Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
I’m excited to announce the publication of my latest book, The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound and Image. [Update: as of 2019, the content is open access!] It’s a gratifying publication in many ways. It is the first project that I have co-authored with my good friend and colleague Christian Keathley, and as such, it was […]
Filed under: Books, digital humanities, Fair Use, Not Quite TV, Open Access, Publishing, Technology, Videographic Criticism | 4 Comments
Tags: videocamp
Blurbing and Peer Review
I’ve griped about the problems with closed peer review in academic publishing before, whether in the black box of tenure reviews, or celebrating the open review for Complex TV, or wondering about Why a Book?, or envisioning new possibilities with MediaCommons. My unifying frustration in all of these gripes is that throughout academia, the strongest […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Media Studies, Publishing | 2 Comments
Tags: open review, peer review
Complex TV has arrived!
I’m holding in my hand a copy of my new book, Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. Every book is its own unique journey. This one feels like the longest (which it was) and most significant, at least intellectually if not professionally. I presented the earliest version of the ideas that would eventually […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Complex TV, Narrative, Publishing, Television | 1 Comment
I have two new book chapters out that I want to share. The first is an essay called “Lengthy Interactions with Hideous Men: Walter White and the Serial Poetics of Television Antiheroes,” published in a brand new anthology, Storytelling in the Media Convergence Age: Exploring Screen Narratives, edited by Roberta Pearson and Anthony Smith. The […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Media Studies, Not Quite TV, Publishing | 3 Comments
Tags: buffy, LEGO, The LEGO Movie
Best Stuff of 2014
This is not an organized or ranked list. This is a collection of the cultural things (mostly TV, but not exclusively) that I most loved in 2014, presented in alphabetical order. There are many things not on this list – they are absent because either I did not love them or I did not consume […]
Filed under: Animation, Books, Film, Taste, Television, TV Shows, Videogames | Leave a Comment
Tags: bob's burgers, Brooklyn 99, Colbert Report, Fargo, Girls, Hannibal, Her, Jane the Virgin, Last Week Tonight, LEGO Movie, Olive Kitteredge, Review, serial, Sharon Van Etten, Solforge, The Americans, the good wife, The Leftovers, The Wire, This American Life, Transparent, Veep, You're the Worst
I am quite excited to announce the publication of my latest book, How to Watch Television. Of course, in this instance, “my” should really be “our,” as the book was edited by me and my friend Ethan Thompson, and features 40 essays by an all-star line-up of media scholars young and old, familiar faces and […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Media Studies, Narrative, Publishing, TV Shows | 1 Comment
Tags: children's TV, How to Watch TV, Phineas & Ferb
Complex TV: Ends
I am filled with joy, relief, and many other emotions in posting the link to the final chapter of Complex TV. Not accidentally, the chapter is called Ends, and it focuses on conclusions, as well as serving as one for the book. Here’s the abstract: American commercial television differs from much of the world in […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Complex TV, Media Politics, MediaCommons, Narrative, Open Access, Publishing, Television, TV Shows | 1 Comment
Tags: breaking bad, finales, Homeland, Lost, The Sopranos, The Wire
Back to the Classroom
Summer is over (even though it remains in the 80s in Vermont this week), which means my sabbatical is completely over. It was a great one, with a wonderful fellowship in Germany, a lot of writing, travel for lectures & conferences, and lots of quality family time. But yesterday, I returned to the Middlebury classroom […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Complex TV, Film, Media Studies, Middlebury, Narrative, Teaching, Television, TV Shows | Leave a Comment
Tags: Homeland, How to Watch TV, Mildred Pierce, Phineas & Ferb, syllabi
As regular readers know, I’ve been serializing my new book, Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, in a pre-publication draft at MediaCommons. One of the goals of publishing the manuscript online like this is to challenge some of the norms of academic publishing and peer review, as advocated & modelled by Kathleen Fitzpatrick […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Complex TV, Media Studies, MediaCommons, Open Access, Publishing | 3 Comments
Tags: complex television, MediaCommons, survey
Complex TV: Authorship
I’m happy to announce that the next chapter of Complex TV has been posted. It’s focused on Authorship in contemporary serial television, and I think it’s all never-before-published material. I’ve been giving a talk based on this chapter for this spring, and have been really happy with the conversation it provokes – and I do intend […]
Filed under: Books, Complex TV, MediaCommons, Narrative, Television, TV Industry, TV Shows, Viewers | Leave a Comment
Tags: authorship, breaking bad, buffy, community, Lost, The Wire
Complex TV: Orienting Paratexts
I’m pleased to post the next chapter of Complex TV, focused on the topic of Orienting Paratexts. Here’s the abstract: Along with shifts in the television industry and technologies, viewer practices have adapted to the digital era with new developments in how people consume narrative television. This chapter explores the range of paratexts that have […]
Filed under: Books, Complex TV, Fandom, MediaCommons, Narrative, New Media, Television, TV Shows, Viewers | 1 Comment
Tags: complex television, Lost, lostpedia, paratext
Complex TV: Beginnings
I have decided to use my blog here in tandem with the site for Complex TV to offer context & references for each chapter as I release them this spring/summer. I hope this is useful in both promoting readership, and making it transparent how this book is coming together out of earlier pieces and new […]
Filed under: Books, Complex TV, Media Studies, MediaCommons, Narrative, Television, TV Shows | 1 Comment
Tags: alias, Arrested Development, awake, how i met your mother, pushing daisies, terriers, Twin Peaks, Veronica Mars
One of the great gifts of sabbatical is having the time to read books that are not immediately required for teaching or manuscript reviews. I’ve taken advantage of that by reading some fiction (and would highly recommend D.B. Weiss’s Lucky Wander Boy if you’re into classic videogames and/or metafiction), as well as some scholarship. In the […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Media Studies, Taste, Television, TV History | 10 Comments
I’m happy to announce the pre-publication of my next book has begun. Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Narrative has not yet been written, but the writing and publication process has begun on MediaCommons, where I have posted the book proposal for an open “peer-to-peer review” process, running parallel of the tradition peer review […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Complex TV, Media Studies, MediaCommons, Narrative, Publishing, Television | 2 Comments
Tags: complex television
I’ve been thinking a lot about authorship lately, in a range of ways. Most practically, two long-gestating essays that I authored have come out in print – “All in the Game: The Wire, Serial Storytelling and Procedural Logic” is published in the beautifully put-together book Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives edited by Pat […]
Filed under: Books, Narrative, Television, TV Shows | Leave a Comment
Tags: authorship, Battlestar, bsg, faith, Lost, The Wire
Just TV 