Middlebury

I have a video to share with you: ... read more »

Summer is over (even though it remains in the 80s in Vermont this week), which means my sabbatical is completely over. It was a great one, with a wonderful fellowship in Germany, a lot of writing, travel for lectures & conferences, and lots of quality family time. But yesterday, I returned to the Middlebury classroom for the first time in 16 months, officially marking the return to normal professional life (and a reminder of how exhausting a day of teaching can be!). ... read more »

Recently, my friend Annie Petersen took advantage of one of Twitter’s best functions for academics: crowdsourcing syllabus recommendations. Annie was looking for readings that provide a good introduction to semiotics, but are not impenetrable to novice students. ... read more »

For the media academics reading my blog, I want to briefly point to a position that my department is searching for this Fall:

Assistant Professor of Media Production, Middlebury College

This past spring semester, I taught a course called Sustainable Television: Producing Environmental Media – I’d taught a version of the course back in January 2010 during Middlebury’s intensive Winter Term, and this year I ran it as a full semester course. The concept was the same: spend the term producing a magazine-style television program focused on environmental issues, produced collaboratively by students. ... read more »

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 »

As is my tradition, I’ve waited until the last possible moment to complete the syllabi and course sites for my classes this semester, both of which start meeting tomorrow. I’m teaching Television and American Culture, my annual fall ritual, and a new version of my course on narrative theory, Storytelling in Film & Media. Both syllabi are online, and free for browsing and poaching. ... read more »

As always, I post my syllabi online for the world to follow along or poach from my work as they see fit. This spring semester features two courses: today I started teaching Media Technology & Cultural Change, my course on new media using all media-based critical assignments. And tomorrow I return to Baltimore via Watching The Wire for a second time. ... read more »