New Publication by Prof. Blair Davis

MCS Professor Blair Davis has recently published a book chapter in the new anthology The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings from Rutgers University Press:
http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/Blacker-the-Ink,5473.aspx

                                    

Davis's essay, entitled "Bare Chests, Silver Tiaras and Removable Afros: The Visual Design of Black Comic Book Superheroes," examines the ways in which several Marvel and DC African America superheroes were constructed in terms of their costumes in the 1970s, how these visual designs evolved over the decades that followed, and how they reveal hidden cultural meanings upon closer inspection. He analyzes the visual qualities of such black superheroes as Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Storm, Vixen and Cyborg, investigating "their seeming naturalness within comic book culture, and the resultant ideological implications that often go unstated." Unlike the iconic costumes of Batman, Superman and Spider-Man, "the costumes of many black superheroes tell us little about the characters – perhaps explaining why such costumes seem to get redesigned every decade or so," says Davis. "Given that white writers and artists created the majority of black superheroes, these characters, and their reception among audiences, can therefore be seen as touchstones for how white American society regards black identity (including such concerns as ethnicity, gender and sexuality, among others) in any given period. Since cultural beliefs typically change over time, so too does the visual design of these characters often evolve, with specific costumes, hairstyles, etc. becoming closely connected to specific eras in American history, along with their respective dominant discourses surrounding race and culture. As we move into the future, how then will both current and future characters reflect the cultural changes that are to come?" he asks.

Dr. Kelli Marshall's Seinfeld Course Featured in BBC Article

Dr. Kelli Marshall teaches a course on Seinfeld for the Media and Cinema Studies program, which was recently profiled in an article for the BBC:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150624-seinfeld-really-about-nothing


                      

From the article:

"Kelli Marshall... teaches an entire class on Seinfeld at DePaul University in Chicago, where she also teaches Intro to Film and classes on Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee. Her Seinfeld class tends to fill up to its 30-student maximum very quickly and has an almost unheard-of retention rate.

Students leave the class with a clearer vision of ‘90s history – Marshall provides mini-lessons to help them understand the show’s references to, say, OJ Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran or the lawsuit against McDonald’s for serving too-hot coffee. And, of course, they gain a greater appreciation for Seinfeld and its enduring influence throughout American culture. “We read this article that was just a list of all these terms,” says Erin Uttich, a media and cinema studies major who took the class in 2015. “Like yada yada, or double dip, or re-gift. I was like, ‘Weren’t those just things?’ [Marshall] was like, ‘No, those were things because Seinfeld made them things.’”

And that’s exactly why professors like Marshall and Tobia keep teaching Seinfeld – and, for that matter, other major works of pop culture. These works, if they’re as influential and pervasive as Seinfeld, show us why we say the things we do, do the things we do, think the things we think, like the things we like."

MCS Alumni Chris Olson interviews Prof. Blair Davis for the 'Pop Culture Lens' Podcast

Chris Olson, who recently graduated with a Masters degree in Media and Cinema Studies from DePaul, sat down with Prof. Blair Davis for the latest episode of his podcast 'The Pop Culture Lens' to discuss the 1930s/40s radio serial "Captain Midnight," its cross-media extensions and the role of transmedia therein.

                                    



Chris, along with CarrieLynn Reinhard, created the podcast (which they see as offering "Fresh Perspectives on Past Media") in 2014. Other entries in the podcast series have focused on Planet of the Apes, Freaks, fan culture, The X-Files, Godzilla and Mad Max.

Catch the latest episode here:
http://popculturelenspodcast.tumblr.com/

MCS Profs DeAngelis & Kessler at Console-ing Passions in Dublin

MCS Professors Michael DeAngelis and Kelly Kessler both recently attended the Console-ing Passions conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Console-ing Passions is an international conference devoted to the study of televison, video, audio, new media and feminism, and "was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist media scholars and artists looking to create a space to present work and foster scholarship on issues of television, culture, and identity, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality." (http://www.console-ingpassions.org/about-cp/)


                                           

Michael DeAngelis presented a paper entitled “Gay Love Triangles, General
Hospital and the Contemporary American Daytime Serial” on a panel called 'Queer Identities and Contemporary Television.'

Kelly Kessler's paper, “Best Friends Forever, Playing House and America’s Continued Cultural Anxiety Over Televising Female Friends,” was presented in a panel called 'Girlfriendship.' She also participated in a workshop called 'Moving On Up While Keeping It Together: Mentoring Workshop for Tenure and Promotion,' giving a talk entitled “No Really, Gender and Media Studies is a Real Thing: Positioning Your Work for Tenure Committees outside of the Discipline.”

The conference was held at the Marker Hotel in the Dublin Docklands from June 18-20, 2015.

New MCS Faculty member Kelli Marshall!

The Media and Cinema Studies program is pleased to announce that Dr. Kelli Marshall has been hired as an Instructor of Documentary Studies. 

Dr. Marshall will teach several documentary-related courses for MCS, as well as courses focusing on social media and television studies. Dr. Marshall has been an adjunct with MCS for the past several years, teaching a wide range of film studies courses. She regularly contributes articles on teaching to The Chronicle of Higher Education. See her most recen piece about using Twitter in the classroom here: 

 https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1021-rethinking-twitter-in-the-classroom

Welcome Dr. Marshall!

Two new books by Prof. Paul Booth

Prof. Paul Booth has recently published two new books - Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age (University of Iowa Press, 2015) and Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).

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Playing Fans: 

Fans are everywhere: from Fifty Shades of Grey to Veronica Mars, from Comic-Con to sitcom, from niche to Geek Chic, fans are becoming the most visible and important audience of the twenty-first century. For years the media industries ignored fans and fan activities, but now they’re paying attention and a lot of money to develop a whole new wave of products intended to harness the power of fandom. What impact do such corporate media efforts have on fan practice and fan identities? And are the media industries actually responding to fans as fans want them to?

In Playing Fans, Paul Booth argues that the more attention entertainment businesses pay to fans, the more mainstream fans have become popularized. But such mainstreaming ignores important creative fan work and tries to channel fandom into activities lucrative for the companies. Offering a new approach to the longstanding debate about the balance between manipulation and subversion in popular culture, the author argues that we can understand the current moment best through the concepts of pastiche and parody. This sophisticated alternative to conceiving of fans as either dupes of the media industry or rebels against it takes the discussion of “transformative” and “affirmative” fandom in a productive new direction.

With nuanced analyses of the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, the representations of fans in TV shows like Community and films like Fanboys, SuperWhoLock fans’ use of gifs, and the similarities in discussions of slash fandom and pornographic parody films, this book reveals how fans borrow media techniques and media industries mimic fan activities. Just as the entertainment industry needs fans to succeed, so too do fans need—and desire—the media, and they represent their love through gif fics, crowdfunding, and digital cosplay. Everyone who wants to understand how consumers are making themselves at home in the brave new world being built by the contemporary media should read this book.

Reviews:

“Playing Fans is a thoughtful and important book which will provoke debate and which will, crucially, move analysis on in relation to ‘transformative’ fandom.”—Matt Hills, Aberystwyth University

“Playing Fans offers close analysis of several intriguing case studies that demonstrate how fans and producers meet in complex and conflict-ridden ways…. Booth’s focus on spaces and productions where professional and amateur creation meet and overlap makes an especially important intervention.”—Alexis Lothian, University of Maryland, College Park

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Game Play:

The 21st century has seen a board game renaissance. At a time when streaming television finds millions of viewers, video games garner billions of dollars, and social media grows ever more intense, little has been written about the rising popularity of board games. And yet board games are one of our fastest growing hobbies, with sales increasing every year. Today's board games are more than just your average rainy-day mainstay. Once associated solely with geek subcultures, complex and strategic board games are increasingly dominating the playful media environment.

The popularity of these complex board games mirrors the rise of more complex cult media products. In Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Paul Booth examines complex board games based on book, TV, and film franchises, including Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Hunger Games and the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. How does a game represent a cult world? How can narratives cross media platforms? By investigating the relationship between these media products and their board game versions, Booth illustrates the connections between cult media, gameplay, and narrative in a digital media environment.

Reviews:

Having chosen a Cylon Leader character, Booth commandeers a fine act of infiltration, working licensed board games' way into the Galactica of media studies, showing exactly how and why it matters - both by itself and as an outgrowth of other media properties - as successfully as an unchecked centurion edging down the boarding party track on its way to certain victory. Highly recommended. (Jonathan Gray, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and author of Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts)

Licensed board games based on popular media franchises have long been considered bereft of creative output, if they were considered at all. Paul Booth challenges that assumption by delving deeply and respectfully into that world, arguing for more nuanced considerations of board games as paratextual adaptations of their respective universes. Bringing together studies of fandom, media universes and games, Game Play offers a sustained and rewarding examination of contemporary licensed board games. (Mia Consalvo, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design, Concordia University, Canada)

Paul Booth's Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games is a ground-breaking piece of work. Demonstrating a keen eye for detail, critical analysis and genuine affection for the art of play Booth has produced a much-needed book that shines light on an often overlooked area of popular culture. With chapters on major franchise board games like Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings and those based on acclaimed weird fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft Game Play offers us new ways of understanding the joys and social practices of board game culture. Fans and scholars alike will want to read this - and then go break out the dice! (Lincoln Geraghty, Reader in Popular Media Cultures, University of Portsmouth, UK)

MCS Graduate Program - Alumni Update

Many of our recent alumni from the MCS Graduate program have provided us with career updates. Our grad students go on to a wide range of careers, PhD programs and other scholarly paths. Many of our alumni have gone to teach at various post-secondary institutions, while others are now working for such companies as Apple, Nielsen TV Ratings and Critical Mass.

See the latest list of our alumni here:

http://www.mcsdepaul.com/alumni.html

Prof. Blair Davis Interviewed for The DePaulia

Prof. Blair Davis was interviewed for the latest issue of The DePaulia, for a story on how books are adapted into films and television shows. The article, entitled "Books, Camera, Action: Success of Film Adaptations of Books," examines such recent film adaptations of The Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Gray and Game of Thrones. Davis reminds us, however, that Hollywood's desire to bring popular novels to the screen has longstanding historical roots. “Media producers have long-preferred to make films and TV shows out of what are called pre-sold properties,” he says. “Because the material exists in another form already, audiences are familiar with the basic premise and characters, and will presumably want to follow them over to a new medium.” Davis regularly teaches courses in adaptation for the Media and Cinema Studies program.
 
                       
                         

http://depauliaonline.com/focus/2015/04/12/books-camera-action-success-of-film-adaptations-of-books/ 

MCS at SCMS!

The 2015 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference was held from March 25-29 in Montreal, and many of DePaul's MCS faculty were there presenting their research

Luisela Alvaray co-chaired a panel entitled "Constructing Otherness, Deconstructing Patriarchy and Eurocentrism," presenting her paper “Women, Immigrants, and Natives: Re-centering Otherness in Icíar Bollaín’s Films.”

Paul Booth participated in a workshop entitled "The “F” Word: Fan Studies In and Beyond the Academy" and also presented his paper “Playing The Hunger Games and Fan Paratextual Participation” as part of the panel "Playing Fans: Games and Fandom in Media Studies."

Blair Davis chaired a panel entitled "Watchmen and Media Studies," presenting his paper "Watchmen and Canonization."

Michael DeAngelis presented a paper entitled "Fassbinder's Apartment Plot" as part of a panel on "The Apartment Complex: Apartment Plots in Global Context"

For more on SCMS and next year's conference in Atlanta, see: http://www.cmstudies.org/default.asp?

New article by Prof. Kelly Kessler

Prof. Kelly Kessler has published a new article entitled "Finding the Face-to-Face When You Have No Face: Fostering Student-Student and Student-Professor Engagement in the Online Media Classroom."



She chronicles her work teaching online at DePaul, as well a some of the innovative approaches she has used in her online courses.


The article was published as part of the Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier:

http://www.teachingmedia.org/finding-the-face-to-face-when-you-have-no-face-fostering-student-student-and-student-professor-engagement-in-the-online-media-classroom/

"Personalization, variety, interactivity, and agency can help create a vibrant learning and teaching space, and hopefully one that doesn’t encourage your students to binge watch Breaking Bad while listening to the lectures," says Prof. Kessler.