New Book by Prof. Davis - Movie Comics

New Book by Prof. Davis - Movie Comics

Prof. Blair Davis has recently published a new book, Movie Comics: Page to Screen/Screen to Page, from Rutgers University Press. Examining the ways in which movies and comics adapted each other between 1900 and 1960, Movie Comics is the first book to closely examine the relationship between the film and comics industries between 1930 and 1960, as well as how films and television programs were adapted into comic books in the Classical Hollywood era.

Publisher's Weekly calls Movie Comics "an enlightening, scholarly history. Davis treats his topic seriously while also celebrating the pleasures of these two lively arts." Comics scholar Scott Bukatman says "Movie Comics makes a crucial contribution to media studies not only by unearthing and exploring the very long history of comics adapted for the screen, but also by simultaneously covering the myriad ways that comics presented material originally produced for film and television. The real subject of this book is the never-ending saga of media mediating one another, and in Blair Davis’s most capable hands, it’s a tale meticulously researched and engagingly told." Film scholar Dana Polan says ""His proven talent for trenchant research well on display, Blair Davis not only chronicles comics' influence on cinema but shows innovatively the movies' frequent adaptation into comics. A masterful study."

https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/movie-comics/9780813572253

Chicago Film Seminar at DePaul, Thurs Oct 20th

The Media and Cinema Studies Program is the host of the Chicago Film Seminar, which returns this month. Please join us for the first event of the 2016-2017 season of the Chicago Film Seminar on Thursday, October 20th, at 7:30 PM, to welcome Professor Amyar Jean Christian (Northwestern University) for his talk, "The Art of Scale: Production Value in Networked Television." A reception will follow.

The event will be held in our Communication Theater, LL102 Daley.

You will find more detailed information about the talk and Professor Christian through this link:
http://chicagofilmseminar.blogspot.com/

MCS Graduate Student Jacob Oller writes for RogerEbert.com

This summer, current Media and Cinema Studies graduate student Jacob Oller had an article published on Roger Ebert's website, rogerebert.com:



http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/a-gamer-defends-warcraft

 His article, "A Gamer Defends Warcraft," offers an alternative reading of Duncan Jones' 2016 film Warcraft, an adaptation of the popular video game. Oller credits his work in Prof. Davis's Spring 2016 course on Adaptation as a launching pad for some of the ideas explored in the article, in which he compares the role of visual fidelity and narrative fidelity in how the film has been received by audiences and critics.

"Ultimately," concludes Oller, "'Warcraft' is the best video game adaptation we’ve gotten so far because it understands itself. “Warcraft” is a broad, goofy, trope-embracing soap opera that isn’t trying to be more—it’s pro wrestling if a spellslinger turned heel and the absurdly muscular heroes carried battle axes—and it’s a definite step in the right direction for the future of video game films."

Congratulations, Jacob!

New Book From Prof. Paul Booth

Prof. Paul Booth's new book, Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Comtemporary Fan Audience, is now out from Palgrave Pivot.

               

In the book, Booth "examines the fan-created combination of Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Supernatural as a uniquely digital fan experience, and as a metaphor for ongoing scholarship into contemporary fandom" and "explores the fan-created crossover universe known as SuperWhoLock—a universe where Sherlock Holmes and Dean Winchester work together to fight monsters like the Daleks and the Weeping Angels; a world where John Watson is friends with Amy Pond; a space where the unique brands of fandom interact. Booth argues that SuperWhoLock represents more than just those three shows—it is a way of doing fandom. Through interviews with fans and analysis of fan texts, Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Contemporary Fan Audience also demonstrates how fan studies in the digital age can evolve to take into account changing fan activities and texts."

http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137574541

Prof. Davis part of an Award-Winning Anthology

The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, an anthology which features Prof. Blair Davis's essay "Bare Chests, Removable Afros and Silver Tiaras: The Visual Design of Black Comic Book Superheroes," recently won a Will Eisner Comics Industry Award  for Best Academic/Scholarly Work. Congratulations to editors Frances Gateward and John Jennings, and to Prof. Davis.

              

The "Eisners" are the top award given by the comics publishing industry, and they give one annual award for comics-related scholarly work. For further information, see: http://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards-current-info

               
               

Paul Booth Giving a Public Talk on Game Play

 Prof. Paul Booth will give a free public talk about his recent book Game Play at The Gaming Goat in Oak Park on July 23rd at 1 pm. A book signing will be held following his talk.

          

Fore more details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399100340116653/

New Kelli Marshall article in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Dr. Kelli Marshall has a new article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "It's Getting Personal in Here." Dr. Marshall examines how social media has changed the ways in which students can learn about their instructors' personal lives.

                     

"Thanks to social media, teacher-student relationships aren’t quite so simple anymore. Historically, of course, students and faculty have interacted informally on campus and off — in a grocery-store checkout line or at adjacent tables in a restaurant. But social-networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have introduced another, different space that contributes to a blurring of boundaries between professional and personal personas," says Marshall.

Dr. Marshall is a regular contributor to the Chronicle. Her articles are available here: https://chroniclevitae.com/people/22828-kelli-marshall/articles

Paul Booth and Blair Davis featured on Radio DePaul show

The latest episode of "Splash Pages," a Radio DePaul program hosted by Brian Pearlman about comic books, features interviews with Prof. Paul Booth and Prof. Blair Davis about the role of heroes in comics, films and beyond.

                            

The episode (#29) is available as a podcast on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-29-heroes/id979778631?i=1000368673814&mt=2

MCS at SCMS Atlanta

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies recently held its annual conference in Atlanta from March 30-April 3, 2016, and all of our full-time faculty from the Media and Cinema Studies Program were there presenting papers. Here is an overview of what they presented:

                  

Luisela Alvaray presented a paper entitled "Visible Lives: Transgenderism in Latin American Film"

Paul Booth presented a paper entitled "SuperWhoLock and Transfandom" and participated in a workshop called "Teaching Fandom: Creative Strategies"

Blair Davis presented a paper entitled "From the Streets to the Swamp: Luke Cage, Man-Thing and the 1970s Class Issues of Marvel Comics" and chaired a workshop called "Comics and Methodology (or, Which Method Would Win in a Fight - Superman and Semiotics or the Hulk and Historiography?"

Michael DeAngelis presented a paper entitled "Therapy, Cinema, and the Sexual Block"

Kelly Kessler presented a paper entitled "Who’s the Diva Here?: Male Authorship, Female Performance, and Small Screen Musicals of the Sixties"

Kelli Marshall presented a paper entitled "Annie Hall, All Grown Up: Diane Keaton, Self-referentiality, and Coming of Age in Something’s Gotta Give"

For more information on SCMS see: http://www.cmstudies.org/

New article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Kelli Marshall

Dr. Kelli Marshall has a new article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education today, entitled "I'm an Academic, and I Run a Fan Site," about her experiences running a popular Gene Kelly website.

               

"From what I can surmise, it is unusual for an academic to run a fan site," says Marshall, "especially with her name, profession and online identity clearly attached. But why is this the case?" she asks.

See the full article here:
"I'm an Academic, and I Run a Fan Site"

Prof. Davis Receives VEF Grant for 'Christianity & Comic Books' Project

Prof. Blair Davis recently received a grant from DePaul University's Vincentian Endowment Fund in support of a project entitled 'Christianity and Comic Books.' Davis seeks to build a collection of Christian comic books to be housed in the DePaul Library’s Special Collections department, where they may be used for both teaching and research purposes. The collection will contain approximately forty comic books dating back as far as the 1940s, and including such works as Picture Stories From the Bible and Bible Tales for Young Folk. Examples of more recent titles include the 1982 comic book The Life of Pope John Paul II, and the 2003 comic book The Bible: Eden.

                        

"Comic books have served as a vibrant form through which Catholic beliefs and culture have been disseminated. By preserving this legacy, DePaul University will further add to its Vincentian identity by allowing current and future students and scholars to benefit from these rarely seen representations of Christianity in popular culture," says Davis.

Please see the DePaul University Newsline article for further information on the Vincentian Endowment Fund Awards: http://www.depaulnewsline.com/features/2015-vincentian-endowment-fund-awards-announced

Prof. Paul Booth Interviewed for WIRED Magazine Article

Prof Paul Booth was interviewed for a recent Wired article about the use of social media within sports fandom. Speaking about NBA star Stephen Curry, Booth tells of how “We’re seeing a lot of fandoms merging technologies and practices in the digital age... Fans who participate in multiple fandoms use the same kinds of methodologies. So what they might make for an X-Files fansite, they also might make for Steph Curry.”



The article, entitled "The Unprecedented, Unstoppable Fandom of Steph Curry," also quotes Booth as saying that “In the past, fandom was something you might participate in within a small community... It was geographically bound. People would go to games or fan conventions, but it was intended to be a much smaller affair.”

MCS Minor in 'Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies' Coming Fall 2016!

The Media and Cinema Studies Program is proud to to be part of a new minor in Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies which will begin in Fall 2016.

The College of Communication currently features multiple classes across many programs and curricula that all focus on the idea of “cult” media or subcultural audiences—that is, aspects of culture that are separate from, or differentiate themselves from, the mainstream, or that present new ways of examining consumers and the emotional resonance of various media products on contemporary audiences.


Courses that focus on genre films and television, audience analysis, affect, and cult products span the Communication Studies,  Media and Cinema Studies, Journalism, and Public Relations and Advertising programs. This new minor will unite these courses under one banner in order to provide interested students with a focused concentration on fandom and cult media.

The purpose of this minor is to allow students to understand how audiences and media producers design media texts to confront and challenge contemporary ideologies, to offer alternatives to the mainstream, and to engineer deliberate affective reactions in audiences.


Learning Goals for the Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies Minor:

Identify critical components of the contemporary media and communication environment, and audience reaction to them

Differentiate cult and mainstream media texts along with their diverse contexts of production, distribution and reception

Describe contemporary audience behaviors

Apply media and communication theories to genre film, television, and new media texts

Analyze the content and aesthetics of cult texts


A list of specific classes that will apply towards this new minor will be announced soon, and will include courses on fan studies, comic books, B-movies, sports fandom, horror cinema, celebrity studies and more.