Author Archives: Katherine Wikoff

Unknown's avatar

About Katherine Wikoff

I am a college professor (PhD in English, concentration rhetoric) at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where I teach film and media studies, political science, digital society, digital storytelling, writing for digital media, and communication. While fragments of my teaching and scholarship interests may quite naturally meander over to my blog, this space is intended to function as a creative outlet, not as part of my professional practice. Opinions are my own, etc.

Intersections: old/new, vertical/horizontal

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

I attended a party/dinner downtown last night with my husband, and as he paid for our parking, I noticed the interesting juxtaposition of lines at the spot where a parking garage met an old office building. Night colors are always off … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, Milwaukee | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Lake Michigan, January

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

An old friend lives on Prospect Avenue, high on the bluffs overlooking Milwaukee’s lakefront.  I visited her today with another friend.  The day was gray, frigid and quite breezy.  But I pulled off my gloves and braved the wind—only for a minute—to … Continue reading →

Posted in Milwaukee, Nature, Science | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Staircase Volute

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff
Posted in architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

That winter quality of light

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

People who brave winter in the North know what I’m talking about: the strangely bluish quality of cold air and golden flash of low-angled sunlight.  When we say we appreciate the change of seasons, this “quality of light” is almost always … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Milwaukee, Nature, Science | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Resolved: To Be Good Enough

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

You’ve surely seen the motivational posters before. Possibly you’ve also seen the “demotivators” from Despair.com. This one has always been my favorite, mostly because of the contempt I’ve always felt for people who practiced mediocrity. Ha! What’s that saying about … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Popular culture, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer), Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Christmas shopping in “The Village”

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I don’t like shopping malls at Christmas.  Too crowded.  Too many harried people with too many gifts to buy and too little time. My husband and my younger daughter don’t mind all that.  In fact, for years now they’ve had an annual … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, Books and reading, History, Life, Milwaukee, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Communication lessons learned from the Indian Ocean tsunami and other natural disasters

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

It has been ten years since the December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami.  Many “anniversary” articles today will look back at this event, so this post doesn’t cover the same ground.  Because my academic specialty is communication, I wanted to … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Learning, Life, Nature, News, Science, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Urban gray fox

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

This fox was hanging around the parking lot at my doctor’s office yesterday.  There’s something spooky about a wild animal that doesn’t have an appropriate level of wariness around humans.  The fox stared at us for a long time (somewhat balefully, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Milwaukee, Nature, Science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to disable “related” videos at the end of embedded YouTube clips

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

Yesterday I posted on my newfound knowledge about how to specify the starting and ending points in an embedded YouTube video.  I was pretty excited to be able to play just a 40-second segment of video from the middle of … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Movies and film, Teaching, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

How to specify “start” and “stop” times in embedded YouTube videos in WordPress

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I planned to write a post on allusion and homage in literature and film today, but now I’m going to postpone that till another day—because I’m so absolutely thrilled with myself that I figured out how to embed a YouTube … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Movies and film, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments