world and from what we know or at least believe to be scientifically or socially true about sex and gender.”

Read the full article.

Published in: Live Science
The China Complex

December 5, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was featured in the Al Jazeera English documentary titled "The China Complex."

Watch episode 1 and 2 on Al Jazeera's YouTube channel.

Published in: Al Jazeera English
The banking sector and the uprising

December 5, 2019

Rana Shabb, a doctoral candidate in the Sam Nunn of International Affairs, wrote "The banking sector and the uprising" in The Daily Star.

Therefore, as the Lebanese public demands transparency, accountability and good governance across the board, the financial sector should not be thrown out with the current political elites. It is important that the Central Bank - the regulator - be subject to high scrutiny and abide by stringent transparency and accountability measures. However, the collapse of the commercial banks is not a solution to 30 years of political mismanagement nor is it an avenue for fruitful revenge.

Read the article on The Daily Star.

Published in: The Daily Star
NATO Debrief with General Philip Breedlove (Ret.)

December 4, 2019

General Phil Breedlove, USAF (ret,), former 17th Supreme Commander Europe of NATO and now Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow in the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies, was interviewed in The Cipher Brief article "NATO Debrief with General Philip Breedlove (Ret.)."

The bottom line is we’re living in some of the most uncertain times of our history. We used to understand our opponents, who they were and where the lines on the ground and the lines in the sand were. Now, there are no lines out there for us to understand. There are all kinds of gray zone conflicts going on. Russia is attacking us in cyber every day. They’re engineering social media against the West every day.

Find the article in The Cipher Brief.

Published in: The Cipher Brief
Sale of .org Domain to Private Equity Firm Sparks Battle over Internet Privacy

December 2, 2019

Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy Professor Milton Mueller was recently quoted in the article "Sale of .org Domain to Private Equity Firm Sparks Battle over Internet Privacy," which was published by Financial Times on November 28.

Here's an excerpt:

The future of one of the internet’s most irreproachable neighbourhoods has just been thrown into doubt — and some of its residents are up in arms. The .org internet domain is a potent symbol for non-profit groups around the world, conveying such a strong sense of rectitude that some organisations have even included it in their offline names. So it was a shock to many users when the Internet Society, the US non-profit that owns .org, agreed earlier this month to sell the domain registry for an undisclosed sum to a newly established private equity firm called Ethos Capital.

Read the full story here.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Financial Times
Southern Reading List: Karen Head

November 20, 2019

Karen Head, executive director of the Naugle Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the associate chair and associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was interviewed by GPS News in an article published on November 18 entitled "Southern Reading List: Karen Head."

Read an excerpt:

Karen Head is executive director of the communication center at Georgia Institute of Technology. She's also the Waffle House Poet Laureate. The designation came after a Waffle House fouondation-funded poetry tour project for under-served Georgia high school students.

Head's newest collection of poem is called Lost on Purpose. She stopped by On Second Thought to share her recommendations for the "Southern Reading List." For the series, we invite authors and readers to talk about books that define and reflect the South.

Read and listen to the full interview here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Published in: GPB News
China defends Xinjiang crackdown after massive document leak

November 18, 2019

Fei-Ling Wang, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in "China defends Xinjiang crackdown after massive document leak" in the France 24.

Excerpt

"The leaked papers clearly reveal and confirm what has been going on in Xinjiang with regard to the all-out suppression and control of the non-Han peoples there (and elsewhere in China), including the massive detention and forced education camps," Fei-Ling Wang, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told AFP.

Read the article on France 24.

Published in: France 24
Reading Nam June Paik

November 11, 2019

Gregory Zinman, an assistant professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Literature, Media, and Communication, wrote "Reading Nam June Paik" in the Gagosian Quarterly, November 11.

Read an excerpt:

Every scholar granted access to an artist’s archive dreams of that moment of serendipity: stumbling across a passage that confirms a long-held speculation, gives voice to an artist’s intention, or unlocks a connection to an unstated influence. Even more alluring is the idea of discovering an artwork long obscured or lost altogether. This latter occurrence is rare, the academic equivalent of real-life art-historical jackpots like Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Martin Kober’s—a painting behind his couch in Buffalo may be a Michelangelo—or the six possible Willem de Koonings found by the Chelsea art dealer David Killen in a New Jersey storage locker. Yet the archive nevertheless promises the dream of discovery: opening up a new passage of art history, providing a corrective to the record and the accepted wisdom, counteracting master narratives, and expanding the possibility of finding meaning in the creation of art.

Read the full article here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: Gagosian Quarterly
Bill Gates's Fortune Isn't Going Anywhere

November 11, 2019

Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies Ian Bogost wrote "Bill Gates's Fortune Isn't Going Anywhere" in The Atlantic, November 7.

Read an excerpt below:

Money: It’s a concern. But the problem it poses is different for the wealthy than it is for ordinary folks—or even for just plain rich people. When most Americans worry about money, we’re worrying about income: Will I make enough money this week, this month, or this year to cover my expenses—let alone to sock some away for vacation, a down payment, retirement, college?

Modestly rich people face the same issue, but at a different scale. A family making $350,000 might feel like they’re just getting by, because so much of that income goes right out the door again—into private-school tuition, fancy clothes, or other trappings of upper-class life that seem necessary, even if those expenditures look like luxuries from a middle-class perspective.

Read the full article here.

Published in: The Atlantic
Interview with Ilya Kaminsky

November 11, 2019

Georgia Institute of Technology Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Bourne Chair in Poetry, and Director of Poetry@Tech Ilya Kaminsky was interviewed in The Hopkins Review, November 11.

Here's an excerpt:

Dora Malech: You’re someone who has both translated and been translated a lot, and you’ve talked in the past about what is translatable—what remains versus what gets lost in translation. You’ve mentioned image as something that can survive in translation, and possibly metaphor and rhythm as elements that can come across in a translation. And I would perhaps add narrative and drama to that list. Music can get lost in translation, and cultural context can get lost in translation. In reading your new book, Deaf Republic, with its compelling narrative and imagery, I kept thinking about those elements as ones that might survive translation. I began to make much of this and wonder if you purposefully wrote a book with the ability to move beyond one language, but I’m happy to be corrected. Do you see these translatable elements as an inherent strength or even a moral imperative, or do you want to push back and say, “No, that wasn’t my intention at all?”

Ilya Kaminsky: Do you believe you have a soul? Can you tell me where in your body it is? Well, translation is the art form that thrives on that kind of certainty/uncertainty.

Read the full interview here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: The Hopkins Review
Emerging Technologies and the Future of Warfare

November 7, 2019

Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Heather Regnault, a Ph.D. student in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote an article entitled, "Emerging Technologies and the Future of Warfare," in The Cipher Brief.

Excerpt:

While the suggestion that such emerging technologies will enable a new class of weapons that will alter the geopolitical landscape remains to be realized, a number of unresolved security puzzles underlying the emergence of potentially disruptive technologies have implications for international security, defense policy, governance, and arms control regimes. The extent to which these emerging technologies may exacerbate or mitigate the global security and governance challenges that states will pose in the future to U.S., regional, and global security interests will remain an integral question as US policy-makers and leaders navigate the complex global security environment.

Find the article on The Cipher Brief website.

Published in: The Cipher Brief