Last month, I got to experience — briefly, but enjoyably — my first WorldCon in Glasgow. This opportunity came my way courtesy of a kick-ass panel organized by Rachel van der Merwe, where she, Barbara Postema, and Greg Fuller provided the kick-ass bits, and I provided the short riff on Mrs., Davis I’ve shared below. […]
Another semester, another syllabus…
. . . or two. Fresh editions of “Media, Race, and Identity” and “New Telecommunication Media” (no, I haven’t done anything to get that outmoded title officially changed since last semester). As ever, there are some changes from previous iterations, though most of those are minor. My biggest regret is that I couldn’t quite find […]
Talkin’ bout media literacy
It’s a small thing, to be sure, but perhaps worth sharing anyway. A couple of weeks ago, a reporter for the UMN student newspaper talked with me briefly about media literacy and artificial intelligence . . . and it became part of a podcast episode. Little did I know that the reporter in question had […]
Representing Stuart Hall
Back into the archives this week, this time for a guest lecture I did for a large undergraduate class here at the University of Minnesota in 2012. At least that’s what my notes tell me. I was asked to come in and say some useful words about Stuart Hall and his importance to media studies […]
Unfixing the race
Twenty years or so ago, I tried to write a book about multiracial identity and media called Mixed Messages. For a variety of reasons, the book never happened. But one piece of the project did wind up in print as a journal article on Eminem . . . and there was a lecture that went […]
Being critical
Dipping back into the archives once again, but this time I’m pulling from the teaching wing, rather than the conference paper wing. This is the most recent (spring 2021) version of my opening lecture to the department’s big undergraduate intro course in media studies. As the syllabus notes, this course is a basic introduction to […]
The problem with happy endings
Lots of broken patterns this time. This week’s post comes “early”: I’ve fallen into a Saturday posting rhythm, but it’s only Thursday, and I’m back at it. And the content isn’t some dusty old conference paper unearthed from back in the day, but a (Zoom) talk I gave just yesterday (so the digital ink is […]
Full circle
Let’s end 2022 more or less where it began, shall we? Back then, I offered a tease of a podcast in the making (co-created with Giulia Pelillo-Hestermeyer). At the time, that podcast was more virtual than real. A few hours of unedited audio. A website with a mostly unpopulated WordPress template. And some loose ideas […]
Suspicious Minds
1997 was the 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. It was also the year after Elvis After Elvis was published. And so I found myself talking about Elvis a lot that year. In August, I gave one version of the talk below in Memphis, at the third (and also, I think, the last) Annual International […]
Copywrongs and media pedagogy
In 2009, I was asked to be part of a panel on “Copyright in the Age of YouTube” that was part of a regular Technology-Enhanced Learning Seminar Series sponsored by the Digital Media Center at the University of Minnesota. I was told that it was purely a coincidence that this panel turned out to be […]