How London Responded to Beijing in the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony Fan Yang / University of Maryland, Baltimore County
A consideration of London’s 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony alongside Beijing’s 2008 Ceremony.
Read moreCategory: Guest Columns
Mommy, Is That a Boy Text or a Girl Text?
by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
How do audiences come to understand a text as having a gender, and/or a gendered audience?
Watching TV Without Pity
by: Mark Andrejevic / University of Iowa
Rip-on-your-favorite-show sites elevate the attempt to make bad TV more entertaining to a popular art form. In the Television Without Pity world, the show is no longer the final product, but rather the raw material to which value is added.
The Crying Game: Why Television Brings Us to Tears
by: David Lavery / Brunel University
On media and the observation that we still have no valid, philosophically sophisticated theory of why we laugh and cry.
The Best of Television: The Inaugural Flow Critics’ Poll
by: Jason Mittell / Middlebury College
And the winner is…
Sitcom Aesthetics, Intertextuality, and Lucky Louie
by: Walter Metz / Montana State University at Bozeman
At first Lucky Louie seems like a a sex- and expletive-filled version of The Honeymooners, but, after ten episodes, it also appears to be is the most intertextually rich show on television.
Don Knotts: Reluctant Sex Object
by: Heather Hendershot / Queens College
Heather Hendershot explores Don Knotts’ unique on-screen sexual persona.
Meet the Dead – Live!: Paranormal Programming
by: Yvonne Tasker / University of East Anglia
An exploration of the recent paranormal trend in television.
Lost in an Alternate Reality
by: Jason Mittell / Middlebury College
What can the online game “The Lost Experience” teach us about cross-media storytelling and expectations? Is this the future of television?
Enforced Talk: Crime and Confessional in Family Forensics
by: Yvonne Tasker / University of East Anglia
What revelations does Family Forensics uncover?
Trading Races: Black. White. on the FX Network
By: L.S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
We’ve seen people trade spaces and trade spouses on television to varying degrees of success, exploitation, and humor. But is it actually possible to trade races? The new program, Black. White., puts this question to the test.
Hysterical Horowitz and The Culture of Television
by: Brian L. Ott / Colorado State University
How might academics use David Horowitz’s new book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America in classrooms?