Introducing This Summer's AT&T New Media Fellows

May 19, 2011

For the second summer, AT&T New Media Fellows are going out into the world, conducting innovative international research and activism, and reporting back on the Global Conversation website.

This summer's 11 fellows are traveling to nine countries – telling the stories of artisans struggling with globalization in the Philippines and farmers adapting to climate change in Peru –  producing videos and capturing music and writing essays on these and other experiences as they do.

You can follow and join in each of their conversations on the Global Conversation, a site launched by the Watson Institute with AT&T funding last year as a media platform for Brown students, faculty, and alums to exchange international ideas and initiatives.

The summer 2011 fellows are:
 
Jonah David ’13 and Madelynn Johnston ’13, a sociology and a human biology concentrator respectively, making a documentary film in Bolivia on the socio-economic and environmental effects associated with the development of soybean farms.
 
Michela Fitten ’11.5, an international relations and modern culture and media (MCM) concentrator, documenting the rise of new media in Peruvian culture.
 
Melanie Garunay ’11, an international relations and ethnic studies concentrator, studying the producers of artisanal goods in Manila and their efforts in global marketing and worker empowerment.
 
Alice Hines ’11, a comparative literature and French concentrator, producing a series of video interviews with members of the Congolese subculture la Sape in France.
 
Ariel Hudes ’11, a performance studies concentrator, creating a web documentary of the 2011 Venice Biennale in Italy.
 
Emily Kirkland ’13, an economics and Latin American Studies concentrator, documenting the efforts of Peruvian communities to prepare for the predicted effects of climate change such as floods, droughts, severe storms, and heat waves. (Watch her present related work on climate change in this video.)
 
Dylan Nelson ’11, a music concentrator, presenting the work of the Daniel Barenboim Foundation in Israel and Berlin to bring Israelis and Arabs together through music.
 
Claudia Norton ’13, a Middle East studies and MCM concentrator, traveling to the Middle East to produce a documentary addressing the impact of new media in current events in the region. (Watch her video below.)
 
Natasha Pradhan ’12, an anthropology of aesthetics concentrator, studying the aesthetic and religious practices of the Gnawa musicians in rural and urban Morocco to examine shifting attitudes in the contemporary Moroccan imagination.

Meara Sharma '11, a comparative literature concentrator, examining freedom of expression in Rwanda.