Have you sent an email, written a text, or posted on a social media site today? If you have, then you have communicated via the medium of a screen. From the way televisions have shaped family dynamics in the home, to the way cell phones and computers have influenced grammar and penmanship, the screen pervades our ways of communicating. Joshua Abboud will address the interrelationship between the screen and writing in "Screen/Writing" (WRD 205/ENG 305), one of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media's groundbreaking course offerings for Spring 2012.

Did you know that there is a new certificate in the works for Peace Studies? Beth Connors-Manke is teaching "Rhetorics of Violence and Non-Violence" (WRD 205/ENG 205) in Spring 2012, and it will be a component of that certification program. The class is one of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media's groundbreaking course offerings for Spring 2012.

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

Jeremy Popkin is the T. Marshall Hahn, Jr. professor of History for the College of Arts and Sciences, and the director of the Jewish Studies Program, an interdisciplinary minor.

He has been named one of six finalists for the 2011 Cundill Prize in History, the world‘s largest nonfiction history book award, for his recent publication of "You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery."

Alan Brown is a Spanish professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Hispanic Studies. In this podcast, Professor Brown discusses his new position in the department, his current research, and opportunities for students to connect to the community through the Department of Hispanic Studies.

Solar energy has been around for a while now, but John Anthony, Michel Jabbour and Chi-Sing Man are part of a team that was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to develop new ways to catch and convert light to electricity. Anthony, a chemist, describes the project, and his collaboration with mathematicians Jabbour and Man.

Tim Knauer is a professor for the department of Physics and Astronomy, and the director of the MacAdam Student Observatory. Each month, he hosts the Kentucky SkyTalks, an ongoing series of discussions on the science of life and the universe.

This podcast was produced by Stephen Gordinier.

Professor David Atwood discusses the process of developing a new program of study: Environmental and Sustainable Studies.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Liang Liang is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography. Liang specializes in bioclimatology and landscape phenology and is particularly interested in the variations of plant life cycles across time and space. He studies how the timing of springs, such as the greening of landscapes or flowers blooming, are simple and sensitive indicators of climate change. His current research examines how genetic factors in plants and climatic factors work together to determine the timing of phenologies on a large spatial scale.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Susan Odom is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry. Odom, an organic and materials chemist, studies lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries to try to make them safer and increase their longevity. In her lab at UK, she synthesizes organic molecules and polymers and incorporates them into Li-ion batteries to see if they improve the batteries' performance.