Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher

Over the course of the next few months the CRDM blog will periodically feature a Q + A with one of our outstanding faculty members. We take classes with them and work with them on scholarly projects, but now we’d like to learn more about what else they’re doing. We’ve talked with David Rieder, Jessica Jameson, Chris Anson, Matt May, David Berube, Susan Katz, Maria Pramaggiore, Susan Miller-Cochran, Robert Schrag, Carolyn R. Miller, R. Michael Young, Jason Swarts, Adriana de Souza e Silva, Elizabeth Craig, Andrew Binder, and Victoria Gallagher, and we recently caught up with CRDM affiliated faculty member Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher, Associate Professor, Leadership, Policy, Adult and Higher Education, College of Education:

What are you reading?

Bowling Alone Together

It always feels slightly overwhelming to me to be asked about my favorite books. In what context, for what purpose, to what end, at what point in my life? When I was nineteen, my favorite books were anything by Pynchon and Vonnegut. Books I find myself returning to regularly these days include Bereiter’s (2002) “Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age,” Lewis, Amini, and Lannon’s (2000) “A General Theory of Love,” and Jonessen’s (2001) “Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology.” Something interesting is going on between my reading of Putnam’s (2000) “Bowling Alone” and Turkle’s (2011) “Alone Together.” I collect other reading materials at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brad_m/cites.html.

What classes are you teaching?

This semester I’m teaching two online courses, EAC 581: Advanced Instructional Design, and EAC 586: Techniques and Methods for Training and Development. In the future, I’m excited about teaching separate courses on communication, technology, and game design for educational contexts.

What are you writing about?

Who, me? Distracted?

Currently writing about the use of social media for engineering communication. As well, I am working on a manuscript about the relationship between modern technologies, learning, and attention/distraction. A side (research) project of mine involves reading books such as Greer’s (2011) “The Wealth of Nature” and contrasting distressing projections of America’s future in relation to energy depletion and global economic collapse against Higher Education’s visions of technical determinism and idealistic innovation. Mostly I toggle between five or six books and write down citations that either excite me or that frustrate me, for later use.

What are you listening to?

Nouvelle Vague

Several years ago I decided that one indication of getting old is that one settles on several key musicians and listens only to them. At the time, my list had reduced itself to Springsteen, U2, Sting, and R.E.M. These days I listen to anything anyone recommends I listen to, including Indie Rock (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The National, Metric), Songwriter (Bright Eyes, The Magnetic Fields, The Tragically Hip), Brit-Pop (Oasis, Coldplay, Death Cab For Cutie), Americana (Steve Earle, Cowboy Junkies, Kathleen Edwards), New Wave (Elvis Costello, David Bowie, The Pretenders), and Contemporary artists (Lana Del Ray, Kimbra, La Roux). Recent favorites include by Mumford & Sons, Linnzi Zaorski, and Nouvelle Vague. Suggest an album: tonight I listened to the soundtrack of “The Hunger Games.”

What are you watching?

Dr. Who, The Walking Dead, Sherlock, Fringe, Pulling, Battlestar Galactica, Jekyll, Stargate Universe, Archer. I have watched DVD series with my daughters since they were little: our first 140-hour series together was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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