FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Sue Stevens, (817) 272-23317, sstevens@uta.edu

ARLINGTON - Video's role in the humanities is the focus of a Festival of Ideas program set for Thursday and Friday, Jan. 29 and 30 at The University of Texas at Arlington.

"Video as a Research Tool: An Interdisciplinary Workshop" is an interdisciplinary workshop on the use of video and visualization as a research tool in the humanities.

The festival begins with a showing of the documentary "The Linguists" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29, in room 100 of Nedderman Hall, 416 S. Yates St.

Friday's day-long activities begin at 8:30 a.m. and are in the Concho and Red River rooms of the E.H. Hereford University Center, 300 W. First St. The day's events are free, but registration is required.

Workshop speakers are:

• Phil Cash Cash, University of Arizona, is an indigenous Weyíiletpuu (Cayuse) and Nuumíipuu (Nez Perce) native American. His uses video documentation of Sahaptin and Nez Perce, two languages of the Pacific Northwest, and teaches at the American Indian Language Development Institute.
• Dr. K. David Harrison, Swarthmore College, researches endangered languages, primarily those of Central Siberia and Western Mongolia. His work with Dr. Gregory Anderson is the focus of "The Linguists," a documentary produced by Ironbound Films. He is the author of "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge" (Oxford University Press, 2007) and is co-founder and director of research for Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, a nonprofit foundation.
• Dr. Thomas Linehan, The University of Texas at Dallas, is director of the Institute for Interactive Arts and Engineering at UT Dallas. He helped develop the Interactive Cultural Awareness Trainer, which allows U.S. soldiers to experienced, game-based Afghan urban environment to further their understanding of the Afghan culture.

Topics covered by UT Arlington professors include:

• Communicating Immediacy: Production and Uses of Video Stimuli by Dr. Andrew Clark, assistant professor of broadcast communication; Dr. Chyng-Yang Jang, assistant professor of communication technology; and Dr. Charla Markham Shaw, associate professor of communication studies.
• Editing Digital Video Workshop by Dr. Carolyn Guertin, assistant professor of English and director of the e-Create Lab
• Visual Anthropology and Film by Bart Weiss, associate professor of film and video.  

The Festival of Ideas highlights active engagement and rapport between audiences and presenters at selected UT Arlington events, encouraging greater participation between the University and the Fort Worth-Dallas area. In its fourth season, the Festival of Ideas is supported by the College of Liberal Arts and UT Arlington alumnus Mustaque Ahmed.

Learn more about the Festival of Ideas online. Contact Drew Burks at (817) 272-3133 or dburks@uta.edu to register.

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