David Shorter

After receiving his PhD in the History of Consciousness, David held a Mellon post-doctoral fellowship at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and then was a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. Currently he is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles where he teaches courses on research methodologies, indigenous worldviews, and paranormal studies. His courses on “Aliens, Psychics, Ghosts” and “ET Documentaries” fill up quickly as does his course examining how indigenous peoples around the globe are confronting globalization. These research areas have led him to be a consultant for various directors, writers, and studios. Not only a consultant, in the last year David has moved in-front of the camera as well. Working across media platforms, his own work has entailed academic articles, poetry, websites, acting, and a forthcoming social media app that involves revitalization of an indigenous language. His first book, We Will Dance Our Truth, won last year’s Chicago Prize for best book published that year in folklore studies.

What David will be doing at DIY DAYS

Ownership vs. Access in Edutainment

UCLA professor David Shorter maps the uneven terrain of Open Access in the academic and filmmaking environments. Discussing his previous work with developers, programmers, directors and screenplay writers, Shorter will offer some models of effective collaboration while discussing some common pitfalls of doing it yourself. This case study presentation will encompass both the digitization of scholarship as well as the production of intelligent entertainment. As academics look to engage new technologies, they find themselves having to discern the “sharing” from the “possessing” of their knowledge. And as directors and writers look to engage scholarly knowledge, they begin to recognize that the seminal moment of storytelling begins with the ideas and creativity of scholars and artists who have a right to profit from their labor.

 

DIY DAYS asks David

 

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

I have been working on a phone application and website database that will provide tribal users to connect with each in order to revitalize their language and build virtual communities across geographical distance. I’m also very methodically working on my memoir of growing up in rural New Mexico surrounded by aliens, psychics, and ghosts.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

Consistently facing my computer, or in my workshop space at home, I rely on music more than coffee to stay awake and energized. Additionally, as a writer, music strongly influences the tone and voice I inhabit while drafting my prose. So I’m digging Stereomood since the query is based on emotions. It’s intriguing that your emotion for “rainy day” might be the same as mine. But that assumption drives the site.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

If it comes into my world, it’s through personal contact, or reading, or surfing the web. Accordingly, I’m interested in the webinar or webseries, such as “Aim High.” And if networks like ABC were to make the smart, stylish shows like “Pan Am” free for the watching, I’d be on their sites weekly. Reading wise, it helps my creativity and thinking to have the latest issues of “Lapham’s Quarterly,” “Beautiful Decay,” and my very dog-eared copy of Lao Tzu’s _Hua Hu Ching_.

For More on David and his work visit

Sites:
www.davidshorter.com
http://hemi.nyu.edu/cuaderno/yoeme/content.html
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Dance-Our-Truth-Performances/dp/0803217331<
http://version.org/contributors