Faculty and Staff

Barry Jason Mauer

Barry Jason Mauer, Ph.D.

Biography

Barry Jason Mauer is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Central Florida, and was past director of the Texts and Technology Ph.D. program. His published work focuses on developing new research practices in the arts and humanities. His latest research is about citizen curating, which aims at enlisting a corps of citizens to curate exhibits, both online and in public spaces, using archival materials available in museums, libraries, public history centers, and other institutions. He also publishes online comics about delusion and denial, particularly as they affect the realm of politics. In addition, Mauer is an accomplished songwriter and recording artist. Mauer completed his graduate studies at the University of Florida in the Department of English, where he worked under the direction of professors Gregory Ulmer and Robert Ray. He lives in Orlando with his wife and daughter, two dogs, and his cat.

Education

  • Ph.D. in English (Cultural Studies) from University of Florida (1999)
  • M.A. in English (Cultural Studies) from University of Florida (1995)
  • B.A. in Film Theory and Cultural Politics from University of Minnesota (1990)

Research Interests

Film and Media Studies, 

Cultural Studies, 

Rhetoric and Composition, 

Literary Theory, 

Memory and Monuments, 

Digital Humanities

Recent Research Activities

Citizen Curating

Selected Publications

Television Episodes

  • Music and Found Photographs. Half-hour televised interview about my research projects and creative work.  UCF Profiles. The UCF Channel, WBCC-DT.  https://youtu.be/YvyX4Vszl14 

  • Monument to Lost Data.  Half-hour televised interview about my research project on lost data. UCF Profiles. The UCF Channel, WBCC-DT.  https://youtu.be/tuVKetm7810

     

Articles/Essays

Artwork

  • The Invisible Parameter. “Do It!” Exhibition at UCF Art Gallery. Includes work by Barry Mauer and by 10 students in his ENG 6810: “Theories of Texts and Technology” seminar. Feb. 23, 2016 – Mar. 4, 2016.    

  • “Curating the Mystory: Ideology and Invention in the Theory Classroom.” Slide presentation/Video exhibit piece introducing three student-produced mystories.  The Encounter: Baalu Girma and Zora Neale Hurston, UCF Art Gallery, Jan. 11-Feb 18.

     

Book Sections/Chapters

  • "Curating the Mystory: Ideology and Invention in the Theory Classroom," Putting Theory into Practice in the Contemporary Classroom: Theory Lessons. Becky McLaughlin. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

  • “Teaching the Repulsive Memorial.” Co-authored with John Venecek, Patricia Carlton, Marcy Galbreath, Amy Larner Giroux, and Valerie Kasper. Producing Public Memory: Museums, Memorials, and Archives as Sites for Teaching “Writing.” Eds. Jane Greer and Laurie Grobman. Routledge. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281105966_Teaching_the_Repulsive_Memorial

  • “Rigorous Infidelity: Whole Text Sampling in the Curatorial Work of Henri Langlois, Dewey Phillips, and Jean-François Lyotard.” Sampling across the Spectrum. Oxford University Press.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260187493_Rigorous_Infidelity_Whole_Text_Sampling_in_the_Curatorial_Work_of_Henri_Langlois_Dewey_Phillips_and_Jean-Francois_Lyotard
  • "Asynchronous Documentary: Buñuel’s Land Without Bread." Book chapter for Lowering the Boom: New Essays on the History, Theory and Practice of Film Sound, edited by Anthony Grajeda and Jay Beck. University of Illinois Press.
  • "Nietzsche at the Apollo: An Experiment in Clipography." Book chapter for New Media/New Methods: The Turn from Literacy to Electracy, edited by Jeff Rice and Marcel O’Gorman. Parlor Press.
  • "Proposal for a Monument to Lost Data." Book chapter for Studies In Writing, volume 17, Writing and Digital Media, edited by Luuk van Waes, Mariëlle Leijten, Christine M. Neuwirth. Elsevier Press.

Recordings

Creative Publications

Book Reviews

  • "Review of Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction, by Benjamin Noys." Cultural Analysis: Volume 3.

Miscellaneous Publications

  • “What Holds Us Back From Achieving a Better Society?” UCF Forum and Huffington Post. July 13. Also broadcast as a radio piece on WUCF, July 17, 2016.    

  • “Censorship Is Not All Bad.” UCF Forum and Huffington Post. March 9, 2016. Also broadcast as a radio piece on WUCF, March 14, 2016.    
  • “The United States Could Use a ‘Therapist General’” UCF Forum and Huffington Post. November 4, 2015. Also broadcast as a radio piece on WUCF, November 8, 2015.    
  • “Rock and Roll and the Amateur Aesthetic.” Texts and Technology Blog.    

Awards

2017

• QEP What’s Next Grant, “Interdisciplinary Curating and Museum Studies Minor.” Awarded April 2017. $3500. 

2016

•  “Curating across the Curriculum.” QEP Enhancement Award. $3500.

•  Rose Library Fellowship for the “Repulsive Monuments” project at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. $500.

•  "The Big Read" awarded 6/2/15. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Awarded Amount(s): C&G External: $20,000.35, C&G Internal Cost Share Required: $18,900.00. PI: Keri Watson Co-PIs(s): Dr. Maria Santana, Dr. Barry Mauer, Larry Cooper, Connie Lester, Meredith Tweed, Scot French, Anastasia Salter, Yulia Tikhonova

2015

•  CAH Research Incentive Seed Funding Program. “The Citizen Curator Project” (PI: Barry Mauer). 

2014

•  CAH Summer Research Development Program. 

2013

•  “Writing Assignments for LIT 3714: Literary Modernism.” WAC Starter Grant.

2012

•  “Critical Thinking Modules for Lower Division English and CAH Courses.” Information Fluency Grant. 

2011

•  Information Fluency Initiative Grant. “Critical Thinking: Modules on Premises, Part II.” 

•  “Critical Thinking Modules for Lower Division English and CAH Courses.” Information Fluency Grant. 

2009

•  Toni Jennings Special Initiative Award. “A Prototype for Digital Archiving in K-12.” P.I.: Barry Mauer. $6000.

2007

•  Information Fluency Initiative Grant. “Class Design of Learning Outcomes and Assessment.” 

2006

•  College of Arts and Sciences Research Award. “Simulating Mental Illness.” 

2004

•  “Traditions of Oral Narrative.”  Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Title VI Program for Internationalizing the Curriculum. (Co-investigator). $2000 (my portion of the grant).

2003

•  Interdisciplinary Research Award.  “Electronic Monumentality: Mourning and Memory on the World Wide Web.”

2002

•  I-4 Corridor Research Award. “Cultural ByWays.” PIs: Christopher Stapleton, Charles Hughes. 

2001

•  Center for Metropolitan Studies Grant. “Interactive Digital Storytelling Festival.” PI: Sterling Van Wagenen. $10,000.

•  Center for Metropolitan Studies Grant. “Earth Echoes: Reinventing Community through Technology, Story and Culture” $10,000.

•  Interdisciplinary Research Award.  “Earth Echoes: Integrating Technology, Nature, and Narrative.”  PI: Barry Mauer 

•  “A Monument to Lost Data.” CREAT Curriculum Development Grant. 

2000

•  College of Arts & Humanities Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award

2016

•  UCF Open-Access Champion Award.

2015

•  UCF Teaching Incentive Program Award (TIP).

2010

•  “Academic Affairs Fellowship.” UCF.

2006

•  “Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology.” UCF campus-wide award.

•  College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award.

2005

•  “Monument to Lost Data.” Research and Mentoring Program (RAMP) Award.

2004

•  UCF Teaching Incentive Program Award (TIP).

•  Office of Student Scholarship and Fellowship Advisement (OSSFA) Undergraduate Research Program Award.  

2003

•  Office of Student Scholarship and Fellowship Advisement (OSSFA) Undergraduate Research Program Award.  

2002

•  McGinty Dissertation Fellowship. University of Florida. 

1999

•  Department of English Excellence in Teaching Awards. UF

1996

•  Department of English Excellence in Teaching Awards. UF 

1994

Courses

Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
10594 ENG3014 Theories and Tech of Lit Study Face to Face (P) Tu,Th 12:00 PM - 01:15 PM Unavailable
No Description Available
11326 LIT6216 Issues in Literary Study Face to Face (P) W 06:00 PM - 08:50 PM Unavailable
No Description Available
Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
81625 ENC4312 Theory & Pr Persuasive Writing Web-Based (W) Unavailable
ENC 4312 OW61 PERSUASIVE WRITING

Professor Barry Mauer

3 Credit Hours; Webcourse Department Phone: (407) 823-2212 Email: bmauer@ucf.edu

Course Description

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

This class will examine the use of language to persuade, and the capacity of persuasion to harm and to benefit ourselves and others. Persuasive language can be used to convince people, either through facts and logic, or by misrepresentation and twisted logic. At worst, this capacity can lead us into fiascos; during the housing bubble that preceded the 2008 financial collapse, so many people were fooled about the security of subprime loans that they brought on a global economic meltdown. In 2016, tens of millions of Americans voted a con man with a horrifying agenda into the presidency, and after seeing four years of his misrule, his vote totals increased in 2020 by 11 million. These followers repeatedly failed to heed warnings about the president's criminal and unethical behaviors and instead they attacked his critics and perceived enemies, with the president’s incitement and often with lethal force. What makes persuasive forms of writing (and speech) so powerful?

The course investigates persuasive writing as it relates to three areas of inquiry:

1. The human capacity for being persuaded.

2. The ability of con artists and propagandists to fool people.

3. The ways in which people might protect themselves from being fooled.

Our goal is to understand why and how humans are prone to self-deception, ignorance, credulity, propaganda, prejudice, groupthink, and mass hysteria, so that we will have a greater chance to counteract the reasoning errors that lead to these outcomes. This learning process involves gaining critical self-awareness, and my bet is that we will discover that each of us holds beliefs, including our most cherished core beliefs, that are likely false and may also be dangerous (note: if you can't tolerate having your core beliefs challenged, you should not take this class!).

Learning how not to be fooled is a large part of critical thinking, which is central to a humanities education. This course teaches critical thinking in new and exciting ways by including lessons about how to stop our automatic reactions and about acquiring life management skills that will help us avoid getting fooled. We will examine this theme in relation to several areas of study:

1. Modes of persuasion, ranging from dialogue to war

2. Propaganda and public relations

3. Science and pseudo-science

4. Mental illness and health

5. Technology and culture

The course draws upon materials from many knowledge areas—philosophy, cognitive science, economics, rhetoric, sociology, politics, and communications theory—to investigate our capacity to be fooled. The result will be an accessible, yet challenging and engaging course.
80983 ENG3014 Theories and Tech of Lit Study Mixed-Mode/Reduce Seat-Time(M) Tu 01:30 PM - 02:45 PM Unavailable
ENG 3014-OM01 THEORIES OF LITERATURE

ENG 3014-OM02 THEORIES OF LITERATURE

3 Credit Hours; M-Flex Modality Department Phone: (407) 823-2212 Email: bmauer@ucf.edu

Course Description

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

What is theory? A theory is an account of what things are, why they are the way they are, and how and why they work. A "thing" can be a physical thing, like a person or book, or an abstract concept, like the proletariat or being or love.

From Wikipedia:

The English word theory was derived from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek. As an everyday word, θεωρία, meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled orators or artisans. The word has been in use in English since at least the late 16th century. Modern uses of the word "theory" are derived from the original definition, but have taken on new shades of meaning, still based on the idea that a theory is a thoughtful and rational explanation of the general nature of things.

In this course, we will explore the question of how and why literary and other texts work as they do, but also will explore and practice thinking. Intended as a survey of critical theory, this course is about how to think about and through literature.

The discourses of theory in the 20th century and into the 21st include formalist, psychological, Marxist, feminist, semiotic, structuralist, post-structuralist, gender and queer, and cultural studies areas such as new historicism, postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and ecocriticism. We will examine works of literature using each theoretical discourse as a lens through which to view and understands them. Additionally, we will take time in the middle of the semester to gain a better understanding of interpretation itself.

This course is a Gordon Rule course. It contains 6000 words of evaluated writing as required by the English Department. Each has the following characteristics:

1. The writing will have a clearly defined central idea or thesis

2. It will provide adequate support for that idea

3. It will be organized clearly and logically

4. It will show awareness of the conventions of standard written English

5. It will be formatted or presented in an appropriate way
92292 ENG3014 Theories and Tech of Lit Study Mixed-Mode/Reduce Seat-Time(M) Tu 12:00 PM - 01:15 PM Unavailable
ENG 3014-OM01 THEORIES OF LITERATURE

ENG 3014-OM02 THEORIES OF LITERATURE

3 Credit Hours; M-Flex Modality Department Phone: (407) 823-2212 Email: bmauer@ucf.edu

Course Description

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

What is theory? A theory is an account of what things are, why they are the way they are, and how and why they work. A "thing" can be a physical thing, like a person or book, or an abstract concept, like the proletariat or being or love.

From Wikipedia:

The English word theory was derived from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek. As an everyday word, θεωρία, meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled orators or artisans. The word has been in use in English since at least the late 16th century. Modern uses of the word "theory" are derived from the original definition, but have taken on new shades of meaning, still based on the idea that a theory is a thoughtful and rational explanation of the general nature of things.

In this course, we will explore the question of how and why literary and other texts work as they do, but also will explore and practice thinking. Intended as a survey of critical theory, this course is about how to think about and through literature.

The discourses of theory in the 20th century and into the 21st include formalist, psychological, Marxist, feminist, semiotic, structuralist, post-structuralist, gender and queer, and cultural studies areas such as new historicism, postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and ecocriticism. We will examine works of literature using each theoretical discourse as a lens through which to view and understands them. Additionally, we will take time in the middle of the semester to gain a better understanding of interpretation itself.

This course is a Gordon Rule course. It contains 6000 words of evaluated writing as required by the English Department. Each has the following characteristics:

1. The writing will have a clearly defined central idea or thesis

2. It will provide adequate support for that idea

3. It will be organized clearly and logically

4. It will show awareness of the conventions of standard written English

5. It will be formatted or presented in an appropriate way
Course Number Course Title Mode Session Date and Time Syllabus
61849 LIT3714 Literary Modernism Web-Based (W) B Unavailable
LIT 3714: Literary Modernism 

Summer B, 2021 

Barry Mauer

Course Description 

This class seeks to put modernist literature in context by exploring its relationship to the modernist movement across the arts. It treats the modernist movement in literature and art as a set of practices: aesthetic or formal strategies applied to poetry, novels, manifestoes, paintings, films, music, and essays. It also studies modernism as a period of literary and artistic innovations. This course also addresses cultural questions and the relationship of the arts to mass media and modern politics.  
Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
11143 ENG3014 Theories and Tech of Lit Study Web-Based (W) Unavailable

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

What is theory? A theory is an account of what things are, why they are the way they are, and how and why they work. A "thing" can be a physical thing, like a person or book, or an abstract concept, like the proletariat or being or love.

From Wikipedia:

The English word theory was derived from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek. As an everyday word, θεωρία, meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled orators or artisans. The word has been in use in English since at least the late 16th century. Modern uses of the word "theory" are derived from the original definition, but have taken on new shades of meaning, still based on the idea that a theory is a thoughtful and rational explanation of the general nature of things.

In this course, we will explore the question of how and why literary and other texts work as they do, but also will explore and practice thinking. Intended as a survey of critical theory, this course is about how to think about and through literature.

The discourses of theory in the 20th century and into the 21st include formalist, psychological, Marxist, feminist, semiotic, structuralist, post-structuralist, gender and queer, and cultural studies areas such as new historicism, postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and ecocriticism. We will examine works of literature using each theoretical discourse as a lens through which to view and understands them. Additionally, we will take time in the middle of the semester to gain a better understanding of interpretation itself.
19642 LIN4801 Language and Meaning Web-Based (W) Unavailable

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

This course studies the interactions humans and language engage in to make meaning. It examines the ways we organize texts into particular forms (narrative, metaphor, argument, pattern, and procedure) and the inferences (prototype, template, procedural) and logics (deductive, inductive, abductive, conductive) we use to make sense of them. We will study examples of these forms, inferences, and logics and also the critical and theoretical fields such as narratology, rhetoric, semiotics, structuralism, and ludology that help us understand them.

No courses found for Fall 2020.

Course Number Course Title Mode Session Date and Time Syllabus
51383 LIN4801 Language and Meaning Web-Based (W) B Unavailable

“The dilemmas of the practical world are fundamentally resistant to policies that neglect the human question.” Gregory Ulmer, Internet Invention

This course studies the interactions humans and language engage in to make meaning. It examines the ways we organize texts into particular forms (narrative, metaphor, argument, pattern, and procedure) and the inferences (prototype, template, procedural) and logics (deductive, inductive, abductive, conductive) we use to make sense of them. We will study examples of these forms, inferences, and logics and also the critical and theoretical fields such as narratology, rhetoric, semiotics, structuralism, and ludology that help us understand them.

Updated: Jan 5, 2021


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