academia

Recently, I’ve read, heard & conversed about a range of issues involving the academic job & publication markets, the relative merits of particular topics & approaches to research, and the risks & rewards of making your work-in-progress public. In thinking & talking through these issues, I’ve referenced a number of personal anecdotes and experiences from my still-short career that I thought might be useful to share here for a wider audience in the name of transparency and making the oft-hidden facets of academic life visible. ... read more »

[The following article was originally published by the ... read more »

I’m happy to announce the pre-publication of my next book has begun. Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Narrative has not yet been written, but the writing and publication process has begun on MediaCommons, where I have posted the book proposal for an open “peer-to-peer review” process, running parallel of the tradition peer review process being coordinated by NYU Press. Please visit and offer any feedback! ... read more »

A compelling argument that it does, at ... read more »

Weather willing, I’ll be traveling this week to give a pair of talks. So in lieu of actual content, here’s the info for any Ohio-based readers if you’d like to attend either presentation: ... read more »

Things are getting a bit under my skin right now. ... read more »

Let me preface this post by saying that this is not intended as a personal attack on Robert Thompson. Although I’ve never met the man, by all accounts he’s a very nice guy, a good colleague and a strong teacher. In this story, Thompson is more a symptom than cause of the problem. ... read more »

I’m writing from the grading bunker, which seems like a fine place to contemplate the purpose of assignments we give our students. Usually, my assignments are fairly conventional in both form and goal, looking to synthesize specific ideas from the course in a way that allows students to apply them to an object or topic that interests them. ... read more »

The recent New York Times Opinionator column by Robert Pippin, ... read more »

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