Maureen Engel | The University of Queensland, Australia (original) (raw)

Grants by Maureen Engel

University of Alberta Vice-President Research operating grant; role: PI; 2014 – 15.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] Partnership Development Grant; ... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] Partnership Development Grant; role: collaborator and steering committee member; Mark Cheetham, Toronto, PI; 2013-2016

Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, role:... more Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, role: collaborator; William VanArragon, King’s College, PI; 2013-2016.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connections Grant; role: co-app... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connections Grant; role: co-applicant; Caitlin Fisher, York, PI; 2013.

NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence); role: Collaborating Network Investigator; Kellogg Booth,... more NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence); role: Collaborating Network Investigator; Kellogg Booth, UBC, PI; 2012-2014.

Kule Institute for Advanced Study Research Cluster Grant; role: PI; 2012-2013.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role: co-investigator; Russell Cobb, Alberta, PI; 2011-2013.

Conference Posters by Maureen Engel

Papers by Maureen Engel

Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the s... more Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the spaces we inhabit. Importantly though, they no longer get folded up and placed in glove boxes, waiting for the next road trip, nor are they consigned to those quaint old volumes called “atlases.” Now, the map is always with us—in our pocket, on our phone, on our dashboards; it checks us in on FourSquare, shows us the nearest Starbucks, and gives us turn-by-turn directions to our destination. Indeed, the map has become so ubiquitous as to become invisible. It is not solely a representational object but rather an embedded technology—a true medium and extension of ourselves into space. This embeddedness marks the map’s final transition to indexicality—that is, the map makes a truth claim about what is “there,” and it tells us “you are here.” Like a technological begging of the question, it trans parently reflects that which it also represents. Yet we also know that maps are complex graphical...

In this poster/demo, we will describe and analyze the experience of teaching English 486, “Produc... more In this poster/demo, we will describe and analyze the experience of teaching English 486, “Producing the City.” An experimental course co-taught between Dr Heather Zwicker, Associate Professor of English, and Dr Maureen Engel, E-Learning Manager for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta, English 486 is a hands-on, theoretically grounded capstone course in multimedia installations that takes the city of Edmonton, Canada as inspiration and object. Based on principles of collaboration and student-centered learning, the course takes the city as its primary text. Grounded in short Edmonton narratives and a range of urban theory, the course listened to the city, looked at the city, moved through the city, and explored the meanings of home. The sensory experiences of sound, sight, and movement were translated through student projects using digital photography, simple mapping, soundscapes, and video. Each of these assignments served as a scaffolding exercise to prepare students f...

The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, 2018

Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the s... more Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the spaces we inhabit. Importantly though, they no longer get folded up and placed in glove boxes, waiting for the next road trip, nor are they consigned to those quaint old volumes called "atlases." Now, the map is always with us-in our pocket, on our phone, on our dashboards; it checks us in on FourSquare, shows us the nearest Starbucks, and gives us turn-by-turn directions to our destination. Indeed, the map has become so ubiquitous as to become invisible. It is not solely a representational object but rather an embedded technology-a true medium and extension of ourselves into space. This embeddedness marks the map's final transition to indexicality-that is, the map makes a truth claim about what is "there," and it tells us "you are here." Like a technological begging of the question, it transparently reflects that which it also represents. Yet we also know that maps are complex graphical, representational, and narrative objects. They have historically been used for everything from navigation to empire building. Rather than relying on the power of the map to reveal what is already there, "deep mapping" foregrounds the fact that the affordances of the map can be used to construct the complex stories of human thought, culture, history, and production-in short, that the objects of human ities study can be analyzed, critiqued, understood, and articulated through a spatial interface as much as through a linguistic one. In deep mapping, the map is the principal tool of communication, analysis, and argument, similar to the way language performs that function in writing. Of course, maps have always been symbolic and representational, even as they have sometimes, or popularly, made claims to empirical truth and correctness. The difference of the deep map is that it acknowledges its complexity, conflict, politics, and history in its very foundation. As the Polis Center's definition of deep mapping contends, "Where traditional maps serve as statements, deep maps serve as conversations" (n.d.). Deep mapping is a way to open up questions rather than resolving them, to communicate knowledge rather than simply information. This chapter provides an overview of the complex confluence of technologies, knowledge frameworks, and social forces that undergird and make possible the emergent field of deep mapping. It also provides examples of deep mapping practices. Philosophical developments in the way we analyze and understand space, technological advances in how we represent

Digit. Humanit. Q., 2014

In the digital humanities we specialize in imagining and launching digital projects, but we rarel... more In the digital humanities we specialize in imagining and launching digital projects, but we rarely consider how to end them. In this paper we propose to discuss the ends of a particular digital project as a case study for the planning of ending. The project we focus on is the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium that was developed as a digital outcome of the Globalization and Autonomy project. Specifically, this paper will: When can a digital scholarly project be considered finally "done"? Perhaps never. Something done is past, irrevocable, requiring nothing more and indeed immune from further action.

The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a l... more The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a learning game called Campus Mysteries with the platform. This paper reports on the development of the platform, the development of the game, and a assessment of the playability of the game. We conclude that augmented reality games are a viable model for learning and that the process of development is itself the site of learning.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role: co-investigator; Russell Cobb, Alberta, PI; 2011-2013.

This poster presents the work completed to date on Go Queer, a ludic, locative media experiment a... more This poster presents the work completed to date on Go Queer, a ludic, locative media experiment and experience that occurs on location, in the city, on the playful border between game and story, the present and the past, the queer and the straight, the normative and the slant. The app takes the city of Edmonton’s queer history as its text, and produces a locative, spatialized narrative of that history by displaying text, images, video and audio in place at the actual locations where they occurred, thus creating what Richardson and Hjorth (2014, 256) and call “the hybrid experience of place and presence.” The app invites its users to drift queerly through the city, discovering the hidden histories that always surround us, yet somehow remain just beyond our apprehension. The app compiles these traces into a media layer that augments quotidian city space, juxtaposing the past onto the present, creating a deep, queer narrative of place. By bringing together the physical navigation of th...

ESC: English Studies in Canada, 2016

The prompt: proliferation. I immediately thought of pack rats, pirates, archives, urbanism, inter... more The prompt: proliferation. I immediately thought of pack rats, pirates, archives, urbanism, interface. I thought I’d write something incisive about the confluence of Scandinavian crime drama and the emergence of the pirate party in the context of global networked culture; I imagined what the digital world of the Collyer brothers, the original hoarders, would look like if their one hundred and forty tons of ephemera was on portable hard drives; I thought maybe I’d be a provocateur and challenge you all to embrace the term “data” over the term “text.” But it didn’t take long for me to land on a concept I work with frequently—space and place—and to think about the ways that a term like proliferation always implies a certain wanton cluttering or filling up of space and something of a crisis of its limits. If ideas, text, data, capital itself keep proliferating, then the visceral feeling is that we’ll all be surrounded, suffocated, drowned. I want to challenge us to think differently about space, to see space not just as something that is filled up but as something produced, layered, inhabited, experienced. Proliferation also incents us to rewrite space—to reclaim it through its narration and augmentation. As Foucault argued, attending to space foregrounds that we are in “an epoch of simultaneity The Space of Simultaneity

Television & New Media, 2016

This article argues the possibility of building not just a queer gaming experience but rather a q... more This article argues the possibility of building not just a queer gaming experience but rather a queer game mechanic—that is, a game whose very structure of play can be theorized as queer. It presents the prototype game Go Queer, a locative media history app, as a theoretical experiment in what it might mean to play queer. Queer theorists and historiographers have demonstrated the intimate relation between queer subjects and the city; the game literalizes this dynamic, requiring players to travel the physical spaces of the city in the hopes that they will encounter queer history—now disappeared, redeveloped, forgotten. It proposes that a productive and underrepresented setting for queer play is the space of the city itself and that the hybrid reality of locative media provides particular affordances to enable particularly queer navigations, occupations, and constructions of queer urban space.

University of Alberta Vice-President Research operating grant; role: PI; 2014 – 15.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] Partnership Development Grant; ... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] Partnership Development Grant; role: collaborator and steering committee member; Mark Cheetham, Toronto, PI; 2013-2016

Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, role:... more Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, role: collaborator; William VanArragon, King’s College, PI; 2013-2016.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connections Grant; role: co-app... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connections Grant; role: co-applicant; Caitlin Fisher, York, PI; 2013.

NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence); role: Collaborating Network Investigator; Kellogg Booth,... more NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence); role: Collaborating Network Investigator; Kellogg Booth, UBC, PI; 2012-2014.

Kule Institute for Advanced Study Research Cluster Grant; role: PI; 2012-2013.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role: co-investigator; Russell Cobb, Alberta, PI; 2011-2013.

Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the s... more Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the spaces we inhabit. Importantly though, they no longer get folded up and placed in glove boxes, waiting for the next road trip, nor are they consigned to those quaint old volumes called “atlases.” Now, the map is always with us—in our pocket, on our phone, on our dashboards; it checks us in on FourSquare, shows us the nearest Starbucks, and gives us turn-by-turn directions to our destination. Indeed, the map has become so ubiquitous as to become invisible. It is not solely a representational object but rather an embedded technology—a true medium and extension of ourselves into space. This embeddedness marks the map’s final transition to indexicality—that is, the map makes a truth claim about what is “there,” and it tells us “you are here.” Like a technological begging of the question, it trans parently reflects that which it also represents. Yet we also know that maps are complex graphical...

In this poster/demo, we will describe and analyze the experience of teaching English 486, “Produc... more In this poster/demo, we will describe and analyze the experience of teaching English 486, “Producing the City.” An experimental course co-taught between Dr Heather Zwicker, Associate Professor of English, and Dr Maureen Engel, E-Learning Manager for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta, English 486 is a hands-on, theoretically grounded capstone course in multimedia installations that takes the city of Edmonton, Canada as inspiration and object. Based on principles of collaboration and student-centered learning, the course takes the city as its primary text. Grounded in short Edmonton narratives and a range of urban theory, the course listened to the city, looked at the city, moved through the city, and explored the meanings of home. The sensory experiences of sound, sight, and movement were translated through student projects using digital photography, simple mapping, soundscapes, and video. Each of these assignments served as a scaffolding exercise to prepare students f...

The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, 2018

Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the s... more Maps are everywhere. They are the most significant contemporary mediator between people and the spaces we inhabit. Importantly though, they no longer get folded up and placed in glove boxes, waiting for the next road trip, nor are they consigned to those quaint old volumes called "atlases." Now, the map is always with us-in our pocket, on our phone, on our dashboards; it checks us in on FourSquare, shows us the nearest Starbucks, and gives us turn-by-turn directions to our destination. Indeed, the map has become so ubiquitous as to become invisible. It is not solely a representational object but rather an embedded technology-a true medium and extension of ourselves into space. This embeddedness marks the map's final transition to indexicality-that is, the map makes a truth claim about what is "there," and it tells us "you are here." Like a technological begging of the question, it transparently reflects that which it also represents. Yet we also know that maps are complex graphical, representational, and narrative objects. They have historically been used for everything from navigation to empire building. Rather than relying on the power of the map to reveal what is already there, "deep mapping" foregrounds the fact that the affordances of the map can be used to construct the complex stories of human thought, culture, history, and production-in short, that the objects of human ities study can be analyzed, critiqued, understood, and articulated through a spatial interface as much as through a linguistic one. In deep mapping, the map is the principal tool of communication, analysis, and argument, similar to the way language performs that function in writing. Of course, maps have always been symbolic and representational, even as they have sometimes, or popularly, made claims to empirical truth and correctness. The difference of the deep map is that it acknowledges its complexity, conflict, politics, and history in its very foundation. As the Polis Center's definition of deep mapping contends, "Where traditional maps serve as statements, deep maps serve as conversations" (n.d.). Deep mapping is a way to open up questions rather than resolving them, to communicate knowledge rather than simply information. This chapter provides an overview of the complex confluence of technologies, knowledge frameworks, and social forces that undergird and make possible the emergent field of deep mapping. It also provides examples of deep mapping practices. Philosophical developments in the way we analyze and understand space, technological advances in how we represent

Digit. Humanit. Q., 2014

In the digital humanities we specialize in imagining and launching digital projects, but we rarel... more In the digital humanities we specialize in imagining and launching digital projects, but we rarely consider how to end them. In this paper we propose to discuss the ends of a particular digital project as a case study for the planning of ending. The project we focus on is the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium that was developed as a digital outcome of the Globalization and Autonomy project. Specifically, this paper will: When can a digital scholarly project be considered finally "done"? Perhaps never. Something done is past, irrevocable, requiring nothing more and indeed immune from further action.

The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a l... more The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a learning game called Campus Mysteries with the platform. This paper reports on the development of the platform, the development of the game, and a assessment of the playability of the game. We conclude that augmented reality games are a viable model for learning and that the process of development is itself the site of learning.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role... more Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant; role: co-investigator; Russell Cobb, Alberta, PI; 2011-2013.

This poster presents the work completed to date on Go Queer, a ludic, locative media experiment a... more This poster presents the work completed to date on Go Queer, a ludic, locative media experiment and experience that occurs on location, in the city, on the playful border between game and story, the present and the past, the queer and the straight, the normative and the slant. The app takes the city of Edmonton’s queer history as its text, and produces a locative, spatialized narrative of that history by displaying text, images, video and audio in place at the actual locations where they occurred, thus creating what Richardson and Hjorth (2014, 256) and call “the hybrid experience of place and presence.” The app invites its users to drift queerly through the city, discovering the hidden histories that always surround us, yet somehow remain just beyond our apprehension. The app compiles these traces into a media layer that augments quotidian city space, juxtaposing the past onto the present, creating a deep, queer narrative of place. By bringing together the physical navigation of th...

ESC: English Studies in Canada, 2016

The prompt: proliferation. I immediately thought of pack rats, pirates, archives, urbanism, inter... more The prompt: proliferation. I immediately thought of pack rats, pirates, archives, urbanism, interface. I thought I’d write something incisive about the confluence of Scandinavian crime drama and the emergence of the pirate party in the context of global networked culture; I imagined what the digital world of the Collyer brothers, the original hoarders, would look like if their one hundred and forty tons of ephemera was on portable hard drives; I thought maybe I’d be a provocateur and challenge you all to embrace the term “data” over the term “text.” But it didn’t take long for me to land on a concept I work with frequently—space and place—and to think about the ways that a term like proliferation always implies a certain wanton cluttering or filling up of space and something of a crisis of its limits. If ideas, text, data, capital itself keep proliferating, then the visceral feeling is that we’ll all be surrounded, suffocated, drowned. I want to challenge us to think differently about space, to see space not just as something that is filled up but as something produced, layered, inhabited, experienced. Proliferation also incents us to rewrite space—to reclaim it through its narration and augmentation. As Foucault argued, attending to space foregrounds that we are in “an epoch of simultaneity The Space of Simultaneity

Television & New Media, 2016

This article argues the possibility of building not just a queer gaming experience but rather a q... more This article argues the possibility of building not just a queer gaming experience but rather a queer game mechanic—that is, a game whose very structure of play can be theorized as queer. It presents the prototype game Go Queer, a locative media history app, as a theoretical experiment in what it might mean to play queer. Queer theorists and historiographers have demonstrated the intimate relation between queer subjects and the city; the game literalizes this dynamic, requiring players to travel the physical spaces of the city in the hopes that they will encounter queer history—now disappeared, redeveloped, forgotten. It proposes that a productive and underrepresented setting for queer play is the space of the city itself and that the hybrid reality of locative media provides particular affordances to enable particularly queer navigations, occupations, and constructions of queer urban space.