A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Jackson Wright investigates the 2019 film Booksmart, complicating its popular reception as a progressive piece of media, instead positing that the film continues to marginalize nonwhite characters and support white superiority.
Read moreLaura Brown unpacks a 1946 WCBS radio advertisement, and considers the multiple uses of archival materials.
Read moreCáel Keegan revisits Sleepaway Camp in his final installment of “In Praise of the Bad Transgender Object” to reveal its sympathetic trans masculine subtext.
Read morePaxton Haven explores the current trend of virtual music festivals as both a continuation of the collective politics of dance cultures, but also a new frontier of industry intervention in a live music marketplace depleted by COVID-19.
Read moreLily Kunda examines the recent trend of public statements denouncing racism. She questions what role corporations have in dismantling white supremacy.
Read moreAlex Brannan discusses the potential for mainstream long-form improv, using the Netflix comedy special Middleditch & Schwartz as a case study.
Read moreBrett Siegel examines the NFL’s developing response to the Coronavirus and the George Floyd protests as an extension, and in many ways a culmination, of Trump era anxieties and tensions.
Read moreEric Forthun looks at how local and regional late night talk shows might help us re-imagine the cultural function of U.S. late night television.
Read moreAsh Kinney d’Harcourt examines the complexities in the later in life female-to-male (FTM) transition narratives shared on YouTube. The stories of these late bloomers, and trans elders more broadly, are significant at a time when trans futures are uncertain.
Read moreWhat does it mean to receive notifications from your smart watch telling you to exercise, especially during a pandemic? Andy Fischer Wright makes an argument that his Apple Watch Activity notifications make it clear that the company is more interested in the data he produces than his well-being.
Read moreDeborah L. Jaramillo examines the shifting visibility of the public and private spheres on television news in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read moreBrian Fauteux questions the theoretical “celestial jukebox” of algorithm-driven music streaming services and the actual variety and access their catalogues offer, and compares it to campus radio stations and their rich libraries of more local and diverse music.
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