Three months ago, I posted information about Middlebury’s search for a comparative media studies faculty member. I’ve been quite excited about the discussion and feedback I’ve gotten, highlighting the benefits of opening up the black box of the faculty hiring process. So as the search proceeds, I want to post an update.
We have received over 270 applications for the position, a large but not unexpected number. What has surpassed my expectations is the quality of the applicants – I feel confident saying that, at least on paper, I believe that half of these applicants could be successful faculty at Middlebury and excellent additions to the department. But obviously we need to pare down the pool for interviews – this post offers some insight into the process by which we went from 270 applicants to the 30 or so candidates from whom we’ve requested more information in preparation for requesting phone interviews in December.
A brief caveat – I know that many of you reading this will be one of those 270 applicants. I obviously can only speak in generalities, not about specific applicants. I hope revealing the process of selection helps explain our rationale for advancing your candidacy or not. Given the number of applications, I’m not willing to entertain individual queries about why somebody was not advanced – but I do hope that the process sketched below helps shine a light on an otherwise opaque process.
As department chair and the faculty member most engaged with media studies, I read every application myself. Two of my colleagues read almost every application as well, with the intention that every file receive at least two reads – and unless they clearly did not meet the expectations of the position, they were read by all three of us. Since we only requested a thin file (CV, research/teaching statement, and reference letters), the primary question we all asked was “do we want to read more about this applicant?” If so, we requested a larger dossier of a writing sample and teaching materials to advance to the next round of reviewing.
What criteria did we use to decide our top candidates? Certainly there were no definitive litmus tests, aside from the basic qualifications of a Ph.D. or very-close-to-finishing ABD, but we did focus on a few core issues. First, the goal of this position is to expand the media studies offerings within our department – of the four main critical studies faculty currently at Middlebury, three focus exclusively on film with me as the only non-film scholar (and I teach a good amount of film in many of my courses). This hire hopes to balance the two sides of Film and Media Culture more fully, and as such, we are looking for somebody who is primarily a media scholar. We got a large number of applications from film scholars, some of whom (but not everyone) do a little bit of work about other media – although many of these applicants could be great additions to our department, they simply don’t fit the scope of this position. Likewise, we were looking for faculty who clearly belong in a department like ours, rather than other fields like political science, sociology, anthropology, mass communications, etc. – bringing in somebody whose work is so disciplinarily divergent from our own can be a recipe for future problems, and probably not worth any gains that might be realized by going outside our discipline significantly.
In some ways, adding a faculty member to a department is kind of like pitching a new TV show (yes, I have to live up to my blog’s name!) – there needs to be a balance between the familiar and the new. While we don’t want somebody whose profile and interests completely overlaps our existing faculty, we also don’t want somebody so radically different that there is no common ground. We’ll need a new faculty member to succeed in teaching courses that are already being taught, as well as adding new breadth and range to our curriculum. The range of courses that a candidate could teach is a central consideration for assessing an application.
An important criteria for a college like Middlebury is teaching experience. The strongest candidates have substantial teaching backgrounds, perhaps in settings beyond their graduate institutions, and ideally have designed courses that are comparable to what would be taught here. Experience teaching or attending a small liberal arts college is also a strong asset – the particular intensity and focus of teaching at a place like Middlebury is hard to understand without first-hand experience, so being familiar with the environment and expectations is useful (although certainly not essential).
A number of other factors go into assessing candidates for this position. We’re hoping that this faculty member will broaden the digital media options in our department, so their demonstrated ability to both teach about and with new media forms was a clear consideration. Potential for interdisciplinary ties is an asset at Middlebury, especially with programs like International Studies, Environmental Studies, and Women & Gender Studies. And obviously a publication track record and potential appropriate for a junior faculty hoping to achieve tenure is a must.
Another factor that’s less cut and dried involves the candidate’s cover letter. Especially for applicants whose career path might be less than typical, narrating the process by which they ended up at this point in their education or employment is vital. I can think of a number of applications who made an unusual C.V. compelling by means of telling their story (as well as others who did not), and even applicants who have followed a more typical path help themselves quite a bit by conveying a sense of drive and personality through their self-presentation. When there’s a pool of 270 letters, standing out as distinctive (in a positive way) is quite important. On top of that, an effectively written cover letter suggests that the candidate will be at home teaching writing intensive courses, which is required of all Middlebury faculty.
In the end, the process of selecting 10% of a strong application pool is daunting, and I know that there are great applicants who won’t move forward for hard-to-define reasons. But I think a key lesson for candidates to realize is that not making the cut is rarely a referendum of your worth as a scholar or teacher – it’s usually more about a sense of the position and internal needs that are hard to articulate, combined with the inevitable comparisons among the applicant pool. When I was on the market, there were jobs that I imagined that I would be perfect for that I didn’t get – later when I found who did get them or heard about the department’s process, I usually came to understand the ways I wouldn’t have fit expectations or needs. I hope this post helps provide a some insight to many of you as to why you were or were not asked for more information.
One question that I anticipate people asking: “if I wasn’t asked for more information, am I out of the running?” Technically no – we won’t send formal announcements declining applications until the position is formally hired. However, it is unlikely that a candidate whom we have not yet contacted will be considered for the next stage of phone interviews. Obviously, that’s not the answer most people want to hear, but I think it’s better to know where things stand than not.
I’m happy to entertain general questions and comments below.
Filed under: Academia, Media Studies, Middlebury, Teaching | 12 Comments
Tags: job search
Fall TV Roundup
October is always a rough month for academics, with the crush of midterm grading, recommendation letter writing, and administrative tasks for spring semester, plus the standard fall tasks for homeowners and parents. But it’s doubly tough for television scholars, as there’s all that new TV to watch! So I’ve been neglecting blogging, but not watching.
While I’m late to the game, I wanted to offer my take on the new and returning shows. The advantage of being late on this is that I’m able to look at more than the first couple of episodes of most shows, as often pilots misrepresent how a series will develop. Here are brief blurbs & grades in semi-random order:
Modern Family: I’m definitely following the crowd here, singing the praises of this comedy as the season’s best new show. And as of now, it might be the best show I’m watching at all.* It uses the mockumentary gimmick to great effect, getting the chance to see all the characters in unguarded moments compared to their familial behaviors. And the size of the ensemble allows for many intermixtures between characters that it should remain fresh for quite awhile. Ty Burrell’s Phil is the clear breakout here, but the whole ensemble is top notch and they feel like they’ve been working together for a long time. Plus Shelly Long’s guest spot suggests that there’s room to grow even more. A
(And one other aside: isn’t it striking that one of the season’s big hits features a gay couple adopting a baby – and nobody seems to care? Where’s the outcry from the culture warriors? Even PTC’s blurb doesn’t mention it! Crazy…)
Glee: Speaking of crazy, the other big buzz series is far more erratic and teetering on the brink of falling apart, but I do find the sheer energy of the show compelling. There’s been some backlash lately – while I agree with most of the criticism (the characters are paper-thin stereotypes, many plotlines are beyond ridiculous, it has no consistent sense of narrative time, the vocal over-production is grating), I find myself surrending to its charms. I guess it’s just an acknowledgment of the power of originality on TV – there’s nothing else like Glee on television, so the simple sense that I’m seeing something different makes me happy. That, and Jane Lynch, of course. B
Flash Forward: Had I graded it after the pilot, I would have given it a B+ for its sense of danger and interesting concept, but the subsequent episodes have been much, much worse. The show has a great premise, and a strong visual style (two episodes from Battlestar’s Michael Rymer helps), and it might right its ship after a few episodes. But while it clearly is trying to be the new Lost (promos actually hyped “from the network that brought you Lost” – why not “from the network that brought you According to Jim“?), it’s shaping up to be the new Heroes: slack plotting, on-the-nose dialog, erratic pacing, tonal shifts, and when in doubt, introduce a new character. The main problem is that the show does not respect the intelligence of its audience, reminding us over and over of every flash forward, every relationship, every plot point. I have to keep watching for the whole season (it’s research!), but I remain skeptical. C
Community: I’m enjoying this series quite a bit – I expected the show to be much more frenetic and snarky in tone, but it’s actually a fairly traditional single-camera show. The characters still need more development and there’s been a weak storyline most episodes, but there’s a lot to work with and the performers seem up to the task. B+
The Good Wife: One series that I always liked was Judging Amy – it doesn’t fit my demo or general sensibility, but I like a good family/workplace hybrid that respects the intelligence of its audience and presents the struggles of balancing parenting and careers. The Good Wife is cut from a similar model, with a great cast, an original premise, and a successful balance between serial and episodic elements. It might wear thin after awhile, especially if the ongoing drama with the imprisoned husband gets drawn out too long, but I’m on board. B+
Bored to Death: A very strange show that I’m not exactly sure what to make of. I’ve let it linger on my TiVo for a few weeks, which is never a good sign, but I think I like it – but I don’t know why. It’s got tonal issues, and the humor is more of the knowing-nod rather than outright-laugh variety, but something about it makes me want to watch. Eventually… B-
Curb Your Enthusiasm: I was an ardent fan of this show for the first three seasons, found the fourth season underwhelming, and then let HBO lapse without going back to the DVDs. So season 7 is a return for me, and so far, I’m loving it. There’s still nothing more cringe-worthy than Larry being Larry, and when it’s working, the joy of watching a perfectly structured episode is unmatched – the “Vehicular Fellatio” episode was spectacular. While last week’s episode was more shaggy than I like, I can’t wait to see how the Seinfeld anti-reunion plays out. A-
Parks & Recreation: I enjoyed the first mini-season of this show last spring, recognizing that it was a work in progress with some solid talent on board. This season it’s made the leap, tackling some political topics with a great attitude and confidence. The penguin marriage episode was a highlight, and Louis CK’s guest role has been utterly charming. I only hope that NBC keeps it on despite weak ratings (but isn’t that the norm for all NBC shows these days?). A-
The Office: Last year was a return to form for the series, and thus far the show has been solid. The wedding episode was top-notch, but I’m afraid that the Jim/Michael co-manager arrangement will feel too contrived and forced. Sure, if you think rationally about the show, Michael would have been fired years ago, but if the door is open for Dunder Mifflin to demote Michael, it might call attention to how unlikely his career stability has been. A-
30 Rock: Granted it’s only one episode, but I’m buying into Todd VanDerWerff’s argument that the show is in decline and its limitations are becoming too apparent. Compared to its other NBC Thursday-mates, it really lacks characterization and plotting, and tries to distract us with jokes. Many are funny, but they’re starting to wear thin. (And I’m sure they’ll crank out a brilliant episode soon to assuage my doubts…) B-
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Speaking of hit-and-miss, this show has a consistent tone, but still manages to create episodes that can fall totally flat or completely click. I’m in the camp that feels that too much Frank is a bad thing, and he’s best used as a side counterpoint, as in this season’s best episode, “The Waitress Is Getting Married.” But for every gem like that, there are duds to wade through, although usually there are at least a few great lines from Charlie. B
Dollhouse: Sigh. I was jazzed about this show at the end of season 1, and then “Epitaph One” raised the stakes. But the first three episodes of season two have been underwhelming for the most part. The only real highlight was the Whiskey/Topher plot in the premiere, but that prompted Whiskey to disappear. Instead, we get weak escort-of-the-week plots for Echo, and lots of brooding from Ballard. I have faith that things will get better just in time for the series to be canceled, but ultimately this series will be the most flawed & spotty entry in the Joss canon. C+
Cougartown: To be fair, I only watched the pilot. But that was enough for me – way too much strained acting, Courtney Cox at her worst, and really squirmy premise. See Heather Havrilesky’s takedown for real criticism. D
OK – that’s what I’m watching. What am I missing?
* Yes, I’m again acknowledging the Mad Men-shaped gap in my viewing repertoire. Someday… someday.
UPDATE:
How I Met Your Mother: I’m a latecomer to HIMYM, having watched a couple episodes in season 1 with little interest and never tuned back. But the chattering class of online TV critics love it, so I thought I’d give it another go. It’s a show that seems be strongest in terms of its cast and sensibility – it strikes a clear tone, and every performer fits the ensemble perfectly. But the storylines and jokes are not that compelling to me, perhaps because I’m demographically far more in the Modern Family realm of parenting than the world of urban singles. Still, it’s a quality show, and pretty much the only multi-camera sitcom that I find enjoyable at all these days, and maybe given time with the characters it will grow on me even more. B
Lie to Me: As I’ve said, I tend to be pretty uninterested in procedurals these days, finding that there’s too many serials and comedies to watch and that the interchangeability of a procedural means that it never gets any play on my TiVo. I saw one episode of Lie to Me last season, and found it too conventional in following the House model: cast a great British actor in the lead and play everything else like a version of CSI with a strong hero. But I’ve tuned back in this year as Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield and Middlebury alum, has taken over the show.
It’s improved markedly, taking advantage of its premise that allows for a wider range of stories to be told than a conventional procedural – as an independent contractor, the Lightman Group can tackle more types of cases than most other institution-based series. And Roth’s performance is just getting better, with layers of fascinating inscrutability. This week’s episode with Garret Dillahunt was excellent, as Lightman’s faith in his ability to see people’s emotions allows him to take huge risks in situations of peril, with a wonderful underplayed emotional payoff in the last scene. Definitely worth sticking with to see how the show develops, and hopefully Fox will give it time to continue its growth. B+
Filed under: TV Shows, Television | 11 Comments
Tags: 30 rock, bored to death, community, cougartown, curb your enthusiasm, dollhouse, flash forward, glee, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, modern family, parks & recreation, the good wife, the office
Tonight in my Television & American Culture course, I screened Buying the War, an excellent Bill Moyers PBS feature detailing how the press allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Bush administration to enable the fraudulent war in Iraq. (If you haven’t seen it, check it out online.) The screening reminded me of this piece of Thomas Friedman hackery from yesterday’s New York Times that I needed to rant about. (If you want to dive into truly artful anti-Friedman ranting, you gotta read some of these great Matt Taibbi pieces – I am but a novice cowering in Taibbi’s shadow.)
Friedman’s core point is compelling if not original or breaking news – that the right-wing’s anti-Obama anger has reached a point of divisiveness and hatred that it raises fears of violence and questions any sense of national unity. But then there’s this paragraph:
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it. And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe.
This is classic Friedman – creating a false dichotomy that he can transcend and rise above. But stop and think about this for a second. Clinton was attacked by the Republicans first for a series of manufactured scandals, and finally impeached for lying about sex (which a good number of his Republican accusers were also guilty of). And Obama has become the target of an angry mob for… trying to reform health care?
Meanwhile, Friedman’s “on the other hand” balance is Bush being criticized for winning an election when he clearly did not have a majority of votes. Of course, Friedman doesn’t mention that the Democrats rubber stamped a war sold on false pretenses (that Friedman himself helped sell), or that the Democrats stood by while Bush created a regime of torture and surveillance, only willing to fight back once public opinion had shifted post-Katrina. From 2001-2005, there was a tremendous degree of political unanimity behind Bush, with dissent treated as treason and only a tiny number of elected politicians willing to outright criticize Bush or his wars.
This equivalency parallels an argument that the Moyers documentary makes – the press doesn’t bother to counter factual claims from official sources, leaving the countering to opposition parties. (Tim Russert flat out admits that the reason he didn’t call Cheney and others on their false claims was because the Democrats weren’t doing it themselves.) The fatal model for the contemporary press is to offer two sides of an argument presented by opposing “experts,” rather than either question the factual basis for the claims, or consider that arguments might have more than two sides. You’d think that Friedman would have learned such lessons from his own failures as a war cheerleader, but instead he’s creating his own false dichotomies to avoid intellectual honesty.
Filed under: Media Politics, Not Quite TV | 3 Comments
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m rewatching Lost along with my wife, who is watching for the first time. One of the points in the series I’ve been most looking forward to is the first 6 episodes of season 3 – not because they were my favorite, but because they were my least favorite. Almost 3 years ago, when I first watched these episodes, I wrote a pretty negative post about the show, focusing on how I was losing faith in the producers’ ability to manage the storytelling.
So working back through the series, I was looking forward to revisiting these episodes with two questions in mind. First, knowing what I know now about where the story is going, would these episodes still seem unfocused and weak? Second, how would my wife react, given that she would be watching the series straight through, without the 13-week gap that followed “I Do” back in 2006? The answers to both were quite positive, overcoming most of the weaknesses I felt originally. I’ll explain with more details (and spoilers just through mid-season 2) beneath the fold.
Filed under: Narrative, TV Shows, Television | Leave a Comment
Tags: Lost
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m on the SCMS Public Policy Committee and one of our main initiatives is to draft formal policy statements on how cinema & media scholars deal with copyright and fair use. Two years ago we released a best practices document outlining guidelines for teaching and pedagogy. Now I’m happy to announce the second document: “Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Statement of Fair Use Best Practices for Film & Media Studies Publishing.”
One of the important points that this new document makes is that the scholarly community believes that using copyrighted material in digital publications and bundled multimedia supplements for academic commentary or pedagogy is transformative, and thus constitutes fair use. A number of scholars I know have worked on projects that have been curtailed by publishers because of concerns that the innovative ways that they reuse and integrate copyright media will require permissions and licensing. While the SCMS statement is not a legally binding document, we hope that it will empower scholars, artists, and publishers to take a more open approach to fair use, and provide backing for experimentation and risk-taking.
Please share the report (which is Creative Commons licensed) broadly, especially to editors and publishers who often serve as unintentional policy-makers for such decisions. If anyone has any questions on this report or related issues, post them here and I’ll try to find an answer.
Filed under: Academia, Copyright, Fair Use, Media Studies | 1 Comment
Tags: scms
Just a quick pointer to my newest publication: in the new issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, I’ve published “Sites of Participation: Wiki Fandom and the Case of Lostpedia.”Here’s the abstract:
This essay explores the award-winning fan site Lostpedia to examine how the wiki platform enables fan engagement, structures participation, and distinguishes between various forms of content, including canon, fanon, and parody. I write as a participant-observer, with extensive experience as a Lostpedia reader and editor. The article uses the “digital breadcrumbs” of wikis to trace the history of fan creativity, participation, game play, and debates within a shared site of community fan engagement. Using the Lostpedia site as a case study of fan praxis, the article highlights how issues like competing fandoms, copyright, and modes of discourse become manifest via the user-generated content of a fan wiki.
I’m quite excited about publishing in this journal for a few reasons. First, the issue has a great line-up of authors and articles that I’m looking forward to reading soon. Second, as an open access journal, its politics of publishing are in the right place – it’s a peer-reviewed journal that is freely available to anyone online, clearly placing value on disseminating ideas more than subsidizing journal publishers through expensive closed-access subscriptions. After participating as an author, I can say that the review and editing process was the most rigorous and detail-oriented of any article I’ve ever published, with quick turn-arounds and excellent copy editing suggestions. If anyone still thinks that an online journal is inherently less valid by lacking a paper version, I can attest to the impressive rigor of TWC’s process as superior to most print journals. Kudos to Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson for their editorial prowess!
Finally, I’m happy to support TWC as an author (and as a member of their editorial board, which has no bearing on my article being published) because they are an impressive facet of an important organization, the Organization for Transformative Works. You can read all about OTW on their site, but I’ve been impressed by how they’ve created a group with a wide range of outlets for serving, publicizing, archiving, and advocating for fandom and fan practices. It seems like a much more satisfying way to collaborate than the traditional insular academic society, and am excited to see how they continue to grow and thrive.
Filed under: Academia, Fandom, New Media, TV Shows, Technology, Television, Viewers | 2 Comments
Tags: Lost, lostpedia, wiki
The semester launched this week at Middlebury. Due to a little enrollment shuffling, I’m only teaching one course this semester: Television and American Culture. (I’ll certainly be sufficiently busy reading the hundreds of job applicants and actively working on the college website makeover project!) This is the first time through using my textbook, Television and American Culture, in published form, so it’s quite exciting to see people reading it around campus. I’ve heard from a few other folks who are teaching with the book this fall, but if you are and have a link to your syllabus, please share it here!
One of the new wrinkles I’m trying in the class this semester is to use Twitter as a discussion stream – I’ve squatted on the hashtag #tvamcult for things related to the class, and certainly invite other people using the book to join that conversation. I was inspired to do this after hearing a presentation by Eric Gordon and David Bogen about attention in the classroom – essentially, they argued that instead of fighting to eliminate distractions and split focus, try to channel other media back toward the class content and dynamic. So I plan on having a second projected screen of the Twitstream running beside the main screen with my slides and videos, allowing a backchannel conversation to emerge publicly as the lectures proceed, as well as extending beyond.
The permeable boundaries of Twitter conversations emerged today in an interesting way. Last night, we watched the Homicide episode “Subway,” and this morning I offered a prompt for students to share their thoughts about the show. Of course, that was seen by not only my class but by anyone who follows me on Twitter or searches for terms of interest. So far, more people outside of the class have replied to my prompt than actual students! One of the responses was from Shawn Ryan, who besides being a Middlebury alum and a friend to our department, is a very successful television writer/producer (The Shield, The Unit, Lie to Me). So while I have no idea how successful the Twitter conversation will be as a pedagogical tool, it’s already surpassed the threshhold of “how cool is that?” to have a major producer drop by the class like that!
I’d love to hear from anyone else who has channeled Twitter into their courses for any tips for managing the conversation and/or encouraging participation – as well as anybody using the book this fall.
Filed under: Academia, Middlebury, TV Textbook, Teaching, Television | 3 Comments
Tags: twitter
Going Back to the Island
One of my summer projects has been rewatching Lost. When I started the show back in Fall 2004, my wife watched the pilot with me, but found it too creepy for her anti-horror tastes, so I’ve been viewing solo for the past five seasons. I finally convinced Ruth that the show rarely traffics in scares and horror, and we’ve been burning through the Blu-Rays for the last month. She got hooked halfway through the first season, so it’s been a win/win!
We’re currently midway through season 2, hoping to catch up by the spring season 6 debut. I have a few thoughts to share beneath the fold about the rewatch. Note that these do contain a few vague spoilers about the entire run (so far), so if you’ve not seen beyond the first two seasons, tread lightly.
Filed under: Narrative, TV Shows, Television, Viewers | 4 Comments
Tags: Lost
Reflections on Teaching The Wire
First, I should indulge in self-promotion to link to this well-done profile of me and the Film & Media Culture program at Middlebury, from the local free weekly, Seven Days. Aside from reminding me of my rapidly graying hair, I’m quite happy with how it turned out!
The author found me first through a link to the course I taught last spring, “Urban America & Serial Television: Watching The Wire.” All summer, I’ve been meaning to write a blog reflecting on the course, but it never happened. At first, it felt too fresh and I wanted time to reflect, but then I fully shifted into summer mode of writing, watching, and playing (not necessarily in that order). But now as the fall semester looms and my mind turns back to syllabi and scheduled screenings, it’s time to look back at the spring spent in virtual Baltimore.
First off, this was the most satisfying course I’ve ever taught. It truly felt like a shared community of learners exploring the program and its contexts, with nearly every student fully engaged and excited about what we were working on. In large part, I was blessed with great source material – the show clearly rewards close attention, and if anything, I felt myself holding my students back from wanting to just keep watching episode after episode. Even though we met for 7.5 hours a week (5 of which were spent watching episodes), I felt there was not enough time to discuss everything that was on people’s minds. Luckily, the class blog captured the overflow, making it the most vibrant online discussion I’ve ever run.
The rest of the credit for the course’s success was the caliber of the students – the course filled with all seniors, and they spanned majors broadly, from Political Science to Computer Science, with a good dose of humanists of course. If anything, I wish I could have taken more advantage of these differing backgrounds – when I teach the course again in Spring 2010, I’ll assign more open-ended writing projects to allow students to apply their various methodological backgrounds to understanding The Wire. But because of the students engagement and backgrounds, we had great discussions about the possibilities of drug legalization, education reform, and shifting economic conditions of 21st century America. (And yes, about TV too…) While there’s a tendency at Middlebury for seniors to mail in their final semester while working on theses and job searches, almost everyone was as present and engaged as any class I’ve taught.
While I don’t want to undermine the success of the course, I have been thinking about how in many ways it was the most traditional course I’ve taught. Typically my courses span a broad range of material, whether it’s the history and systems of television, an international survey of animation, an overview of cultural theory, or the gamut of digital media. The Wire course was closer in scope to a single-author literature course on Shakespeare or Melville, looking in depth at a single set of texts and their broader significance. Obviously, there’s no inherent hierarchy between courses focused on breadth vs. depth, but it feels quite odd to have had such pedagogical success with a mode of teaching that seems quite rare within my media studies paradigm.
It’s also a shame that this model of teaching probably couldn’t work for other television series. Some of those concerns are logistical – at 60 hours, The Wire is just the right length to be able to teach in full over a semester without seeming too rushed, but other programs that might demand dedicated pedagogy are simply too long to fit into a semester. And few shows offer the rich contextual dimensions, allowing us to explore major social and political issues through the lens of television – sure, you could do a course on The Sopranos and tackle the history of organized crime and the like, but it wouldn’t feel as vital and important as The Wire. While I do believe that television can offer an aesthetic richness comparable to other media like film and literature, I can’t imagine teaching a single series just focused on aesthetics without equal consideration of the social and cultural dimensions it explores. Do readers have ideas for other shows that could sustain a semester-long focus with such textual and contextual depth?
As mentioned, I’m planning on teaching the course again next spring (and am already fielding requests for students trying to get in!). I’m definitely going to shift some readings and assignments – it was quite difficult to assign readings that are actually about The Wire, as they typically referenced events from future episodes and spoiled some first-time viewers. I may actually compress the viewing into the first 10 weeks, leaving the final 2 weeks for reading about the show and talking through the broader implications for television. I know I’ll approach the course with some hesitation – I don’t want to try to recreate the experience of Spring 2009, but it will certainly cast a shadow on the course, making it hard not to compare the new crop of students with my first crew of Wire-philes. Hopefully there will be new discoveries and surprises, both within the show and the pedagogical experience.
Filed under: Academia, Media Studies, Middlebury, Press, TV Shows, Teaching, Television | 4 Comments
Tags: The Wire
On my writing docket this summer were three essays that I’d committed to: a write-up of my SCMS presentation on Lostpedia (which will be coming out in Transformative Works & Cultures this fall), my piece on serial form and memory, and a long-delayed chapter for an anthology about the series Veronica Mars, edited by Sue Turnbull and Rhonda Wilcox. As summer winds toward the end, I’ve thankfully finished up all three! And as I’ve taken to doing, I’m sharing a prepublication draft of the Veronica Mars essay here for feedback and dissemination.
A couple of notes: the essay, entitled “‘These Questions Need Answers’: Narrative Construction and the Veronica Mars Pilot,” deals quite closely with the debut episode of the series – if you haven’t seen it, the essay will probably make little sense. Since it’s written for a series-specific anthology, there’s not much filling in of the details for novices who are unlikely to read the book without knowing the show. And I’m particularly unsatisfied with the conclusion, which more stops than concludes – any feedback would be appreciated!
I talk at length about the opening sequence – to refresh your eyes and ears, here it is:
And special thanks to my student research assistant, Ross Bell, who provided many crucial insights into the episode’s timing and storytelling strategies as I made him watch it over and over again…
Continue reading ‘These Questions Need Answers: An essay on the Veronica Mars pilot’
Filed under: Media Studies, Narrative, Representations, TV Shows, Television | 11 Comments
Tags: pilot, Veronica Mars
I’m in the midst of drafting another long article, both to feed the blog and meet a lingering book chapter deadline, and head off-the-grid next week for some family vacation. But in the meantime, I’d like to crowdsource some brainstorming for my fall syllabus. I’ll be teaching Television & American Culture, a course I’ve taught many times and have working pretty effectively. (And I have I mentioned the brand new textbook I’ll be featuring?!)
The course covers the full range of American TV history, from the 1950s to today, and the screenings are pretty good overall. But I’ve realized with the rise of serialized television and the unique narrative forms it’s created, it seems a shame not to feature seriality in a more significant way than showing a single episode from a series like Buffy or Veronica Mars. My colleague Chris Keathley featured the entire first season of Deadwood in his introductory Aesthetics of the Moving Image course this spring, and it went swimmingly. And I had a wonderful experience (about which I still need to write-up a blog, I know…) teaching the entirety of The Wire. So I believe teaching a serial is quite rewarding.
The question is what to show. I don’t think I have time to squeeze in more than 6-8 episodes. Ideally it would feature significant plot arcs that resolve over that timeframe, even if it’s not a full season. 1/2 hour might be easier to schedule, but I’m open to an hour. American TV doesn’t lend itself to 6-8 episode runs that well, based on the 24 episode season, or 12-13 for cable, but since the course is specifically American, that does seem to be important.
Some options I’ve considered:
- The first season of Breaking Bad. It’s really great and runs only 7 eps, although I think the show didn’t start to really click until season 2. And it’s strengths focus mostly on Bryan Cranston’s performance more than interesting style or narrative form (which emerge more in s2).
- A section of Arrested Development. Certainly would be popular with students, and would highlight many of the interesting reflexive and innovative narrative tricks that I’d want to discuss. It might be so atypical as to make it not that useful, but I’m not sure. What episodes offer a good self-contained arc? It’s all still a blur to me, years later.
- The Pylea episodes of Angel. Fairly self-contained despite being almost 2 seasons into the show. I remember loving them, but might be an odd place to introduce viewers to the storyworld.
- The first season of Slings & Arrows. A nicely self-contained 6 episodes, with good plot and character arcs, backstory, and interesting high/low cultural resonances. Alas, it is Canadian, so its Americanness is borderline.
But I look forward to your ideas, oh wise readership!
Filed under: Middlebury, Narrative, TV Shows, Teaching, Television | 37 Comments
One of my most-clicked (if not read) posts concerns how my approach to prime time serial television relates to the traditional daytime soap opera. Last year I was asked to expand on those ideas via an interview to be included in a forthcoming anthology edited by Sam Ford, Abigail De Kosnik, and C. Lee Harrington, entitled The Survival of the Soap Opera: Strategies for a New Media Era (University of Mississippi Press, 2010).
In the book, my comments will be interspersed with others around particular issues and questions. Sam Ford, who conducted the interview with me via email, gave me permission to reproduce it here in full as a record of the conversation (under the condition that you agree to get the book next year). Hopefully, I’ll still agree with myself in a year when the book is out! As always, your comments are welcome…
Continue reading ‘More thoughts on soap operas and television seriality’
Filed under: Genre, Narrative, Television | 1 Comment
Tags: interview, soap opera
One of the pleasures of working with Middlebury College students is advising independent work on their senior projects. While I don’t have the opportunity to work with graduate students on their dissertations, every once in awhile I have undergraduate students who do exemplary work that feels quite similar to a condensed version of the graduate thesis project. Typically they do great work, but the end result remains dormant, at best being read by a random browser in the Middlebury library.
One of my top students this past year, Aaron Smith, wrote a project that warrants broader dissemination, given its timely topic and more “prescriptive” tone. Aaron wrote about transmedia storytelling in contemporary television (a topic of great personal interest for me), specifically exploring what lessons can be learned from experiments from the last decade and how future storytellers might devise more successful examples.
Per my encouragement, Aaron has posted his thesis online, inviting comments through the CommentPress system – you can comment on individual paragraphs, sections, or the entire project. I know that Aaron would appreciate feedback, and I think anyone interested in contemporary television narrative and transmedia issues will find interesting material to chew on here. Below is the thesis abstract to whet your appetite – please comment, reblog, or otherwise engage with his work:
“Transmedia Storytelling in Television 2.0” by Aaron Smith
In the era of convergence, television producers are developing transmedia narratives to cater to consumers who are willing to follow their favorite shows across multiple media channels. At the same time, there still remains a need to preserve an internally coherent television show for more traditional viewers. This thesis offers a model for how transmedia storytelling can coexist with and enhance a television narrative, using Lost as a case study. By building a world to be discovered, creating a hierarchy of strategic gaps, focusing on the unique capabilities of each extension, and using the “validation effect” to reward fans for their cross-media traversals, television/transmedia producers can provide a satisfying experience for hard-core and casual fans alike.
Filed under: Media Studies, Middlebury, Narrative, TV Shows, Technology, Television | 1 Comment
Tags: Lost, transmedia
random thoughts from media scholar Jason Mittell
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