media studies

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And I’ll tell you why I can’t put up with you people: because you’re bastard people! That’s what you are! You’re just bastard people! And I’m goin’ home and I’m gonna… I’m gonna bite my pillow, is what I’m gonna do!

– Corky St. Clair, Waiting for Guffman

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(the second in a series …) ... read more »

I realized that I should probably explain the future posts that you can expect. That way, if you have questions, you may want to hold them for specific topics. Also, I apologize, but my blog doesn’t seem to thread comments well, which makes it harder to read answers to questions. I think it’s the fault of the Word Press “theme” I’m working with. ... read more »

So, I’ve decided to write a series of posts with advice and comments on the whole process of the media studies job market. Sorry to any non-academic readers, but since I don’t think I have any readers anyways, I’m not too concerned! ... read more »

I have been tourıng Istanbul, wındıng down on wındıng roads from the jam-packed Vısıble Evıdence conference (on documentary). I can’t do justıce to the many strong panels I saw: testıment to the solıdıfıcatıon of documentary as a fully fledged fıeld (I helped start the conference as a graduate student and I remember we dıd so because the few people always talkıng on documentary at larger fılm conferences thought we mıght be able to buıld a more serious and sustained dialogue if we could learn from each other). ... read more »

FFFC, a new on-line journal that is a side-project of SIGNS, has just published my article, “A Lesbian Collective Aesthetic: Making and Teaching The Owls.” By including the written and documentary voices of several of the cast the crew in the article, I attempt to reproduce the “lesbian collective cinema aesthetic” that I discuss as central to the film within my “written” cinema criticism: ... read more »

As a scholar and fan of contemporary narratively complex television serials, one of my blindspots has been Mad Men, a show about which I’ve mentioned on this blog has little appeal to me. Thus it was a bit surprising months ago when I was invited to contribute to a forthcoming book of collected essays on the show – the editors knew that I didn’t like the show, and wanted me to write about why. I accepted the invitation as a kind of challenge, and the results are posted below. ... read more »

I am writing from a classroom that I spent many hours in in the 1990s, in Vilas Hall at University of Wisconsin. The occasion is Fiske Matters, a conference in honor of the ten-year anniversary of John Fiske’s retirement from academia. John was one of my graduate school mentors, and a key touchstone in both my research and teaching – and for those who don’t know the discipline, he is one of the major figures in creating the field of media studies in American in the 1980s. ... read more »

I am currently negotiating my contract with MIT Press to “publish” my “video-book” about YouTube this Fall. ... read more »