"Stories, Spaces and Bodies in the Age of Mobile Media" is the topic for Coastal Carolina University's first Nancy Smith Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Series for 2015. Jason Farman, an assistant professor of American Studies at University of Maryland, College Park will lead the talk on Thursday, Jan. 22, at 5 p.m. in the Edwards Recital Hall at CCU. The event is free, and no ticket is required.

Farman is also the director of the Design, Cultures and Creativity Program and a faculty member with the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at his university. He is the author of the book "Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media." It focuses on how the worldwide adoption of mobile technologies is causing a reexamination of the core ideas about what it means to live our everyday lives: the practice of embodied space. The book was awarded the Book of the Year Award from the Association of Internet Researchers in 2012.

Farman has published numerous scholarly articles on mobile technologies, social media, videogames, digital storytelling, surveillance and more. He has been a contributing author for "The Atlantic" and "The Chronicle of Higher Education." He received his doctorate in performance studies and digital media from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006.

The Nancy Smith Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Series was established in August 2004 to bring noted artists and scholars to support campus residencies for artists and intellectuals with distinguished careers in the arts, history, archaeology, international affairs or philosophy. Nancy Smith and her husband R. Cathcart Smith, an original founder of CCU, were committed to education. She was posthumously named an honorary founder of CCU in 2011.

The Edwards Recital Hall is located in Room 152 in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts building at 133 Chanticleer Drive W. in Conway.