Forum Network

Mary C. Fuller is an MIT Associate Professor who works on the history of early modern voyages, exploration, and colonization. Her teaching interests range from the great works of Renaissance poetry to the intellectual and practical aftermaths of Europe's encounter with America in the 15th century and beyond. She is also interested in material books and how readers use them, in the past and in the present. She has published articles on Caribbean poetry, exploration narratives and video games, early modern circumnavigations, and Renaissance narratives of travel to Russia, West Africa, Guiana, Newfoundland, and Istanbul, as well as Voyages in Print: English Travel to America: 1576-1624.

Renee Hobbs is an internationally-recognized authority on digital and media literacy education. Through community and global service and as a researcher, teacher, advocate and media professional, Hobbs has worked to advance the quality of digital and media literacy education in the United States and around the world. She is Founder and Director of the Media Education Lab, whose mission is to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service. With her colleague Julie Coiro, co-directs the URI Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy, a 12-credit graduate program for K-12 and college faculty, librarians and media professionals. The program's signature professional development program is the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, now in its 9th year. Renee Hobbs maintains an active research agenda that examines the intersections of the fields of media studies and education. She has published over 150 articles in scholarly and professional journals and in 2018, she was recognized for research productivity by receiving the Research Excellence Award from the University of Rhode Island. Forthcoming and recent book titles include: Media Literacy in Action: Questioning the Media (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021); Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age (W.W. Norton, 2020); The Library Screen Scene: Film and Media Literacy in Schools, Colleges and Communities (Oxford University Press, 2019); and the edited 2-volume title, The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy, with Paul Mihailidis (Wiley, 2019), finalist for a PROSE Award for best multivolume reference work. Renee Hobbs received an Ed.D in Human Development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in Communication from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. with a double major in English Literature and Film/Video Studies from the University of Michigan. Learn more: [www.mediaeducationlab.com](http://)

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley is an actor, director, playwright and composer. He has performed at theaters throughout the United States including Trinity Repertory Company, The Old Globe Theater, The San Diego Repertory, The North Carolina Black Repertory Company, Rites and Reason Theatre, Perishable Theater, and the North Shore Music Theatre. As an actor, Ricardo has played feature roles in Othello, Macbeth, Driving Miss Daisy, The Tempest, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Three Penny Opera and John Brown's Body, among others.

Pastor Schmeling is a Lutheran minister who is openly gay. He is in danger of being stripped of his Ordination by the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Cassandra King is the writer of several books and essays. She has taught writing on the college level, conducted corporate writing seminars, and worked as a human interest reporter for a Pelham, Alabama, weekly paper.

Florian Berner, a passionate mountain climber and enthusiastic cook, was born in Vienna in 1973. He initially learned to play piano, then received his eagerly awaited first cello at the age of ten. From 1991 to 1999, he studied cello at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts under Angelica May, and with members of the Alban Berg Quartet. Master classes with Milos Mljenik, Norbert Brainin, Milan Skampa, Valentin Berlinski, among others, followed. While still formally training as a soloist, he became a member of the Viennese chamber music ensemble, KlangArten, a formation known for its contemporary repertoire. In 1993, he co-founded the Hugo Wolf Quartet, and soon found himself playing in the world's most renowned concert halls. His career as a soloist has included invitations to appear in the Vienna Konzerthaus, Linz's Brucknerhaus and at the Carinthian Summer Music Festival, televised performances, as well as live concerts of Bach's suites for solo cello. His most recent engagement was at the Attersee Festival, which saw the world premiere of "Passions of Don Juan" - a piece written especially for Florian Berner and his instrument by Dirk D'Ase. Berner also teaches courses in chamber music, as a lecturer for Artes Juventutes.

Emmett G. Price III is one of the nation’s leading experts on Music of the African Diaspora, Christian Worship and the Black Christian Experience. Dr. Emmett G. Price III serves as Dean of Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music and Visiting Associate Professor of Music at Harvard University. Prior to his current post, Dr. Price served on the faculties of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2016-2021) where he founded the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience (ISBCE) and Northeastern University (2001-2016) where he served as chair of the Department of African American Studies (2008-2012). He has served as visiting professor at Boston University, Berklee College of Music, Andover Newton Theological School and Brandeis University. He has served as a guest lecturer at over 50 universities worldwide. Listen to Price's podcast with Rev. Dr. Irene Monroe → [All Rev'd Up.](https://www.wgbh.org/podcast/all-revd-up)