Elaine Miller |
||||
Percussion |
||||
 |
I am forever indebted to a friend who told me about the New Horizons Band. I joined in 2005. At last, I'm getting to play the drums, my dream since 5th grade, when I was steered to the violin because girls didn't play drums. I started from scratch in the Green Band. For a long time, I was desperate to not make a loud mistake. I even tried to hide by playing on the practice pad, but the conductor noticed.
While doing my PhD in Spanish Language and Literature at UCLA, I collected folklore from the Mexicans living in L.A., and published a book on it, called Mexican Folk Narrative from the Los Angeles Area. At SUNY Brockport, I taught in the Modern Languages and Cultures Dept. and the Women and Gender Studies program, and I directed a Peace Corps/College Degree Program, which trained math and science majors for service in Peru and Honduras, and then in Zaire. So I guess my main identity is as an academic (but I try not to be tedious about it). One of my special loves is looking at political cartoons as social critique. At Brockport, I managed to incorporate them into whatever course I was teaching, even Advanced Spanish Grammar. The 1984 presidential campaign, with its first woman candidate for the Vice Presidency, Geraldine Ferraro, was a gift to cartoonists. They launched into portrayals of Ferraro with obvious glee. I found them fascinating and got hooked on the idea of studying cartoon portrayals of women in politics. Ferraro and, later, First Lady Hillary Clinton were obvious choices. I produced a video on each of them. Now I continue to do presentations and workshops for professors who want to incorporate humor into their classes (an excellent idea). Please visit my production website: http://www.ekmillerproductions.com I also do long distance bicycling: over the Andes, Argentina to Chile; across Italy; and crisscrossing the U.S., California to Florida, and Alabama to Canada. That, and a tap dance class, help to keep me in denial about age. |
|||