TV: The Idiot Box, the Electronic Babysitter, the Toaster with Pictures...

Raymond Williams, "The Technology and the Society"
originally in Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form

Michele Hilmes, "Cable, Satellite and Digital Technologies"
P. David Marshall, "Rejuvenation: Television"

Pop Music: Music Becomes A Thing

Readings Week 1&2:

in Garofalo, Rockin' Out:
-Introduction + Chapter 1: Tin Pan Alley

in Cambridge Companion:
-Introduction + Chronology
-Theberge, "'Plugged In': Technology & Popular Music"
-Frith, "The Popular Music Industry"
-Frith, "Pop Music"

from Durham & Kellner (eds), Media & Cultural Studies: Keyworks
-Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

from Frith & Goodwin (eds), On Record
-Adorno, "On Popular Music"
nb. You can find this essay together with "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" co-written with Max Horkheimer --an essay which if you have not read should definitely do so-- here.

from Even Eisenberg, The Recording Angel: Music Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa
-Eisenberg, Chapter 2: Music Becomes a Thing

Grimes, "Genesis" Live Session for KEXP

'New' Media: What Is It?

These are the readings for the first weeks of class and discussion. Remember that we are still in the process of investigating the concept of 'new' media and trying to go beyond a mere chronology of new technologies in favor of a more nuanced and specific understanding of the truly 'new' aspects of digital converged media and the social potential/consequences. We're doing this from a politically progressive perspective --the 'what's new for society' question.

The articles here will introduce you to some of the more practical transformations the appearance of digital technologies have produced in 'old' (traditional) media like film and television. Please note that as we discussed in class, even in this case, the transformations are both smaller and larger than those one could imagine: on the one hand, the film and televisual experience is for the most part unchanged; on the other, however, the film medium and the specificity of the photo/cinematographic image has been dramatically transformed as it loses its indexicality and the medium goes from a synthetic to an analytic one while television's horizon ceases to be that of a regulated/national context to an open/transnational one disarticulated from 'the (idiot?) box' in your living room.

David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

Sean Cubitt, "Digital Filming and Special Effects"
P. David Marshall, "Rejuvenation: Film in the Digital World"
Anne Friedberg, "CD and DVD"
Janet Wasko, "The Future of Film Distribution and Exhibition"

Michele Hilmes, "Cable, Satellite and Digital Technologies"
P. David Marshall, "Rejuvenation: Television"

Big Up, Spring 2015

Reporting, Adapting, Translating and Internationalizing Comics

Amy Kiste Nyberg, "Comics Journalism: Drawing on Words to Picture the Past in Safe Area Goradze" from Duncan& Smith (eds.), Critical Approaches To Comics: Theories and Methods

Pascal Lefèvre, "Incompatible Visual Ontologies?": The Problematic Adaptation of Drawn Images" from Gordon, Jancovich & McAllister (eds), Film and Comic Books

Kick-Ass directed by Matthew Vaughn

Kick-Ass by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.

Roger Sabin, "International Influences" from Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels (nb. This is a large file because of the hi-res scan and many images it contains)

Diabolik n.1 (1962) by Angela and Luciana Giussani

Rank Xerox by Tamburini and Liberatore

Fatal Strategies, Slackers and Withdrawing

"Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death"

Foucault, "The Repressive Hypothesis" from The History of Sexuality, Vol. I
The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow.
Please read the section 'Disciplines and Sciences of the Individual' in Part II, particularly the first four segments (from "The Body of the Condemned" to "Panopticism")

Baudrillard, "The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media"

Additional Recommended Baudrillard Readings:

Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media
Jean Baudrillard, The Implosion of Meaning in the Media from Simulacra and Simulation
+
McKenzie Wark, The Hacker Manifesto

"Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy."

Queering Texts: Popular Culture and The Oppositional Gaze

Susan Sontag, "On Camp"

Richard Dyer, "In Defense of Disco"
Richard Dyer, "Judy Garland and Gay Men"

bell hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze"

Alexander Doty, "There's Something Queer Here"
Bruce LaBruce, "Pee Wee Herman: The Homosexual Subtext"

"I'm A Rebel"

"I Know You Are But What Am I?"

GLBT Representation in Film and Television

Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, "Representing Gay Men on American Television"
Diane Raymond, "Popular Culture and Queer Representation: A Critical Perspective"

Susan J. Hubert, "What's Wrong With This Picture: The Politics of Ellen's Coming Out Party"
Fred Fejes, "Advertising and the Political Economy of Lesbian/Gay Identity"

Alexander Doty, "Modern Family, Glee, and the Limits of Television Liberalism" 

Medium Specificity and Representation

 Lily Allen, "Hard Out Here"

Keith Negus, "Popular Music: Between Celebration and Despair"
Van Zoonen, "Gender, Representation and the Media"
Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media"

Desjardins, "Cinema and Communication"
Thomas, "Myths in and About TV"
*Articles are from Downing et al (eds), Questioning The Media: A Critical Introduction (Sage, 1996)

An Art of Tensions: Narrating

from Glyn Dillon's The Nao of Brown

Ann Miller, Narrative Theory and Bande Dessinée from Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to French-Language Comic Strip (Intellect, 2008)
Hillary Chute, "'The Shadow of a Past Time': History and Graphic Representation in Maus"

nb. The Groensteen and Hatfield from the last post are also invaluable for thinking around your papers.

Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: Screening Tuesday, November 11 @ 8pm

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis

Hello All. I will be screening Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud's film, Persepolis (France, 2007) which is an animated film adapted from Satrapi's own graphic novel, Persepolis (published in 2000) on Tuesday, November 11 @8pm in GK1.3 (to be on the safe side of any last minute room changes please check the board at the entrance for any announcements).

We will be using this work to speak about form, comics as 'the art of tensions', narrative structure, representation, autobiography, memory and medium specificity. It will also be a good source for reflection on gender in comics, international comic traditions and adaptation across media.

You can find three excerpts from Satrapi's graphic novel here: Kim Wilde, The Soup and The MakeUp. The entire book is on reserve in the library. Those of you interested in this material might also want to take a look at Zeina Abirached's graphic novel A Game For Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return which was certainly influenced by Satrapi's poetics and themes.

Signs, Meaning, Power

Articles related to our discussion on signs, meaning and culture and their intersections with the construction of identity, desire and power. Enjoy.

Kellner, "Advertising and Consumer Culture"

Sut Jhally, "Image Based Culture"

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

Race and Gender Final Paper Assignment

Final Paper Prompt here. We will talk about this during next class. Good times.

An Art of Tensions: Reading + Final Paper Prompt

Here are some articles that you are warmly advised to integrate in your papers:

Groensteen, "The Impossible Definition"
Hatfield, "An Art of Tensions"
Beaty, "Autobiography as Authenticity"

Two sample analyses of comic art and auteurs:

Hignite, "Jamie Hernandez's LOCAS"
Kannenberg, "The Comics of Chris Ware"

à la Queneau...Excercises in Style:
Madden, Excerpts from "99 Ways To Tell A Story"

from Jason, Lost Cat

Here is the prompt for your final paper and presentation.
You will find all the links as hyperlinks in the document for easy access.

How To Read Comics I

 "To say that Nancy is a simple gag strip about a simple-minded snot-nosed kid is to miss the point completely. Nancy only appears to be simple at a casual glance. Like architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the simplicity is a carefully designed function of a complex amalgam of formal rules laid out by the designer. To look at Bushmiller as an architect is entirely appropriate, for Nancy is, in a sense, a blue print for a comic strip. Walls, floors, rocks, trees, ice-cream cones, motion lines, midgets and principals are carefully positioned with no need for further embellishment. And they are laid out with one purpose in mind - to get the gag across. Minimalist? Formalist? Structuralist? Cartoonist!"

Nancy 're-mixes' by James Benning.

How To Read Nancy by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik.
Ernie Bushmiller, Selected Nancy Sunday Strips

Please keep up with the readings in the Duncan&Smith Power of Comics and start working your way through the rest of Understanding Comics. Finish Watchmen and Jimmy Corrigan.