Archive for March, 2008



“’The Most Gentle of Men’: Revising the Western Hero in NBC’s Centennial”

Allison McCracken, DePaul University — March 17th, 2008

In October of 1978, the 26-hour miniseries of James A Michener’s novel of American Western development, Centennial, debuted, hyped as the biggest television event of the year. Although it proved very popular with audiences, it did not have the critical or cultural legs of either of its predecessors, Roots or Holocaust. The series was, if anything, too much a product of its time, a 70s-specific revisionist history that appeared just as political tides were turning right. Centennial directly, re [...]
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The 2008 Academy Awards and Raymond Williams’ ‘Structure of Feeling’ of the Age

Bernard Timberg, East Carolina University — March 14th, 2008

All serious thinking about art must begin from the recognition of two apparently contradictory facts: that an important work is always, in an irreducible sense, individual; and yet that there are authentic communities of works of art…It is to explore this essential relationship that I use the term “structure of feeling.” (Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, 1969) I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. To go into something you [...]
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No intelligence allowed?

Craig O. Stewart, Old Dominion University — March 13th, 2008

Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth showed that science documentaries can escape the confines of educational television and reach an audience of millions and spark a national conversation on a crucial scientific issue—global warming. This spring, former Nixon speechwriter, occasional actor, and onetime game show host Ben Stein attempts to do the same for anti-science, bringing the world Expelled, a documentary on “intelligent design” (due out, according to the official website, [...]
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Bollywood’s Index: Allusions and Inside Jokes in Om Shanti Om

James Daniel Elam, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill — March 12th, 2008

Bollywood director and choreographer Farah Khan’s 2007 blockbuster “Om Shanti Om” was an instant hit. Even in the US, the movie grossed US$1.7 million in the first three days. By January 2008, the film had grossed US$36.5 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing Hindi movie ever. Although the movie is obviously enjoyable to Bollywood tyros, the film serves as both a celebration and parody of the last thirty years of Bollywood cinema. “Dhoom Taana”, a musical number that occ [...]
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“What Steven Wants: Gestural Computing, Digital Manual Labor, and the Boom! Moment”

Lisa Nakamura, Associate Professor Institute of Communication Research University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign — March 11th, 2008

“Vision” is a huge part of Apple’s marketing strategy, and this clip from the Apple iphone demo at MacWorld 2007 demonstrates a moment of shared spectactorial pleasure in digital interface use. As Apple CEO and head visionary Steve Jobs slides his finger across the iphone screen to the ecstatic reaction of Apple fans, he reaches into the interface—“I just take my finger and slide it across”—to achieve a “boom” moment. His emphasis on the manual “I just take my finger, and s [...]
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Architecture and Narrative in Michael Mann’s Crime Films

Robert Arnett, Old Dominion University — March 10th, 2008

The architecture in Michael Mann's crime films is so distinct and purposeful it takes on a narrative form and interacts with the film's narrative. For Mann, architecture presents a ongoing visual narrative telling of the loss of identity in the American city. Place become non-place. Cities losing their identity becomes a metaphor for a more pervasive loss of identity. Architecture and narrative within these films works on three levels: I. The architecture (built environs) tell a distin [...]
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