Prof. Blair Davis featured in DePaul Magazine article

Prof. Blair Davis has been featured in an article on innovative teaching approaches in the March 2014 issue of DePaul Magazine. The article, "Invasion of the Student Course Revisers," profiles how Davis uses self-selected learning options by regularly offering students a choice which film will be screened in class.

DePaul Magazine: "Invasion of the Student Course Revisers"

image courtesy of depaulmagazine.com

New Publication by Paul Booth

MCS professor Paul Booth has recently published a new article in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, "Slash and porn: media subversion, hyper-articulation, and parody." Please see below for the abstract and citation:

 In this paper, I examine the rise in popularity of pornographic parody, and compare it to slash fan fiction. Parody, an imitation that implicitly critiques an original work, is an important element of contemporary media texts. Through satire, parody offers a subtle, yet powerful critique of contemporary culture. Beyond mainstream media texts, parody is also a staple genre of the pornographic canon. Although multiple types of pornographic parodies exist, I concentrate on heterosexual parodies of mainstream film and television made by professional American pornographic film studios. Another media product that demonstrates parody is slash fan fiction, the writing of highly sexualized fan fiction. By queering traditionally masculine texts, slash creates a systematic comment on the patriarchal sexuality of popular culture. I first discuss pornographic parody, specifically focusing on Star Wars XXX. I next claim that a useful lens through which to define and delimit porn parody comes through Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque. I compare both slash fan fiction and porn parody through this lens. I argue that slash fandom has the potential to subvert patriarchy, while the more commercial porn parody hyper-articulates it.

 Paul Booth (2014): Slash and porn: media subversion, hyper-articulation, and parody, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2014.893985

MCS Alumni Update: Angela Brown

Angela Brown completed her MA in Media and Cinema Studies in the Fall of 2013 and now works for Nielsen TV Ratings & Computer Research in Seattle, Washington. As a Membership Rep for the Watch side of Nielsen she manages relationships with families in the Seattle market who are participating in national television and computer viewing measurement. She is passionate about media literacy and social media and is excited to work in a role that emphasizes her interests in digital media. One day she would like to run a cinema cafe that specializes in media literacy development for urban kids and teens.

"One of the hardest parts of my job is that I can’t talk about TV shows with the Nielsen homes because I am responsible for not influencing household viewing behaviors. It is very interesting to discuss television without talking about programming and to survey how many different technologies and services people use today viewing cable, satellite, broadcast, and/or streaming TV," says Brown. 

"As a graduate student in the MCS program I studied the cultural and ideological significance of television, film, and multimedia technologies. I especially enjoyed the opportunities DePaul offered for learning production techniques in music and video. Through MCS I gained a better understanding for how to communicate with people about media at different engagement levels and I developed a better appreciation for the impact media has in our lives and in the business world. I think having a cultural studies and media studies perspective about television impacts how I approach concerns about data collection and privacy. I am able to explain to households the interests of Nielsen’s researchers and the TV industry and that makes homes feel more comfortable about their participation in market research," she says.

For more information about Nielsen Television Measurement: 
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/nielsen-solutions/nielsen-measurement/nielsen-tv-measurement.html

Reminder: Chicago Film Seminar Thurs. March 13

A reminder that our own MCS professor Michael DeAngelis will be giving a talk entitled "Reading the Bromance" as part of the Chicago Film Seminar this Thursday March 13 (6:30 pm, room LL102, 14 E. Jackson St. - enter off of 247 State St).

http://chicagofilmseminar.blogspot.com/

His talk is taken from his forthcoming book from Waysne State University Press, Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film and Television:

http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/reading-bromance

 Please join us this Thursday.