Author Archive

Offering first impressions of Narcos, Kristina Busse discusses its layered framing, use of original footage, and language and accent.
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Recent episodes of Doctor Who and Supernatural take up the narrative of storyteller as God, raising questions about our fascination with the auteur.
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Boycotting Facebook is getting harder, particularly because of the complete invisibility and unawareness of the nature of the social networking site to its members.
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The new series The Following literally spells out the very tropes it plan to use, letting its audience in on its postmodern joke where the plotting criminal is aware that he is creating a literary plot as well.
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Being an independent scholar means that research and academic writing must be redefined as pleasure: I research instead of watching TV or reading a book; I write instead of meeting with friends or going shopping; I edit and do professional activities at the cost of my family time.
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Collaborations are frowned upon in the humanities: monographs are still the prime currency in tenure and promotion, and our training doesn’t prepare or encourage us for the give and take that collaborative writing demands. For me that’s a shame, because I love writing with others.
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The second season shapes up to reconnect the city with the world around it: New Orleaneans are confronted with outsider views of the city as becomes clear in Delmond's argument about New Orleans music with fellow jazz lovers and Janette's conversation with her fellow cooks after reading Alan Richman's devastating review.
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I know that even as the bad job market is a haunting reality for most grad students, it's also a gamble every one is clearly willing to take, deep down surely believing that they will beat the odds. After all, everyone whom they encounter and interact with has done so, right?
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Returning to the subject of failed adaptations--and those we might fear will fail--I suggest that we not only look at place but also time as a central category whose uniqueness impacts a show's success.
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CBS's The Good Wife doesn't shy away from the challenges its protagonist faces in negotiating her adult life, something more than we tend to expect to see on television, where story lines often trade in emotionally false dichotomies.
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If I were to pick a worthy successor of Buffy's Sunnydale, it would be Mystic Falls rather than Bon Temps.
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We may be several decades removed from the emotional upheavals of the culture debates, but popular studies remains a readily mocked area in mainstream media, especially as universities are often asked to produce efficient and effectual employees rather than well rounded individuals.
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In the end, while individual plot points, objects, and places are important for fans to recognize, the most successful approach seems to come about when the writer extrapolates the character’s underlying identity, exploring those aspects that remain the same in the new setting, and how they will manifest.
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I like active viewers/readers, and while I don’t think that authors are dead, I don’t think they should run after their texts telling us what they mean. A good text should show me its myriad meanings, and great texts tend to contain multitudes.
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Seeing Graham as Sarah Braverman evokes for both Derek and me her role of Lorelai, but whereas I view Sarah as maybe a little snarkier and wittier than she’s written in the show, for Derek the roles crash.
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