CSTonline

In July 1972

 Ms.

magazine released its first independently-published issue, featuring the now famous “Wonder Woman for President” cover. Although first appearing in comics in 1941, Wonder Woman’s focus on compassion and empathy spoke to the publishers and readers of this feminist magazine fighting for women’s rights in the 1970s, and she continues speaking to modern readers today.

CfP: conference &#8220;Wonder Woman for President 2022: 50 years of Kick Ass Feminism&#8221;. 10-12 June 2022 @ online. Deadline: March 01, 2022.

Andrew Pixley

The online edition of the Cambridge Dictionary [i] states that ‘cultural appropriation’ is ‘the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture’. And – quite possibly – there’s a lot more of that going on in the way of watching television than there ever used to be.  As I think I mentioned before, I’m rather fond of jazz (even if nobody’s ever really

ROBBERY IN PROGRESS by Andrew Pixley

At this time of crisis because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our ability to physically touch is severely restricted, in order to protect ourselves and others from illness as well as police intervention. This has resulted in an even bigger shift to digital technologies and online interaction with hashtags such as #togetherapart encouraging more culture and connection on the internet in lieu of in-person events and meet-ups.

CfP: MAI special issue &#8220;Crisis—Connection—Culture: Alternative Responses to COVID-19&#8221;.

Given the opportunity to talk about Veronica Mars, you’re going to have to stop me by the third hour. I’ll thrust my DVD boxset onto anyone and everyone. I was jumping out of my seat at the announcement of season 4, and then quietly pretending it never happened.

Rebecca Pearce

Fig. 1:

 Veronica Mars

– on the lookout


Given the opportunity to talk about

 Veronica Mars

, you’re going to have to stop me by the third hour. I’ll thrust my DVD boxset onto anyone and everyone. I was jumping out of my seat at the announcement of season 4, and then quietly pretending it never happened. Veronica (Kristen Bell) has long been held as a third-wave feminist hero in academic scholarship.

“NO LOGAN – NO WAY”: THE NEW SEASON OF VERONICA MARS AND NOIR TRADITION

The editors of a forthcoming volume are seeking concise essays of approximately 5,000 words about any aspect of

 Star Wars

storytelling that has emerged since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012. We are seeking pieces that are academically rigorous, but accessible to the general reader. The volume aims to cover the full range of transmedia forms that now comprise the

 Star Wars

shared universe.

CfP: edited collection &#8220;From Lucas to Disney: Star Wars in the Twenty-First Century&#8221;. Deadline: March 15, 2022.

he XXVIII Visible Evidence Conference will take place at the University of Gdansk between 10 and 14 August 2022. The event is conceived as an “in person” event, and we warmly invite everybody to make every effort physically to attend the sessions.

CfP: Visible Evidence XXVIII &#8220;Images of History&#8221;. August 10-14, 2022 @ Gdańsk (PL). Deadline: Feb 28, 2022.

Sara Heritage

Described as a “make-under” reality show,

 Snog Marry Avoid

has been subject to scholarly debate and public criticism for equating “middle-class taste with a ‘natural’, desirable state of being” (Murphy, 2012, p.1). This blog will explore if transformational makeover TV enforces Western beauty stereotypes on a diverse British audience, with particular reference to industrial contexts and feminist readings of the texts.

DOES TRANSFORMATIONAL MAKEOVER TV IN THE 21ST CENTURY PROMOTE A SINGULAR WESTERN STANDARD OF BEAUTY?

About two years ago on this very blog, I ruminated on the disproportionate distribution of books and television series, and while attempting to celebrate some of the very tomes that

 had

been issued over the year, I also grumbled about many other important series that had been overlooked. ‘[W]hy can’t I get a decent book about

 Moonlighting

(1985-1989)?’ I moaned about a third of the way down the text.

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

Children’s content is often linked to ideas of certain learning outcomes. This is obvious in much factional content for children marked by ‘edutainment’ agendas, but also in the realm of fiction, particularly fiction targeting the youngest viewers.

Katrine Bouschinger Christensen and Eva Novrup Redvall

The research project ‘Reaching Young Audiences: Serial Fiction and Cross-Media Storyworlds for Children and Young Audiences’ (RYA) seeks to provide detailed knowledge about the production and reception of film, TV and online fiction for children, tweens and teens through in-depth analysis of the current strategies for creating engaging fiction for young audiences and extensive qualitative case studies of their media use.

TRYING TO MAKE NATURAL SCIENCES EXCITING THROUGH TELEVISION FICTION: THE CASE OF CHRISTMAS OF THE COMETS

Richard Hewett

Can I be honest? Despite the fact that I’ve watched it for as long as I can remember, and have spent a considerable amount of cash on its various related merchandise over the years, I don’t really like to identify as a

 Doctor Who

fan.

DOCTOR WHO? I’M NOT A FAN…

Sarah Lahm

I initially started writing this blog on Tuesday (we’ll certainly remember, remember, this 5

 th

of November).  Currently living in America (although not for much longer – I’m one of the lucky ones) and a TV scholar, I watched the television advertising campaign for the presidential race with equal parts fascination and horror. I am sure that, across the globe, everyone is still reeling from the shock of the results.

TRUMP, MALIGNANT NARCISSISM AND THE 2024 AMERICAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN by Kim Akass

Kenneth Longden

My last paper described the teaching and learning experiences of a new module I introduced to level 6 students on factual TV. It primarily dealt with the first half of this new module – Informational factual TV programming. Informational programming includes TV genres such as Current Affairs, History and Science TV, and Wildlife TV.  As described in my last post, the module is built around two fundamental premises.

21ST CENTURY FACTUAL TV: PART II

Source: https://derroth.com/2019/08/28/cfp-moral-communication/

 Call for papers to the Luhmann Conference 2020 on “


 Moral communication.


 Observed with social systems theory”


 Place:

Inter-University Centre (IUC), Dubrovnik, Croatia

 Address:

Don Frana Bulicá 4, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia

 Dates:

15-18 September 2020

 The

CfP: Luhmann Conference 2020 “Moral communication. Observed with social systems theory”. Sept 15-18, 2020 @ Inter-University Centre (IUC), Dubrovnik (HR). Deadline: June 15, 2020

JP Kelly and Julie Münter Lassen

The Public Service Approach to Recommender Systems: Filtering to Cultivate

One of the key talking points at this year’s RIPE conference – an event attended by industry and academia – was the issue of how public service broadcasters can continue to compete in a marketplace dominated by global players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+. These are platforms with deep pockets (although a lot of that is debt), big-budget productions and subscriber bases that dwarf the PSBs’ own limited domestic reach.

100 YEARS ON: REINVENTING PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA FOR THE STREAMING AGE

Two-day international conference, 23rd to 24th May 2022 to be held in person at Sheffield Hallam University and online Keynotes: To be confirmed Convenors: Dr James Fenwick (j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk Sheffield Hallam University) Dr Kieran Foster (Kieran.foster@nottingham.ac.uk University of Nottingham) Unmade, unseen, and unreleased films and TV programmes are a burgeoning area of academic study, allowing for […]

Two-day international conference, 23

 rd

to 24

 th

May 2022 to be held in person at Sheffield Hallam University and online

 Keynotes:

To be confirmed

 Convenors:

Dr James Fenwick (j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk Sheffield Hallam University) Dr Kieran Foster (Kieran.foster@nottingham.ac.uk University of Nottingham) Unmade, unseen, and unreleased films and TV programmes are a burgeoning area of academic

CfP: conference &#8220;Shadow Screens: Unmade, Unseen, Unreleased Film and Television&#8221;. May 23-24, 2022 @ Sheffield Hallam University (UK). Deadline: Jan 31, 2022

Conference on the Regulation of Old and New Media Forms in Africa  Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research Birmingham City University May 2022 Location: Zoom  Conference Theme: Regulating African Digital Media Increasingly more African countries are instituting laws, procedures, and policies, seeking to regulate the media ecosystem.

Conference on the Regulation of Old and New Media Forms in Africa




 Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research


 Birmingham City University


 May 2022




 Location: Zoom




 Conference Theme: Regulating African Digital Media

Increasingly more African countries are instituting laws,

CfP: conference &#8220;Regulating African Digital Media&#8221;. May 2022 @ Birmingham City University (UK). Deadline: Jan 14, 2022.

Jamila Baluch

(Cat)Fishing for Love  Catfish: The TV Show (MTV, 2012-) is a reality programme based on the documentary film Catfish (2010) which followed a young man building a romantic relationship with a woman he had met on Facebook, but never seen in real life.

CATFISHING FOR LOVE

Using a distinct but, to my mind, representative episode from the series, I enjoyed drawing out the way The Last of Us engages with meanings and configurations of home. “Home,” as the first part of my video essay suggests, can constitute a safe space, sometimes a place of active retreat from danger.

Niki Radman

Note: This blog post contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of

 The Last of Us

TV DICTIONARY – ON THE LAST OF US, THE RECONFIGURATION OF HOMES, AND FINDING AN ENDING BEFORE THE BEGINNING

Jonathan Bignell

I have been writing about Samuel Beckett’s film and television plays for over 20 years, but until recently I had not studied screen adaptations of his theatre plays. A new collection of essays about adaptations of Beckett’s work after his death in 1989 gave me an opportunity to write about the

 Beckett on Film

project (2001) that adapted all 19 of his theatre plays.

ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE: SAMUEL BECKETT FROM CHANNEL 4 TO YOUTUBE

Melissa Beattie

‘Mother, Mother Ocean/After all the years I’ve found My occupational hazard/Being my occupation’s just not around’                                     ‘A Pirate Looks at 40,’ Jimmy Buffet

A PIRATE LOOKS AT FORTY: OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH AND LIFE CRISES

Visual Depictions of the American West How the West Was Drawn and What It Showed Us  Nov 16, 2020, 12:00 PM CET – Nov 20, 2020, 12:00 PM CET University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Calle San Bernardo, 3199, 30123 Venice VE, Italy  The American West has been depicted for decades through comic books and graphic novels, including by many authors living outside the U.S. Some of the most famous titles and artists are the Tex Willer series (Tex) by Giovanni

CfP: conference &#8220;Visual Depictions of the American West How the West Was Drawn and What It Showed Us&#8221;. Nov 16, 2020 @ University Ca&#8217; Foscari of Venice (IT). Deadline: Feb 24, 2020.

British television series par excellence Doctor Who (1963-present) has been the subject of a wide variety of academic works.

(Note: this blog is a version of a paper given at the Classical Association Annual Conference on 23 March, 2024).   British television series

 par excellence Doctor Who

(1963-present) has been the subject of a wide variety of academic works.

HIS-STORY: BIG FINISH’S WHOVIAN PARATEXTS

‘It’s been…’

For those of a certain age and/or certain geographic range, that partial lyric was almost certainly read in the voice of Steven Page, the former co-front man of Canadian band Barenaked Ladies (from now BNL). Though Page has since become both a solo artist and part of the Trans-Canadian Highwaymen supergroup and the iconic initial lyric is now sung as a duet between BNL’s multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn and drummer Tyler

‘O CANADA’? REPRESENTING CANADIANNESS IN ‘ONE WEEK’

This year marks the thirtieth instalment of the Visible Evidence Conference, the preeminent event for the global network dedicated to the study of documentary and nonfiction media culture. The conference has evolved into an international event, with editions held in locales such as New Delhi, Lancaster, New York, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Stockholm, Udine, and Gdansk.

CfP: Invisible Evidence XXX &#8220;Decentring Documentary: New Visions and Perspectives&#8221;. December 17-20, 2024 @ Monash University, Melbourne (AU). Deadline: April 12, 2024.

Abstracts are sought for a proposed special journal issue, for which strong interest has been secured from a Q1 cultural studies journal. Special issue editors: Dr Laura Minor (University of Salford) and Dr Claire Perkins (Monash University)

 Deadline for abstracts: March 28, 2024.

Over the past decade, ‘imperfection’ has emerged as one of the most recognisable themes in Western television focused on and driven by women.

CfP: special issue “Beyond the messy millennial woman: televising perfection, imperfection and resilience”. Deadline: March 28, 2024.

Max Sexton

In 1983, the

 Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature

was already noting Gothic’s altered eroticism from Byronic villainous figures in the works of Anne Rice; albeit still evil and dangerous and consumed by tormented doubt.  Since then, the indefiniteness of the Gothic genre in its latest iteration, AMC’s

 Interview with the Vampire,

(2022) provides pictorial scope for the bold attractions of the male body.

SEXY VAMPIRES: A SPECTACLE/PERFORMANCE PARADIGM

“Isn’t that the book that you were writing 30 years ago?” asked my dear friend Hilary. We were discussing a new volume about

 Blake’s 7

(1978-1981), the BBC science-fiction adventure series that ran between the dates that I just put in that bracket after its name and which was now being chronicled in a rather superb and brilliant and lavish new book –

 Blake’s 7 – Production Diary: Series A

VISUAL MEDIA

New Directions in Media and Sociology Research (NDiMS) conference 2020

 Gender, Equality and Voice

20 March 2020 | School of Media, Communication &amp; Sociology (University of Leicester). Keynote speakers (confirmed): Dr. Ruth Lewis (University of Northumbria), Dr. Jilly Kay (University of Leicester) Despite decades of social change, the challenge for gender equality remains extremely topical.

CfP: NDiMS conference &#8220;Gender, Equality and Voice&#8221;. March 20, 2020 @ University of Leicester (UK). Deadline: Feb 17, 2020

Recently, a very nice academic friend kindly asked me to talk to their television studies students about how to succeed with a career as a ‘television historian’. I explained that there hadn’t really

 been

a ‘career’… it was just some stuff that happened when a hobby got out of control. So I didn’t go.  There was nothing to say. Hmmm… That blog seems to have run shorter than I’d planned.  Sorry for wasting your time.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE by Andrew Pixley

Around about mid-October, I could hear – courtesy of the world wide web – a distant wailing and gnashing of teeth but not of biblical proportions. More the odd e-mail.

THE TOP 100 TV SHOWS OF ALL TIME THAT I WANTED TO SEE BEFORE I DIE AND WHICH, Y’KNOW, THANKS MAINLY TO DVD I’VE BEEN ABLE TO WATCH – SO THAT’S OKAY THEN – AND WHICH YOU PROBABLY DON’T HAVE TIME TO WATCH ANYWAY

Earth Day first celebrated in the United States on April 22, 1970 by millions of people and now mobilizing citizens and communities worldwide, represented the first massive expression of public concern with the ecological sustainability of our planet, launching the modern global environmentalist movement.

CfP: International symposium &#8220;(Re)thinking Earth: From Representations of Nature to Climate Change Fiction&#8221; April 22-23, 2020 @National Library of Portugal, Lisbon (POR). Deadline: March 15, 2020

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ (Austen, 1813: 1).   As has no doubt become clear across this series of blogs, Succession has a lot of things happening simultaneously.

(Note: This is the third and final part of a series of linked blogs. Part One can be found


 here


 and Part Two can be found


 here


 ).



‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ (Austen, 1813: 1).

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: SUCCESSION AND (AS?) ROMANTIC COMEDY

Daniel O&#8217;Brien

Regardless as to whether you have seen it, you probably have some awareness of

 Baby Reindeer

, the autobiographical miniseries from Richard Gadd, which was released on Netflix in April 2024. The seven-part drama thriller recounts a stalking experience that Gadd suffered during his twenties while he was attempting to embark on a career as a stand-up comedian.

BABY REINDEER AND THE PROBLEMATIC OWNERSHIP OF BAD FANS

This special issue of Northern Lights focuses on the ‘Female Trajectory’. The goal of this collection is two-fold: presentation and interpretation of narrative plots (in film/fiction/popular culture/new media, etc).  How is the female figure presented in various historical periods and how it is reflected from a feminist point of view (post-feminism, eco-feminism, etc.)? Furthermore, having in mind the well-known historical determination of

CfP: Northern Lights special issue &#8220;Female Trajectory in Film and Media&#8221;.

The New Year should be a time for resolutions where we wipe the slate of history clean and attempt to be that little bit better than we were during the last twelve months. And looking at the other CSTonline contributions during December, I would hope that one of my resolutions for 2020 would be that I’d write something a bit more meaningful for CSTonline rather than spend another year setting new levels of wrongness.

IS THIS THE RIGHT ROOM FOR AN ARGUMENT by Andrew Pixley

The idea of television for dogs sounds like it should be part of a

 Monty Python

(BBC, 1969-1974) sketch but it is a genuine subscription-cable television station available transnationally. Offering programming such as ‘Stimulation,’ ‘Relaxation’ and ‘Exposure,’ on its homepage (accessed 12/11/23), Dog TV advertises itself as: Fig.

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE: DOG TV

Media Frictions International symposium

2-3 May 2024 Venue: Grand Hotel &amp; Gamla Rådhuset, Jönköping, Sweden Organisers: Professor Annette Hill, Hario Priambodho, Deniz Duru The dynamics of friction matter, for storytelling, for digital and global connections, and for media and social inequalities. The meaning of friction is multilayered: friction is an energetic spark, a form of social tension, and a sign of difference.

CfP: international symposium &#8220;Media Frictions&#8221;. May 2-3, 2024 @ Jönköping (SWE). Deadline: Jan 9, 2024.

Viviane Marie Winkler

‘Television is not dead’ was one of the opening statements of John T. Caldwell at the biennial ECREA Television Section conference

 Redeﬁning Televisuality: Programmes, Practices, Methods

. The conference took place from the 25th to the 27th October 2023 at the Film University Babelsberg in Germany. Experts from all over the world traveled to Babelsberg to discuss the overall topic of change in television.

HOW CAN WE REDEFINE TELEVISION?

The two-day conference on “Images, Film, and Video of Atrocity” invites scholars and researchers from diverse disciplines to submit their papers and join us in exploring the complex and multifaceted realm of non-fictional representations of atrocity.

CfP: conference &#8220;Images, Film, and Video of Atrocity&#8221;. March 25-26, 2024 @ University of Copenhagen (DK). Deadline: Nov 30, 2023.

In the last two decades, digital media infrastructures have spread worldwide, including the global South. Despite inequalities of access, low-cost mobile devices and cheaper broadband have connected large subaltern populations to media infrastructures. The effects are increasingly planetary, initiating a series of debates in media scholarship and cultural theory.

CfP: workshop &#8220;Twenty-First Century Media? Affective Bodies, Crowds and Collectives&#8221;. March 21-23, 2024 @ CSDS, Delhi (IND). Deadline: Dec 10, 2023.

Tinett Kähler

As a first year MA student of media studies at Film University Babelsberg, I recently had the privilege of attending the ECREA Television Section Conference

 Redefining Televisuality: Programmes, Practices, Methods

, October 25th to 27th in Potsdam, Germany. The conference invited researchers to critically engage and revisit the concept of Televisuality developed by John T. Caldwell.

THREE PERSPECTIVES ON REPRESENTATION AND DIVERSITY AT THE ECREA TELEVISION SECTION CONFERENCE

Lindsay Nelson

I began learning about and making video essays in June 2023, a few months after I started learning how to play the harp. It strikes me that both endeavors require a certain amount of learning and un-learning: learning a new physicality and new technical skills, and un-learning assumptions about what makes a good finished product. Both the creation of video essays and playing the harp require a literal re-positioning of the body.

TV DICTIONARY – BRIDGING THE GAP

The international co-production

 Farscape

(Syfy 1999-2003; 2004) is perhaps best known for its extensive use of puppets and its (for the time) fairly explicit sexualised content. Shot in Australia with a primarily American writers room for the American Syfy Channel, the series follows American scientist John Crichton (Ben Browder) who is inadvertently thrown into deep space during a test flight.

UADE IN PACE?: FARSCAPE AND PEACEKEEPERS

Guest editors: Giulia Taurino (Northeastern University), Georgia Aitaki (Karlstad University)  Given recent technological advancements, media scholars have been discussing a digital, computational, algorithmic turn in television (Berry, 2011; Hansen &amp; Paul, 2017;

CfP: VIEW issue &#8220;Archive Television: Storing, structuring and accessing content in the time of algorithmic curation&#8221;. Deadline: July 31, 2023.

CALL FOR PAPERS Hugh Grant Special issue of Celebrity Studies Journal, edited by Alice Guilluy (London Film Academy) and Eleonora Sammartino (Imperial College London) Deadline for proposals: 18th January 2020

CALL FOR PAPERS


 Hugh Grant

Special issue of

 Celebrity Studies

Journal, edited by Alice Guilluy (London Film Academy) and Eleonora Sammartino (Imperial College London)

 Deadline for proposals: 18
 
 th
 
 January 2020

CfP: Celebrity Studies Journal special issue on Hugh Grant. Deadline: Jan 18, 2020.

You know, fan conventions and academic conferences are very similar really. You sort of feel the same enthusiasm crackling when you walk into the reception area, and know that you’re going to be surrounded by people with whom you can engage directly because they’re speaking the shared language of the sub-culture. And there’s often great guest speakers and neat screenings.

BRAIN MACHINES AND BISCUITS by Andrew Pixley

Editors: Professor Anna Backman Rogers, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Dr Houman Sadri, University of South-Eastern Norway Since their publication in 1865 and 1871 respectively, Lewis Carroll’s

 Alice

novels have inspired a wealth of academic and artistic interpretations and re-interpretations.

Call for chapters: edited collection &#8220;Revising Alice&#8221;. Deadline: April 17, 2023.

The last five years have seen a sea change in debates around regulation of digital platforms. There is a growing view that nation-state regulation is warranted to address public concerns about the market power, lack of accountability and lack of transparency of the leading tech giants. This symposium will bring together communications and media policy and industry researchers to consider critical issues around digital platform regulation.

CfP: ICA 2020 post-conference &#8220;Digital Platform Regulation: Beyond Transparency and ‘Openness’&#8221;. May 26, 2020 @ Griffith University Gold Coast Campus (AUS). Deadline: Dec 20, 2019.

Siegfried Kracauer in Theory of Film describes the strangely transporting effect of memory while watching old documentary films containing recognisable childhood objects.

Leona Heimfeld

This blog post first appeared on the WFTHN blog on Oct 25, 2024.   Fig. 1: Still from

 The Crown

Season 3 Episode 1 Siegfried Kracauer in

 Theory of Film

describes the strangely transporting effect of memory while watching old documentary films containing recognisable childhood objects.

LAYERED SPECTATORSHIP: THE CROWN AS PALIMPSEST

FIFTEEN YEARS OF THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE Friday 25th to Sunday 27th August , 2023.

FIFTEEN YEARS OF THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE


 Friday 25


 th


 to Sunday 27


 th


 August , 2023.


 Bader College, Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, UK


 “That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it…and it’s worked out pretty well so far…” –
 
 Iron Man
 
 (Favreau, 2008)

In the early 2000’s,

CfP: The Superhero Project conference &#8220;Fifteen Years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe&#8221;. August 25-27, 2023 @ Bader College, Sussex (UK). Deadline: Feb 28, 2023.

You are invited to submit a pitch for the inaugural edition of

 Reflections: A TV Foundation Review

, the new publication produced in collaboration with The TV Foundation, the Edinburgh Television Festival charity, and Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow. The

 Review

aims to develop a new space for thoughtful, creative responses to the year of television.

Call for pitches: &#8220;Reflections 2023: A TV Foundation Review&#8221;. Deadline: Jan 27, 2023.

The newest adaption of Anne Rice’s novels,

 Interview with the Vampire

(2022), finished airing its season finale in the US on November 13

 th

. It was the most glorious hour of television I’ve experienced in a long time. With stellar sets, costumes, writing, performances, musical score, and everything in between, I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for the next season. Thankfully, AMC confirmed it is airing next year.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE’S STAKE ON GOTHIC ANTI-METAPHORS

I am writing this towards the end of Week 7, which means that by the time it’s online most of us will be around two-thirds of the way through our first term/semester/trimester/block, and entering the home stretch before that much-needed Yule break. I don’t know about you, but I am really rather relishing the return to face-to-face teaching.

SPACED OUT

Here you are. Here’s a cracker. One for the teenagers [1]: This is from The Grinning Man, the New Year 2009 special episode of the comedy-mystery series Jonathan Creek (1997-2016) and it shows the eponymous magic/crime consultant meeting the character who will become his new colleague for his next few cases.

Here you are. Here’s a cracker. One for the teenagers [1]: Fig. 1: “Always loved you as Ritzik on Sergeant Bilko.” This is from

 The Grinning Man

, the New Year 2009 special episode of the comedy-mystery series

 Jonathan Creek

(1997-2016) and it shows the eponymous magic/crime consultant meeting the character who will become his new colleague for his next few cases.  And her name is Joey Ross.

HOW ABOUT REFERENCES

John Ellis

The UK’s Channel 4 turns 40 on 4 November 2022. How can we assess the achievements (and failures) of this unique broadcasting initiative? The UK’s fourth TV channel was set up by a conservative government to be innovative in the form and content of programmes. Now it is just one small group of channels among the hundreds that are available. Conceived as the agent of change in the TV industry, has it now served its purpose?

CHANNEL 4 AT 40

Deadline for submissions:

1 December 2022 Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Carl Wilson In answer to the evolutionary portrayals of superheroes in our cultures, histories, and narratives, the editors welcome chapter proposals for selection and inclusion into

 The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies

, for which a contract has already been signed.

CfP: Edited collection &#8220;The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies&#8221;. Deadline: Dec 01, 2022.

Sarah Molisso

Squid Game

(2021-) is yet another successful export from South Korea, demonstrating the transnational mobility of Korean popular culture, and further cementing its status as a soft power juggernaut. The series has widely been framed in terms of neoliberalism and precarity. However,

 Squid Game

’s popularity has come at the expense of its mistreatment of female characters (as well as the other minority characters in the show).

SQUID GAME AND THE REPRODUCTION OF KOREAN WOMANHOODS

Jemma Saunders

It’s been said many times, not least by my PhD supervisor, that creativity loves constraint. A prompt such as Ariel Avissar’s TV Dictionary is a prime example of how working within rigid parameters can enable new discoveries about a particular media object, even one with which we consider ourselves familiar.

THE TV DICTIONARY: MUSINGS ON BIRMINGHAM AND GRIT

Since its inception, mediatization has been a contested term within media and communication research that includes different perspectives on the interrelation between technological and sociocultural change.

CfP: ECREA pre-conference &#8220;Mediatization 3.0? The future of the research field&#8221;. Oct 12, 2022 @ online. Deadline: June 30, 2022

Please note there is the option to present in person or virtually.

The International Vampire Film and Arts Festival and University of South Wales present The 6

 th

Vampire Academic Conference ‘Vampires Through the Ages’ 15

 th

-17

 th

June 2022, Insole Court Mansion, Cardiff, Wales.

CfP: The 6th Vampire Academic Conference &#8220;Vampires Through the Ages&#8221;. June 15-17, 2022 @ Cardiff, Wales (UK). Deadline: March 20, 2022

We are seeking proposals for an edited collection tentatively titled Television Comedy &amp; Cultural Crisis. Chapters should focus on a specific television series, and address how that series engages with the discourse of a particular cultural crisis through comedy.

CfP: edited collection &#8220;Television Comedy &#038; Cultural Crisis&#8221;. Deadline: March 31, 2022

Programmes and Canons

I am keenly anticipating the simultaneous launch (in April) of three edited collections I have been working on with fellow editors Sarah Cardwell and Lucy Fife Donaldson. The books are part of a new sub-series from MUP, collectively titled ‘Moments in Television’. They derive from the parent ‘Television Series’ books about TV drama creators, a series that has been running for nearly 20 years.

MOMENTS IN TELEVISION

Keynote speakers:

Georges Didi-Huberman (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) Sybille Krämer (Freie Universität, Berlin) Lev Manovich (City University, New York)

 Artists talk:

Radu Jude &amp; Susana de Sousa Dias

 Graduate Workshop keynote speakers:

Samaneh Moafi &amp; Stefanos Levidis (Forensic Architecture)

CfP: NECS 2022 conference &#8220;Epistemic Media: Atlas, Archive, Network&#8221;. June 22-26, 2022 @ Bucharest National University of Theatre and Film (RO). Deadline: Jan 31, 2022.

Science fiction epic The Expanse created by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and based on the novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck has recently debuted its sixth and final season on Amazon Prime.

Chris Nunn

SPOILER ALERT Science fiction epic

 The Expanse

created by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and based on the novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck has recently debuted its sixth and final season on Amazon Prime.

ANARCHISM IS THE EXPANSE

A CREAM, University of Westminster conference, in collaboration with the University of Brighton July 28

 th

and 29

 th

2022, Fyvie Hall, 309 Regent St., London W1B 2HT

 Organisers:

Dr. Christopher Hogg – C.Hogg@westminster.ac.uk (University of Westminster) Dr. Douglas McNaughton – D.Mcnaughton@brighton.ac.uk (University of Brighton) Dr. Andrew O’Day – aoday41414@aol.com (Independent Scholar)

CFP: TV Londons. Exploring Representations of London on Television

Toby Miller

I’m revisiting a column from 2020 about the issues listed above, in order to keep up with recent developments. But first, paradoxically, some history. Human rights and sports have long been intertwined in complex ways, along with their coverage by the media. The Spanish Republican government declined to participate in Hitler’s 1936 Olympics because of his anti-semitism. Martin Luther King supported a black boycott of Mexico 1968.

TELEVISION, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND FOOTBALL, ONCE MORE

Oh, football. It does rather take over, doesn’t it? As one who has oft written of his dependence on the broadcast schedule, I struggle to comprehend why the commencement of another international sporting competition means I can’t watch

 Have I Got News for You

of a Friday evening.

BALLS

We invite chapter proposals (300-500 words) for a volume of essays under contract with Lexington Books. This edited collection will examine how animal characters in film and television serve as protagonists, antagonists, or anti-heroes fulfilling various narrative functions.

Fig. 1: promo banner,

 Sweet Tooth

(Netflix, 2021) We invite chapter proposals (300-500 words) for a volume of essays under contract with Lexington Books. This edited collection will examine how animal characters in film and television serve as protagonists, antagonists, or anti-heroes fulfilling various narrative functions.

CfP: edited volume “Animal Heroes, Villains and Others: the Narrative Functions of Strange and Familiar Creatures in Film and Television”. Deadline: July 15, 2021

Liz Giuffre

The language of Ted Lasso is popular culture. The cheesiest of music, the rommiest of Rom-Coms, the deepest of football fan-based love. This makes sense given that the Richmond Football Club is the show’s real star – its pull so precious that it can bring out the best and the worst in people.

THE LANGUAGE OF LASSO

What a couple of days it’s been for a certain type of television-obsessed millennial. Firstly, everyone’s favourite so-bad-it’s-good school drama Waterloo Road is returning, after seven years away, two definitely-demolished locations and a fanbase that definitely aren’t still teenagers. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Will Stanford Abbiss

This blog post has first appeared on Will Stanford Abbiss’ personal blog

 Reading the Visual

and is re-published here with the author’s permission. What a couple of days it’s been for a certain type of television-obsessed millennial.

THE BBC MOVES FORWARD BY GOING BACK

A conference hosted by Journalism@Newcastle and Ethical Space, the International Journal of Communication Ethics.   23 June 2022 – Deadline for abstracts 29 October 2021  True crime has a long and popular history in journalism, literature, drama, radio, film and television – and now the podcast.

A conference hosted by
 
 Journalism@Newcastle
 
 and
 
 Ethical Space
 
 ,
 
 the International Journal of Communication Ethics
 
 .


 23 June 2022 – Deadline for abstracts 29 October 2021


 True crime

has a long and popular history in journalism, literature, drama, radio, film and television – and now the podcast.

CfP: conference &#8220;Investigating True Crime &#038; the Media&#8221; June 23, 2022 @ Newcastle University (UK). Deadline: Oct 29, 2021.

PART IV S4C was launched on November 1, 1982 – the night before Channel 4’s launch – and Euryn Ogwen, as head of programmes was responsible for constructing the new channel’s first hour. I was ten years old, and watching the first hour in the office of my father’s television company, Screen ’82, in Aberystwyth.

Dafydd Sills-Jones

This interview was first published in Welsh on Golwg/Gwerddon 					On March 15, 2021, Euryn Ogwen Williams, one of the most widely influential and long-standing figures in British broadcasting, passed away. Many obituaries have paid tribute to his longevity, creativity and generosity across a range of broadcasting areas during his long and illustrious career.

S4C: THE FIRST HOUR – AN INTERVIEW WITH EURYN OGWEN WILLIAMS (PART IV)

Sir Humphrey Burton, 90 in March and now publishing his long-awaited autobiography In My Own Time, is that rare beast: a television executive liked by programme-makers. Twice the Head of BBC TV’s Music &amp;

Ian Greaves

Fig. 1: Sir Humphrey Burton Sir Humphrey Burton, 90 in March and now publishing his long-awaited autobiography

 In My Own Time

, is that rare beast: a television executive liked by programme-makers. Twice the Head of BBC TV’s Music &amp; Arts department, amongst so many other distinctions, Sir Humphrey’s fingerprints remain visible across television more than three decades after departing it. Let me test that claim.

THE FIVE DEGREES OF HUMPHREY BURTON

Given the uncertainty of the current context, our intention is to hold

 a hybrid conference (attendees may deliver their papers online or in person).

If this hybrid model were not possible, we would then switch to a fully-online conference.   It has become almost mandatory to start any piece on cosmopolitanism with a reference to Diogenes the Cynic (412-323 BC) and his famous claim “I am a citizen of the world”.

CfP:  26th Annual SERCIA Conference &#8220;Cosmopolitan Aspirations in English-Speaking Cinema and Television&#8221;. Sept 8-10, 2021 @ Universidad de Zaragoza (ESP). Deadline: April 9, 2021

PART II S4C was launched on November 1, 1982 – the night before Channel 4’s launch – and Euryn Ogwen, as head of programmes was responsible for constructing the new channel’s first hour. I was ten years old, and watching the first hour in the office of my father’s television company, Screen ’82, in Aberystwyth.

S4C: THE FIRST HOUR – AN INTERVIEW WITH EURYN OGWEN WILLIAMS (PART II)

19 July – 6 August 2021, Online; hosted by Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK

Where to, Television Studies? What directions are there to investigate? What are the themes that are important as the medium morphs and changes? What methodological challenges do these changes pose to Television Studies and what place does television history continue to hold within our discipline?

Critical Studies in Television Slow Covid-Safe Conference 2021. 19 July – 6 August 2021 @ online.

Preliminary title:

Audiovisual Content for Children and Adolescents in the Nordics: Production, Distribution, and Reception in a Multi-Platform Era

 Editors:

Pia Majbritt Jensen, associate professor, Aarhus University, Denmark Eva Novrup Redvall, associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Christa Lykke Christensen, associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

CfP: Open Access anthology &#8220;Audiovisual Content for Children and Adolescents in the Nordics: Production, Distribution, and Reception in a Multi-Platform Era&#8221;. Deadline: June 15, 2021.

CST Online

CfP: “The Handmaid’s Tale: Gender, Genre Adaptation” Sept 30, 2017 @University of Worcester. Deadline: July 15, 2017

Call for Chapters: Science Fiction Beyond the Western Tradition (working title)