Shaun Manning

ANN ARBOR—While adaptive sports like powerchair football provide invaluable opportunities for children with mobility disabilities to participate in athletic events, these games are not designed for competitive play between kids with disabilities and those without.
A media artist inspired by a young sports enthusiast with cerebral palsy is looking to change that.
The goal of iGYM, an augmented reality game system created by a team of University of Michigan researchers led by Roland Graf, assoc...

Following up on the massive success of her Berrybrook Middle School series, award-winning cartoonist Svetlana Chmakova is looking back to look forward, revisiting a magical world of mythical beings she first envisioned more than 10 years ago. The Weirn Books series kicks off in June from Yen Press' JY imprint with Be Wary of the Silent Woods, introducing the young witch Ailis Thornton as she navigates family secrets, shifting friendships, and a creepy house in the woods.
The Weirn Books, Chma...

ANN ARBOR—An art installation from two professors at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance explores the effects of climate change through powerful imagery, haunting music and the percussive beat of melting ice.
“A World Without Ice,” a multisensory experience created by U-M SMTD professor Stephen Rush and SMTD and Residential College professor Michael Gould with visual artist Marion Tränkle and climate scientist Henry Pollack, is now on view at the Ann Arbor Hands-On M...

Michigan Education Magazine |
Fall 2021
When it became federal law nearly 50 years ago, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 promised more equitable opportunities for women in education, from grade school through grad school. Although it immediately forbade discrimination on the basis of sex for any educational program or activity receiving federal funding, the full implications of the law and its applications would take several decades to unfold. For this centennial issue, we spoke w...

Doctor Manhattan has been manipulating the DC Universe since Flashpoint, and the godlike Watchmen protagonist’s hand has dramatically shaped the lives of Batman, Superman, the Flash, and more. All of this is unlikely to sit well with Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore, if indeed he muster, at this point, the outrage to object.

Moore has been a vocal critic of DC’s handling of Watchmen, notably regarding the 2009 film adaptation by Justice League director Zach Snyder and the 2012 prequels under th...

Michigan Education Magazine |
Fall 2021
Over the past 150 years, teacher training at U-M has evolved to meet changing needs, grown to partner with community schools and organizations, and demonstrated leadership in research-based innovations in student learning. Throughout expansions, contractions, shifting policies, and rotating leadership, U-M has remained among the best universities for the preparation of educators.
Professional teacher training in the state of Michigan was initially the r...

Kieron Gillen's comics have life beyond their pages -- they are participatory. Fans of The Wicked and the Divine, which released its penultimate issue earlier this month, took part in the world of Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, and Matt Wilson's doomed young gods not only through impeccably gorgeous cosplay, but also through comic-con dance parties that Gillen and McKelvie DJ.
As WicDiv nears its conclusion, though, DIE, Gillen's new Image Comics series co-created with artist Stephanie Hans, is just...

ANN ARBOR—For more than 40 years, Meredith Bixby toured the eastern United States with his collection of handcrafted marionettes, staging fantastical shows for school groups and libraries. Bixby’s puppets and props featured intricate mechanisms to create elaborate special effects, revealing hidden treasures and bringing his fairy tale characters to life.

When Hilary Severyn was deciding on her capstone project for her graduate degree at the University of Michigan School of Information—a final...

"Wonder Twins powers, activate!" Their rallying cry has endured for more than 45 years, but Zan and Jayna have made only sporadic appearances in comics and other media since the end of the Super Friends cartoon in 1986. Now, though, thanks to a writer famous (notorious?) for dusting off beloved characters that have fallen into disuse, the Wonder Twins' moment may have finally arrived -- much to their own dismay.
Mark Russell, the comedy writer who has made a name for himself turning The Flint...

After nearly a decade out of the spotlight, the flawed heroes of the Umbrella Academy and their enigmatic benefactor Hargreeves return this week in Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion #1 by Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá and Nick Filardi.
The original Umbrella Academy series marked the first foray into comics for Way, who was then the singer for My Chemical Romance, and won the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Limited series. Since then, Bá has also won an Eisner for Daytripper, co-created with his brother Fá...

Change can be difficult even in the best of circumstances.
The inertia of “the way we’ve always done things” can trip up the implementation of a new CRM, and a team’s familiarity with a software platform (even one that they all complain about!) can make them resist adopting one that better suits their needs.
It’s not enough for you to find the CRM with the right features at the right price; to implement these changes effectively, it’s crucial that your team wants the change, and that they’re ...

They are asking me for treats

I am doing the best I can

To steal their Snickers and the Reese's

And I will blame it on their dad

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in theaters now.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi did something extraordinary with Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo: It set to film the sort of undramatic, unpretentious leadership that gets the job done in the real world and would be necessary for the survival of a group like the Resistance. And fans are villainizing her for it.

See, Holdo is set up as the antagonist for Poe Dameron’s arc. We like Poe; Oscar...

Reza Aslan’s upcoming book God: A Human History ticks a lot of boxes for me. Aslan, who is Muslim but relates in his book previous tinkerings with Christianity and atheism, is an incredibly gifted scholar, writer, and television presenter, working in exactly the sort of perspective that gets me excited. His previous book, Zealot, piecing together a story of the historical Jesus, is one I find myself paraphrasing and referring back to pretty frequently. In God, he’s looking at how monotheism developed and achieved dominance after any number of false starts throughout history, debunking along th

Athletes are in a perhaps unique situation to influence the cultural conversation, but they do so at great risk to their own careers. Already in the wake of the president’s statements about Kaepernick and NBA star Steph Curry, LeBron James has spoken out—in a tweet liked more than one million times—in a way that Michael Jordan never did, and in much stronger terms than some might expect. LeBron is using his platform, one of the biggest in the world—and more powerful, potentially, than that of the purported Leader of the Free World.