Ryerson University
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:45:59 +0000
Ryerson basketball, hockey, figure skating and volleyball teams are enjoying their best season in years as the playoffs reach full swing in varsity athletics.
"Last spring at the athletic banquet we issued two challenges to our student athletes - 'love the jersey' and 'we expect more.' Your Rams have risen to these expectations and have stepped up to make us proud," said Ivan Joseph, athletics director. "This is a big step in the right direction for Ryerson athletics. It is great to see hard work pay off - the best is yet to come."
The women's basketball team capped its best regular season ever with two wins last weekend against Laurentian and York. With the victories, Ryerson secures second place in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) east and earns home court advantage in the semifinals on Saturday. The Rams finished the regular season with a record of 14-8, topping the previous best of 11 wins in 2001-02. Saturday's semifinal against Ottawa is 6 p.m. in Kerr Hall Gym.
On the men's side, two wins last weekend and a loss Wednesday night leaves their record at 10-11, good for a share of fourth place in the OUA east. They wrap up their regular season Saturday against Toronto before playing in the quarter-finals Feb. 24.
Last weekend Rams basketball forward Boris Bakovic surpassed the 2,000-point career mark, becoming only the second player in OUA history to reach that plateau. He has 2,049 points during his time at Ryerson and needs 44 to be the all-time leading scorer in the OUA.
On the ice, the men's hockey team is heading to the semifinals after sweeping the Toronto Varsity Blues this week. The victories mark the Rams' first playoff series win since 2002. This season has been a high point in Rams hockey, with the men's squad netting its most regular season wins in 20 years: 12. The dozen wins also marked Ryerson's second-highest win total of all time, with only the 1988-89 team grabbing more victories.
Ryerson advances to the second round of OUA eastern conference semifinals next week and will likely face a top-seeded team such as McGill or Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.
Sharing their success is the figure skating team which closed its best season ever at the OUA Championships this week. The Ryerson Rams celebrated gold medals by three skaters, including Jennifer Ji and Katie Docherty in the junior silver similar dance and Madeleine Jullian in the short program as well as the senior silver solo dance.
And finally, the women's volleyball team didn't make the playoffs but had its best season in five years, recording eight wins.
4 days, hundreds of professors, PhD/Grad/Undergraduate students and very short food breaks = the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association’s annual conference.
Ian Klein joined me in Albuquerque for another year of frying our brains with academic discourse on popular culture. We heard about 50 papers and drank a lot of smoothies. It was indescribably delightful.
Here’s the panels I attended and the papers I liked best (per panel- not overall):
Science Fiction & Fantasy 19: Battlestar Galactica and Narrative
Fave paper:
“I Came to Galactica to Tell a Story”: Battlestar Galactica and Transmedia Interactivity
Jennifer Fong, UCLA
Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twilight Fandom
Fave paper:
Undead Authors, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer Battle Roland Barthes on the Internet
Bridget R. Cowlishaw, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah
Science Fiction & Fantasy: Joss Whedon, Sexuality and Gender
Fave paper:
Anya’s “Disturbing Sex Talk”: Breaking the Pattern of Punished Female Sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Tamy Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Science Fiction & Fantasy: Sex and Violence in Twilight
(I presented on this panel)
Fave paper:
Rewriting the Byronic Hero: How the Twilight Saga Made “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” Acceptable Teenage Fiction
Jessica Groper, Claremont Graduate University
Religion: Conservative Christianity and Culture
Fave paper:
Sacred and Sexular: Ann Veal in Arrested Development
Brandon Barnes, Texas A&M University
Computer Culture: Game Studies 7
Fave paper:
Beyond the Button: The Nintendo Wiimote Interface and its Implications for Embodiment, Performance and Play
David O’Grady, UCLA
Science Fiction & Fantasy: The Dangers of Twilight
Fave paper:
Un-Biting the Apple and Killing the Womb: Genesis, Gender and Gynocide in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga
Colleen Orihill, Cleveland State University
Science Fiction & Fanstasy: Whedon and Genre
Fave paper:
Firefly: Between the Noir Frontier and the Final Frontier
E. Chrlotte Stevens, york University and Ryerson University
American History & Culture: Rethinking Suburban Sense of Self: Identity and Memory in the Suburbs
Face paper:
Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Mega-Religion in Lone Star Suburbia
Charity R. Carney, Stephen F. Austin State University
Computer Culture: Game Studies 11
Fave paper:
America’s First Person Shooters: Violent Interactions with Historical Narratives
Harrison Gish, UCLA
Horror (Literary & Cinmenatic): “Torture Porn”
Fave paper:
It’s all Liv Tyler’s Fault!: Male Shame and Protective Failure in The Strangers
Glen Donnar, RMIT University, Melbourne
Horror (Literary & Cinemantic): Affective and Imaginary Machines of Horror
Fave paper:
Manufacturing Images: Allegories of the Factory in Tomb Raider
Craig Bernardini, Hostos Community College
Punk: Punk Literature Philosophically and Rhetorically
Fave paper:
Punk’s Not Dead, it’s Un-Dead: The Vampire Spike as Punk Rock Expression
Bryan L. Jones, Northeatern State University, Oklahoma
Computer Culture: Ethnography, Writing, Second Life, and Film
Fave paper:
The Sex Life in your Second Life: An Ethnological Study of Women as Sexual Objects in Second Life
Alexis Waters, Northeastern Illinois University
Science Fiction & Fantasy: Whedon and the Body
Fave paper: Ian, of course!
“I Like My Scars”: Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and the Narrative of Flesh
Ian Klein, Columbia University
Computer Culture: Theorizing Internet Forms
Fave paper:
“Wizards and Witchcraft in the Wired World”: Magical Thinking in Popular Culture
Nicholas Goodman, Northeastern State University
- Posted in Berkeley University Ca
