LIS5313

Emily Bowlin

A Lie Remembered: On Misinformation

“A Lie Remembered: On Misinformation” by Emily Bowlin and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 International. This work is a derivative of the full list of works cited below.

Synopsis: Whether born from a careless thought or a missed joke, misinformation personified knows that it was made to be shared. Determined to grow, we follow misinformation on its mission to become so pervasive it will live forever, in whatever form.

Programs Used:

Title Card: “A Lie Remembered: Title Card” is a derivative of  “Internet map 4096” by Matt Britt, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.5 Attribution 2.0 Generic. Text was added using Canva to this image to create the title slide.

Audio: Audio is combination of ambiance, sound effects and voiceover that have been spliced and edited together in Audacity for the final project. All sounds except the voiceover are from freesound.org.

Video and image assets grouped by download site for “A Lie Remembered: On Misinformation.” Images and videos may be cut, cropped, separated from audio or reversed as they appear in this final video.

April 8, 2025 by Student Posts 0

All Our Yesterdays: The Sun still Rises

“All Our Yesterdays: The Sun still Rises” by Emily Bowlin and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 International. This work is a derivative of the full list of work cited below.

Programs used:

Title Card “All our Yesterdays: The Sun still Rises” is a derivative of Candle flame by Shan Sheehan” by Shan Sheehan, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons on 3/3/25, licensed under CC BY 2.0 Attribution 2.0 Generic. Text was added to this image to create the title slide.

Audio: This audio is a combination of two different works cut together.

Videos and Photos in Order of First Appearance in “All Our Yesterdays: The Sun still Rises:

March 4, 2025 by Student Posts 4

Booking for Truth

“Booking for Truth Cover” by Emily Bowlin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 International.

Photo Credits:

Audio Credits:

Booking for Truth would feature full episodes devoted to examining books across all spectrums of literature, from genre, to time period, even fanfiction! The emphasis would be on creating a place for discussing different themes, ideas, and messages in these works as well as getting to share personal feelings on the stories as well. Ideally, it would function as a more approachable way to use more academic lenses over texts that get overlooked as only being a part of pop culture or ‘low’ culture. In discussing books, it isn’t always about what’s ‘right’, it’s about being able to back up your idea with something from the text. This stemmed from the fact that when I read a book I am often taking notes and pulling everyone I know into a discussion about the novel, willing or not! Since the new Hunger Games book is coming out in March, I’ve been working through a reread of the series. This series shows the impacts of war, trauma, and authoritarian rule on children while still being Young Adult. Therefore, The Hunger Games presented a good subject for this idea of looking at novels and really getting in the weeds of what the author was saying and what we walked away with.

When listening to other podcasts to compare how they started, many of them include a one-line zinger from later on in the episode early on to hook the listener; but they also often have the music fade in with their intro and then fade out. I looked for music with a more somber feeling since talking about books can be fun, but the subject matter of Hunger Games is more serious, so I wanted that investigatory, mysterious feeling behind the music. Since this was short, I jumped straight to the intro, and had the music fade in and out behind me. I wanted to use a crisp page turn to match the tag line, “leave no page unturned.” I also used the page turn to indicate the next “chapter” of the podcast was starting, as it reminded me of listening to audiobooks on tape when I was a kid, and when it would play a sound to let you know to turn the page. That way sections of the podcast could be broken up more distinctly. The last sound effect I added was the TV static in the background when talking about Suzanne Collins’ inspiration for writing The Hunger Games. I like it when podcasts add some sounds to help draw my attention to the circumstances of what they are saying, and I thought it might be a good way to put the image of a TV in the minds of listeners as they consider what competing images of reality TV and war might look like in their own minds. I ended up leaving a lot of space between phrases when I recorded to make it easier to edit later (or so I thought). I actually ended up having to cut a lot of dead air so that it moved a little more quickly along; pacing myself when talking is something I’ve had to work on in real life, and this assignment proved I’ve still got some work to do!

February 18, 2025 by Student Posts 4

Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart

Allow me to set the scene: imagine a windy day in October, cars are honking as they pass on narrow streets, between buildings whose age is reflected in their architectural design. As people walk by on the sidewalk they converse in in rapid French, and as you look around you see the juxtaposition of history and modernity in everything from the buildings, to the fashion, to the food!

This was what I saw and felt when I was fortunate enough to get to visit France with my partner’s family in October of 2023. As someone who’d never left the United States and had only recently started going on trips out of Florida, visiting France was an eye-opening experience. It certainly didn’t hurt that one of my favorite stories is The Phantom of the Opera!

Naturally, while I was there I tried to capture the moment in photos as much as possible; suffice to say that some were more successful than others.

“Nailed It” by Emily Bowlin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Here is one such attempt. While you can see some of the unique architecture that so intrigued me, there is a lot going on in this particular photo.

For starters, my nail managed to sneak in at the bottom of the frame, causing some distraction. Beyond my nail-photo-bomb-faux-pas, this photo has a lot of empty space at the bottom where the road is. The traffic for the cars is going multiple ways, and despite how striking this building was to me, there’s too much motion around it to keep focus.

I would also say objects on the sides of the image, like that the street lights and the cut off bicycle change the ambiance of the photo, making it feel like I’ve cropped something out and that this was unintentional.

So, with a little cropping magic, I attempted to refocus the photo on the building that drew my eye initially.

“Je ne sais quoi” by Emily Bowlin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

In this crop I removed the most egregious error by cutting a lot of the empty space at the bottom. At first I tried to crop all the way up to the ground floor of the building, but that cut off the person on the moped, so I left them some space. Since this also zooms in the focus, you can see the green light, so it makes sense why there’s a little bit of empty space behind the cars that are driving forwards.

By also cropping the traffic going the opposite way it reduced some of the distraction of the photo, as both cars and people are walking around the building. To really draw focus to the building I tried to line up the center of the windows with the center-left side of the grid, so that it was de-centered.

I wanted to better capture the feel of the city as I remember it. By reducing a lot of the clutter around the photo it allowed me to focus on the smaller details, like the brown brick chimney on the building on the back right-hand side, or the people walking across the cross walk. Even the bright pink of the neon sign on the ground floor of the building peeking through the plant highlights the juxtaposition of past and present that was everywhere in Paris.

After this assignment I’ve certainly learned to appreciate the power of a good crop!

February 3, 2025 by Student Posts 3

Death of an Emperor

“Augustus of Primo Porta” by Joel Bellviure. downloaded from Wikimedia Commons on 1/19/25. CC BY-SA 4.0 International

“Have I played my part well in this comedy of life? Then applaud as I exit.”

This quote is supposedly the last words of Augustus, first emperor of Rome and subject of the included photo. Born Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian, he later changed his name as he changed the political system of Rome, furthering the work that his adopted father, Julius Caesar, had already started. His last words were purportedly recorded by ancient historian Suetonius, although how he accurately got them is a mystery considering Augustus died in 14 CE, and Suetonius was not born until 69 CE. They also vary depending on translation.

“On the Nature of Things Book III: The Soul is Mortal” by Lucretius downloaded from LibriVox on 1/19/25. Licensed under Public Domain.

I chose this photo because recently I’ve become extremely interested in ancient Rome, beginning with me reading Mary Beard’s book, Emperor of Rome. The most fascinating part of reading about Rome is that despite them living thousands of years ago, in some ways it feels as though their struggles mirror ours today.

The audio I am including is a snippet of a poem “On the Nature of Things” by Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus, better known as Lucretius. This snippet is from Book III – Part 3 “The Soul is Mortal”, translated by William Ellery Leonard and recorded for LibriVox by Daniel Vimont.

A poem from a Roman debating the fate of the human soul after life in juxtaposition with an Emperor who was deified and worshipped after death drives home for me the paradoxical nature of both Imperial Rome and human nature itself. In this statue of Augustus the artist included a small baby Cupid riding a dolphin, which was a direct reference to his claim that he was descended from the same line as Julius Caesar, who claimed his ancestry extended to the goddess Venus. Despite all of this godly lineage, in the end, Augustus perished the same as any other human. One can only wonder if he thought his soul would be borne to the realm of the Gods on his deathbed, or if he believed that his exit truly meant the end of all of his mind and soul, as Lucretius would suggest.

Lucretius would have died before the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, but as with many words of ancient Romans, his poems and musings have lived a thousand lives after him. Augustus is the single Roman emperor with the most surviving portraits in various forms, and yet none of these marble busts contain the essence of his soul, or who he was as a person. All we have are artifacts that merely offer a glimpse through a distorted looking glass, as it were.

Together, this image and this poem speak to me of the ephemeral nature of being human. People have been fighting for power and wondering about what it means to be alive and have a soul for as long as we have been humans. No matter who we are, no matter if we have all the wealth in the world, for emperor and plebian alike, death is our final act. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

Terms of Use “Death of An Emperor” by Emily Bowlin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

January 20, 2025 by Student Posts 3

Ms. Informed: One Woman’s Unending Quest for Learning

Beginning a blog post in 2025, where every second sees more content created than the one before, feels a lot like I’m waiting in a Zoom room where people are there, but no one is talking—a.k.a, a lot of “Is anybody there? Can you hear me?” Or in this case, I suppose “Do you read me?” would be a little more apropos.

Assuming y’all can read me, Hi! My name is Emily Bowlin and I have lived in Florida since I was 8 years old. Originally I lived in a small town called Crestview, which is in the Panhandle of Florida. My Grandpa always referred to it as “L.A.” for “Lower Alabama.” Whenever people say that Tallahassee is a small town I chuckle, because for me, small town refers to seeing folks ride up and hitch their horses at the local Waffle House for a brunch. All that said, I consider myself to be as close to a native Floridian as possible.

I have always wanted to work in libraries because libraries were a safe place when I didn’t have many. Books provided both an escape and a way to imagine a life beyond the one that I’d lived. I am fortunate enough to be working in Resource Sharing within a library currently and am excited to continue on a career path towards librarianship. Currently I am pursuing my Master of Science in Information while working full-time. What I am really interested in pursuing is ways to better equip students and patrons with tools to navigate the constant misinformation and disinformation, while better building and supporting community. My hopes are that I can take some of what I’ve learned in this class and apply it practically to my working environment to improve accessibility overall.

person standing next to marble bust of historic emperor of Rome Trajan

I love reading, but even more than that I love learning. I am always eager to learn more about practically everything! Reading has been a core part of my life and I have read just about anything and everything, with the only exception being self-help books. Currently I’m on a kick of non-fiction books about Roman History, and I just finished Honor Cargill-Martin’s book Messalina: the life and times of Rome’s most scandalous empress.  I love science fiction, fantasy, horror, and non-fiction, depending on the topic. For my honeymoon we visited London and I got to nerd out in the British Museum; in this image I’m standing next to a bust of the Roman Emperor Trajan! I’m always looking to add to my TBR, so feel free to tell me about your last five-star read!

As far as hobbies go, when I’m not reading, I love just about everything crafty and creative. I am an avid fan of crochet, I enjoy making earrings out of small toys and Shrinky Dinks, I even love using Perler beads to make fun patterns! If you’re looking for a fun craft that’s pretty easy overall, Perler beads are great for going as big or as small as you want, and you could find patterns for just about everything! Here’s a website that has a lot of fun bead patterns: Kandi Patterns. In general, the more creative, the more fun. What’s fun about being creative is that it’s the joy of making something, even if that means making a story for my character in Dungeons and Dragons! I look forward to learning about more ways to better utilize digital media in this increasingly digital world!

January 14, 2025 by Student Posts 3