CSTonline

An edited collection on graphic medicine and graphic storytelling related to the COVID-19 global pandemic

Editors: Alexandra P. Alberda, Anna Feigenbaum, William Proctor As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to infect millions, kill people around the world, dismantle political, economic and cultural infrastructures, and disrupt our everyday lives, we have seen a surge in amateur and professional creative activity in the comics medium.

CfP: edited collection “CFP: Comics in the Time of COVID-19”. Deadline: May 31, 2020.

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?

In August 2022, I secured a slot at the BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) in Caversham to look at the archives for Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan (BBC1, 1968-1982). This was a groundbreaking programme produced for the British Asian diaspora.

In August 2022, I secured a slot at the BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) in Caversham to look at the archives for

 Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan

(BBC1, 1968-1982). This was a groundbreaking programme produced for the British Asian diaspora. On Sunday mornings, families congregated in front of the television and watched the news bulletins, political discussions and community reports, patiently waiting for the closing section.

DEFENDING THE WAC: EXPLORING INDIAN CINEMA BROADCAST ON BRITISH ANALOGUE TELEVISION AT THE BBC WRITTEN ARCHIVES CENTRE

Andrew Pixley

Now, those of you who misspent their respective youths as badly as I did will no doubt have immediately spotted the origin of the title of my first blog of 2020 in which I singularly failed to prove that I can make an argument: Is This The Right Room For An Argument? That’s right. It originates in a well-known sketch from

 Monty Python’s Flying Circus

(strictly speaking 1969-1973)… Five points for getting that.

THE NUMBERS GAME by Andrew Pixley

Pat Holland

‘Of course we don’t pay a licence fee’ says Barbara vehemently as we sit round the table for Jennifer’s graduation celebration dinner. My friend Barbara is doctor and her eldest daughter has just graduated in creative art.  Everyone is there – aunts, uncles, cousins, Jenny’s brother and sister.  Her Nana is especially proud as Jenny is the first grandchild to graduate.

HOW NOT TO PAY YOUR LICENCE FEE… OR: SHOULD THE BBC BE FUNDED BY SUBSCRIPTION?

“You know what you want Andrew,” said Richard Marson to me sagely, “You want

 PrimeTime

.” He was probably right. I mean, Richard’s brilliant. Go and buy his book

 The Blue Peter Diaries

(2017) about his time as editor on this Big BBC Brand. Best eighteen quid we’ve spent on a book in a

 long

time.

EASY ACCESS by Andrew Pixley

https://transnationalpopculture.weebly.com/ Call for Contributions   Changing minds changes lives. Popular culture has enormous discursive power which creates meaning through storytelling and performance, and can thus be used as a political tool for social change. Arts and Humanities put the human at the centre of analysis and provide a methodological framework for cultural, social and economic critique.

CfP: workshops “Transnational Popular Culture as a Catalyst for Social Change” June 22-23, 2020 @ Sheffield Hallam University (UK). Deadline: March 29, 2020.

One-Day Conference: 29 June 2020

**Co-organised by Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries &amp; Centre for Media Research **

 Funded by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Partnership


 Held at Bath Spa University, Newton Park Campus, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN


 Confirmed keynotes:

Professor Graham Thomas, Section Lead for Immersive Content, BBC

CfP: International Journal of Creative Media Research Conference: Emerging Technologies and Creative Industries. June 29, 2020 @ Bath Spa University (UK). Deadline: March 29, 2020.

We are happy to invite you to participate in the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2020 that will take place at the University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, from 12-21 July, 2020 (full-day program from 13 to 20 July;

CfA: ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2020. July 12-21, 2020 @ University of Tartu (EE). Deadline: March 09, 2020.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul,” remarked the first century AD Roman philosopher Cicero.  Well, apparently anyway.  He was anti-embezzlement – a good thing – and I’m sure he loved his books too.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE by Andrew Pixley

Editors: Karrȧ Shimabukuro and Wickham Clayton

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past.

CfP: edited volume “(Don’t) Look Back: Our Nostalgia for Horror and Slasher Films”. Deadline: March 31, 2020.

In a previous academic life, I was trained as an historian and archaeologist, particularly regarding representation of heritage.  While this has proved unexpectedly good training for eventually becoming a media theorist studying representation (amongst other things), it also means I often have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with documentaries about history, archaeology and/or culture.

Mocking Up History: Philomena Cunk on&#8230;Everything

This article was first published on WFTHN on the 17th October 2025. Warning: This article is divided into two parts, but both have detailed descriptions of sexual violence in the book and TV series, Rivals. Author’s Note: This essay was written before the death of Dame Jilly Cooper.

This article was first published on WFTHN on the 17th October 2025.

 Warning

: This article is divided into two parts, but both have detailed descriptions of sexual violence in the book and TV series,

 Rivals

.

 Author’s Note:


 This essay was written before the death of Dame Jilly Cooper.

Sexual Violence in Rivals: Updating the Bonkbuster for a post-#MeToo Television Audience: PART TWO &#8211; by Julie Anne Taddeo

I was asked to write an op-ed piece saying why I think the BBC’s Written Archives Centre (WAC) is a unique and brilliant resource, which I can do because it’s both – and why, therefore, the BBC’s slimming of its services is a Bad Thing.

I was asked to write an op-ed piece saying why I think the BBC’s Written Archives Centre (WAC) is a unique and brilliant resource, which I can do because it’s both – and why, therefore, the BBC’s slimming of its services is a Bad Thing. But what point preaching to the converted – writing the words of a sermon that no one (who can halt it) will hear?

DEFENDING THE WAC: MARK LEWISOHN LOOKS AT WHY RENEWED APPRECIATION IS URGENTLY REQUIRED

“… you cannot mobilize a movement that is only and always against;

Obioma Nnaemeka, “Nego-feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way”,

 Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

, 29.2 (2003), p.364   Inspired by the RhodesMustFall movement at the University of Cape Town in May 2015, certain higher education institutions, individuals and collectives across the world have engaged in renewed, contemporary work to try to decolonise academia over the past four years.

CfP: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies. A Screen Worlds Open Access edited volume. Deadline: April 30, 2020.

Booking is now open for the Screen Two at 40 symposium at BFI Southbank, London, on the 12th November 2025.

Booking is now open for the

 Screen Two at 40

symposium at BFI Southbank, London, on the 12th November 2025.

Screen Two at 40 Symposium &#8211; BFI Southbank

ECREA’S 8th European Communication Conference The European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) in partnership with the University of Minho call for papers to be presented at the 8th European Communication Conference, to be held in Braga, Portugal, from 2 October to 5 October 2020.

ECREA’S 8th European Communication Conference


 The European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) in partnership with the University of Minho call for papers to be presented at the 8th European Communication Conference, to be held in Braga, Portugal, from 2 October to 5 October 2020.

ECREA and the Communication and Society Research Centre of University of Minho are delighted to host the 8th

CfP: ECREA2020 “Communication and trust: building safe, sustainable and promising futures”. Oct 02-05, 2020 @ University of Minho (POR) Deadline: Jan 15, 2020.

CALL FOR PAPERS: New Frontiers? Channel 4’s Move out of London A One Day International Conference, Watershed Cultural Cinema, Bristol 11 March 2020 Hosted by the Moving Image Research Group, University of the West of England Bristol andthe BAFTSS Screen Industries Special Interest Group

CALL FOR PAPERS:


 New Frontiers? Channel 4’s Move out of London


 A One Day International Conference, Watershed Cultural Cinema, Bristol


 11 March 2020

**Hosted by the Moving Image Research Group, University of the West of England Bristol andthe BAFTSS Screen Industries Special Interest Group **

CfP: conference “New Frontiers?&nbsp;Channel&nbsp;4’s Move out of London”. March 11, 2020 @ University of the West of England Bristol (UK). Deadline: Nov 01, 2019.

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

Fig. 1. Still from S3E1, ‘Tomorrow’, The Bear (FX on Hulu, 2022–) There is nothing new about filler or bottle episodes; when I hear the latter term, I always think of Abed (Danny Pudi) from the NBC sitcom

 Community

complaining about how, in ‘Cooperative Calligraphy’ (S2E8), they (the characters) are becoming stuck in a bottle episode. It is a trope so common it can be used for comedy – and that was 15 years ago.

On the bloating of contemporary TV fiction by Josette Wolthuis

It’s always bloody Doctor Who isn’t it? The show about the police box that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

It’s always bloody

 Doctor Who

isn’t it? The show about the police box that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. There is so much in the rich history of BBC drama that requires scrutiny, assessment and cataloguing, but somehow “the children’s own programme that adults adore” is the one that continues to make headlines, and the one with fans who need to know every scintilla of information about every single episode.

Defending the WAC: &#8216;Bigger on the Inside&#8217; Doctor Who Archives by Toby Hadoke

Andrew J. Salvati

Incongruity, Immanuel Kant once observed, is an essential element of humor.

DRUNK HISTORY

A volume of scholarly essays to be collected under the title: Bitch or Badass: Anti-heroines of Contemporary Literary Media, Television, and Cinema (working title) Edited by Melanie A. Haas (Texas Woman’s University ) and N. A. Pierce (Old Dominion University)

A volume of scholarly essays to be collected under the title:


 Bitch or Badass: Anti-heroines of Contemporary Literary Media, Television, and Cinema (working title)


 Edited by Melanie A. Haas (Texas Woman’s University ) and N. A. Pierce (Old Dominion University)

Call for chapters: “Anti-heroines of Contemporary Literary Media, Television, and Cinema”. Deadline: June 21, 2019.

The new Sky Crime TV channel is entirely devoted to true crime documentaries.

TRUE CRIME: IT’S TIME TO START QUESTIONING THE ETHICS OF TUNING IN

Liz Giuffre

During this year’s season of

 The Last Leg

the usually neat and tidy Adam Hills declared he would “grow his beard til Brexit”. Beginning as a stunt, it became a weekly metaphor for the promise, and increasing disarray, the UK seemed destined for. Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. JavaScript kann nicht ausgeführt werden. A developing beard makes for strangely captivating television.

THE LAST LEG: A BEARDY GUIDE TO THE BREXIT THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Santa has been very kind to me again this year.

SUB-CULTURE CLUB

Melissa Beattie

‘The ghosts of the Confederacy will not die.’- Colonel Anderson (Kurt Smallwood); 1.1    One of the hallmarks of Western films—here meant in the sense of ‘Spaghetti’ rather than ‘the West’ —is the idea of the cowboy/gunslinger riding off into the sunset, either alone or possibly with one or more of his fellows.

‘THIS IS WHERE THE COWBOY RIDES AWAY’?: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN AND SETTLER COLONIALISM

Guest editors: Veronika Pehe, Sonja de Leeuw, Dana Mustata  Publication date: fall/winter 2022  This special issue of VIEW aims to shine a light on television satire in Europe during the period of state socialism and after. Satire has been studied as a vehicle for challenging political and religious power as well as established norms and values.

CfP: VIEW journal special issue “Television Satire in (Post)Socialist Europe”. Deadline: June 15, 2021.

Richard Hewett

Pithy title, eh? Oh, well; all will be revealed. As part of my sabbatical I have recently re-watched and made extensive notes on every episode of

 Inspector Morse

(ITV, 1987-2000). If I tell you why, I’ll have to take you down the cells. Suffice to say that this activity relates to a future publication.

ENDEAVOURING TO INVESTIGATE NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENTS IN MORSE

“The Bat-Man, a mysterious and adventurous figure, fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society… his identity remains unknown.” – Detective Comics #27 (1939)

In 2018, the superhero genre reached a remarkable milestone with the eightieth anniversary of Superman, with the character’s signature title of

 Action Comics

reaching its one thousandth issue, which sold over half a million copies and, not unimportantly, finally returned The Man of Steel to his iconic red trunks.

CfP: conference “The Superhero Project: 3rd Global Meeting” Sept 20-22, 2019 @ Die Wolfsburg, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Essen (GER) Deadline: April 15, 2019

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.

CfP: international symposium “Media Frictions”. May 2-3, 2024 @ Jönköping (SWE). Deadline: Jan 9, 2024.

Roughly a decade ago, Netflix’s then–Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos made a pessimistic remark about the future of reality TV on the platform at an investors’ conference, calling the genre “disposable,” and something that Netflix is not really invested in making.

(Main)Streaming Ethics: Netflix and the Ghost of Reality TV Past by Georgia Aitaki

In common with the other authors of this series of blogs, I am a regular user who knows first-hand the importance of the BBC’s Written Archives.

In common with the other authors of this series of blogs, I am a regular user who knows first-hand the importance of the BBC’s Written Archives. When I first visited in 2006 it was to research a conference paper on Rudolph Cartier’s 1952 television adaptation of Ansky’s

 The


 Dybbuk

, an unlikely subject for a television play in 1950s Britain.

Defending the WAC: Filling the gaps which some never knew existed by James Jordan

Conference call for papers:


 ‘Weddings and Funerals: UK Screen Industries in a Global Context, 1994-2024’, 13-14
 
 th
 
 June 2024


 A


 2-day conference organised by the Centre for Converged Screen Media and Entertainment (COSME), Department of Communication and Media,


 University of Liverpool,


 13-14 June 2024


 Keynote Speakers:




 Dr Kay Dickinson

(University of Glasgow,

CfP: conference ‘Weddings and Funerals: UK Screen Industries in a Global Context, 1994-2024’. June 13-14, 2024 @ University of Liverpool (UK). Deadline: March 24, 2024.

Christa van Raalte and Christopher Pullen (both of Bournemouth University) are seeking contributors for a new edited book collection, examining ageing on screen in British film and TV drama since 2000, with a particular focus on representational issues, industry/production contexts and audience interactions.

CfP: edited collection &#8220;Ageing on Screen in British Film and TV Drama: Representation, Industry and Audience&#8221;. Deadline: April 30, 2024

The Labour of Media (Studies): Activism, Education, and Industry

CfP: conference “The Labour of Media (Studies):  Activism, Education, and Industry”. Nov 16-17, 2018 @ Concordia University, Montréal (CAN). Deadline: June 30, 2018.

Just about exactly a year ago, on 19 November 2024, I e-mailed a group of colleagues expressing concern about the Terms of Use researchers had to sign up to it secure access to the immeasurably rich collections of the BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) at Caversham.

Defending the WAC: Our Rights, Their Wrongs: The WAC Campaign To Date by John Wyver

Throughout the year 2021, Disney+ released a series of…well, series, which took place in and followed various characters of the wider hyperdiegesis conventionally referred to as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Throughout the year 2021, Disney+ released a series of…well, series, which took place in and followed various characters of the wider hyperdiegesis conventionally referred to as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).  While responses to the various streaming series have been mixed, they do seem to allow for a wider and deeper exploration of characters and settings.

In Bad Taste?: Madripoor in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by Melissa Beattie

If you live, like me, in The Guardian bubble, you will be heartened by the outspoken defence of the BBC in the last two days (The Guardian, 2025). But this defence clearly doesn’t come from all sides.

If you live, like me, in

 The Guardian

bubble, you will be heartened by the outspoken defence of the BBC in the last two days (

 The Guardian

, 2025). But this defence clearly doesn’t come from all sides.

A Major Crisis in the BBC at a Time of a Crisis in Higher Education by Elke Weissmann

Christopher Hogg

In the second part of this interview with television producer Tom Edwards, the focus shifts from earlier production experiences to Tom’s role as a Commissioning Executive Producer for BBC1&amp;2 Factual Features and Formats.

A CAREER IN POPULAR FACTUAL TV: AN INTERVIEW WITH TOM EDWARDS (PART TWO)

CALL FOR PAPERS: What’s (the) News? Values, Viruses and Vectors of Newsworthiness  13-14 December 2018    Third biennial conference of the Brussels Institute for Journalism Studies (BIJU)  Department of Applied Linguistics / Faculty of Arts and Philosophy  Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium    Deadline for proposals: 30 JUNE 2018  Contact: whatnews@vub.be

CfP: conference “What’s (the) News? Values, Viruses and Vectors of Newsworthiness”. Dec 13-14, 2018 @ Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium. Deadline: June 30, 2018.

Running from 4 – 25 February at BFI Southbank, FORGOTTEN BLACK DRAMA ON TV will be a season of ground- breaking black British television dramas.

Running from 4 – 25 February

at

 BFI Southbank, FORGOTTEN BLACK DRAMA ON TV

will be a season of ground- breaking black British television dramas.

Forgotten Black Drama on TV, February 04-25, 2019 @ BFI Southbank, London (UK)

Martha P. Nochimson

“Son of Man /You cannot say, or guess, for you know only/A heap of broken images” T.S. Eliot,

 The Wasteland

Matt Weiner’s

 The Romanoffs

offers American television a unique modernist vision of history as a collision of histories, not the more familiar media monolithic account of one linear progression, or even the rarer media version of cyclical history.

THE HISTORY PERPLEX IN MATT WEINER’S ‘THE ROMANOFFS’ (PART 1)

NECSUS Autumn 2019_#Gesture  Guest editor: Miriam de Rosa (Coventry University)  A visible action working as utterance, according to Giorgio Agamben gesture is ‘the exhibition of mediality’. It unveils a process and crystallises a meaning into a temporary form, making visible and yet relying upon a sense of deep tactility and materiality, especially when it is performed by the hands.

CfP: journal NECSUS Autumn 2019_#Gesture. Deadline: Jan 15, 2019.

Stayci Taylor, Tessa Dwyer, Radha O’Meara and Craig Batty

There’s nothing as loyal as a prisoner fan

(Val Lehman, 2019) On June 25 a capacity crowd met at the St Kilda Town Hall in Melbourne – the city that is the home of iconic Australian television series

 Prisoner

(1979-1986) – to celebrate 40 years since the show made its debut on Australia’s Network 10. *Prisoner’*s extraordinary 692-episode run is made more remarkable by the fact that it was commissioned as a 16-part standalone

ON THE INSIDE: 40 YEARS OF PRISONER (CELL BLOCK H) AT THE 2019 ST KILDA FILM FESTIVAL, MELBOURNE

Call for Papers: Tintin and the City of the Golden Owls Theme: A two-day, cross-cultural and cross-media conference that discusses the work of Hergé and Tintin.

Call for Papers:

Tintin and the City of the Golden Owls

 Theme:

A two-day, cross-cultural and cross-media conference that discusses the work of Hergé and

 Tintin

.

 EXTENDED DEADLINE for proposals:

April 30, 2018 We are pleased to invite you to submit abstracts, panel proposals and posters for the

 Tintin and the City of the Golden Owls

Conference, to be held on 13

 th

CfP: Conference “Tintin and the City of the Golden Owls”. June 13-14, 2018 @ Leeds Beckett University (UK). EXTENDED DEADLINE: April 30, 2018.

Call for Papers: ‘When the Shadow Flickers: The Moving Image in Contemporary Chinese Art’  Volume 12, Issue 1, Spring 2025, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art  A Special Issue co-edited by Yang Panpan and Jiang Jiehong  At a time when the moving image has become a ubiquitous presence in museums and galleries in China and the Sinophone world, the studies of the moving image in the sphere of contemporary Chinese art remain surprisingly scarce.

CfP: JCCA special issue &#8220;When the Shadow Flickers: The Moving Image in Contemporary Chinese Art&#8221;. Deadline: March 1, 2024

Elke Weissmann

Apologies for not sending you a Christmas card this year. So, let me do it via this blog;

IN SCHMEXIT WONDERLAND: A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM AN EU27 HIGHER EDUCATION (AND NHS AND SOCIAL WORK) WORKER

When he saw this Tom was so full of himself that he had to share the pleasure with somebody, so he turned to a woman sitting across the aisle.

“There it is, missus.”

 Surprised, the woman looked across him at him.

“You what, love?”

 Tom nodded towards the panorama through the front window.

“The North.”

 The woman looked, saw nothing, then observing that they were alone thought it best to humour him.

“Yes,

CfP: conference “Representing Gender in the North: 1945 to the present day” May 23, 2018 @ University of Sheffield (UK). Deadline: April 3, 2018.

Around the world, sports journalism is dominated by men. In 2018, Sky Sports in Britain recognized that: ‘At recent press conferences for the leading football clubs in the Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premiership we counted 310 reporters covering 25 clubs. Nearly 300 were men;

MARION REIMERS, TV SPORTS STAR REPORTER

Those of you that have been reading CSTonline for a while will know that I have been in the USA for the past 6 years.  I was employed (as an American TV scholar) to write a Master’s Programme in TV Studies.

Those of you that have been reading CSTonline for a while will know that I have been in the USA for the past 6 years.  I was employed (as an American TV scholar) to write a Master’s Programme in TV Studies.  In the first 6 months of being there the pandemic hit and I was stuck in the USA for 2 years without a break.  Sigh.  One thing this period taught me was how to (not) watch American television.

TV WITH AN INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCE

Margery Wace in 1935. With kind permission of Cecilia Johnson. My first visit to the BBC’s Written Archives Centre was in 2002. I was working as a producer on

 Woman’s Hour

and had applied for a three-month attachment to what was then the Diversity Centre, to research and write a history of women at the BBC.

DEFENDING THE WAC: RECOVERING THE INVISIBLE WOMEN OF THE BBC

In a book chapter I recently had published (Beattie 2025) I discuss how seminal British sitcom Desmond’s (1989-1994, Channel 4) illustrates how barbershops function as both community anchors and as sites of cultural education for Black communities.

In a book chapter I recently had published (Beattie 2025) I discuss how seminal British sitcom

 Desmond’s

(1989-1994, Channel 4) illustrates how barbershops function as both community anchors and as sites of cultural education for Black communities.  In particular, I focused upon how the series engages with both issues relating to migrant communities and the wider Black community.

‘DON’T SCRATCH MY SOCA’: DESMOND’S AND MUSIC

Warning: This article is divided into two parts but both have detailed descriptions of sexual violence in the book and TV series, Rivals. In episode one of the 2024 television period drama Rivals, middle-aged Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson) tells her new 20-year-old neighbor, Taggie O’Hara (Bella Maclean), “It’s 1986.

Warning

: This article is divided into two parts but both have detailed descriptions of sexual violence in the book and TV series,

 Rivals

. In episode one of the 2024 television period drama

 Rivals

, middle-aged Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson) tells her new 20-year-old neighbor, Taggie O’Hara (Bella Maclean), “It’s 1986.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN RIVALS: UPDATING THE BONKBUSTER FOR A POST-#METOO TELEVISION AUDIENCE: PART ONE

A world in crisis: wildfires as examples of the climate crisis in the BBC News documentary looking at

 Heatwaves: The New Normal?

In this second podcast, David and Elke are looking at Governance in Crisis – as governance that is troubled but also governance in a period of crisis.

GOVERNANCE IN CRISIS: GOVERNANCE PODCAST PART 2

This workshop call for papers invites presentation proposals pertaining to any aspect(s) of queerness in contemporary television during the period from 2000 to the present. Topics pertaining to cultural and/or television studies at the intersection of gender/sexuality studies and/or queer theory are invited from scholars, educators, and students of various levels and disciplines.

CfP: workshop “Queerness and Television in the 21st Century”. Nov 22-24, 2018 @ Turku (FIN) Deadline: Aug 31, 2018.

Because of the ambiguities inherent in the job, spy dramas tend to have morally grey characters, mutable moralities and can, though do not have to, engage in subversive critique of geopolitics and governments (cf Oldham 2017).

WHEREFORE ART THOU? THE ROMEO SECTION

2018 marks the 16th anniversary of the annual Journeys Across Media (JAM) conference for postgraduate researchers, organised by the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading. This year, JAM will take place on 15 June 2018, at the University of Reading.

CfP: Journeys Across Media Postgraduate Conference 2018. June 15, 2018 @ University of Reading (UK). Deadline: March 16, 2018.

The Popular Culture Research Group at Liverpool Hope University is delighted to announce its eighth annual international conference, ‘Theorising the Popular’. Building on the success of previous years, the 2018 conference aims to highlight the intellectual originality, depth and breadth of ‘popular’ disciplines, as well as their academic relationship with and within ‘traditional’ subjects.

CfP: Theorising the Popular Conference 2018. July 11-12, 2018 @ Liverpool Hope University (UK). Deadline: March 23, 2018.

Sarah Arnold

RTÉ recognises that it is in the privileged position of reflecting and shaping our understanding of our society and culture. Few organisations are as influential in Ireland or require greater trust than RTÉ.“ (RTÉ spokesperson, 2017)  In 2018 the Irish state broadcaster issued its 2018-2020 diversity and inclusion strategy.

BETWEEN PROGRAMME POLICY AND PRACTICE: GENDER, DIVERSITY AND THE CASE OF RTÉ’S CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS SHOW, THE LATE LATE TOY SHOW

Max Sexton

This second blog offers some thoughts on how aesthetic complexity in drama has been developed for television followed by the possibility of an evaluative method for a medium (unlike film) which has been difficult to judge. Due to its long association with cultural studies, television has been analysed primarily as a form of communication rather than as a textual system which is capable of criticism.

PROBLEMS OF TELEVISUAL AUTHORSHIP

We invite abstracts for an edited collection investigating the theoretical, empirical and instructional aspects of what can be envisioned as visual pedagogies, offering classic, creative, and contemporary re-workings of these paradigms. The book will be divided into three complementary sections with an editor in charge of each.

CfP: edited volume “Visual Pedagogies: Concepts, Cases &amp; Models”. Deadline: Feb 25, 2019.

XXVII IAMHIST Conference POWER AND THE MEDIA (Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, 16-19 July 2019) Confirmed keynote speakers include: James Curran (Goldsmiths, University of London) Jennifer Smyth (University of Warwick) Papers and panels are invited for the 2019 conference of the International Association for Media and History.

XXVII IAMHIST Conference


 POWER AND THE MEDIA (Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, 16-19 July 2019)

Confirmed keynote speakers include: James Curran (Goldsmiths, University of London) Jennifer Smyth (University of Warwick) Papers and panels are invited for the 2019 conference of the International Association for Media and History. The conference theme this year is POWER AND THE MEDIA.

CfP: 27th IAMHIST conference on “Power and the Media”. July 16-19, 2019 @ Northumbria University (UK). Deadline: Jan 14, 2019.

Department of Communication and Media | March 14th 2019 | Organisers: Annette Hill and Magnus Johansson  Mixed modes of storytelling abound in the contemporary media landscape. There are mixed genres, such as political comedy or docudrama, that mine the generic elements of information and entertainment to create storytelling based on real events.

CfP: International Symposium “Media Mixing”. Mar 14, 2019 @ Lund University (SWE). Deadline: Dec 11, 2018.

In December 2016, in an international conference entitled “50 years of Greek Television” that took place in Thessaloniki, organized by the Laboratory of Cultural and Visual Studies of the Department of Journalism and Mass Media Communication, both well-established and emerging scholars came together to discuss the past, present, and future of (the academic study of) Greek television.

CfA: Filmicon special issue “Introduction to Greek Television Studies: (Re)Reading Greek Television Fiction since 1989”. Deadline: Jan 20, 2019.

The edited collection,

 Familial Influences on Superheroes

, will examine the role that the family plays on the development of the superhero as portrayed in radio, comics, graphic novels, television series, and feature films.  Many superheroes have experienced the trauma of losing (a) parent(s), which sets them apart from others.

CfP: edited collection “Familial Influences on Superheroes”. Deadline: April 30, 2019

Media, Diplomacy and Soft Power: Exploring the Relations Between Emerging Markets and Western Countries   Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti, May 20th-21st, 2019   Confirmed keynote speaker: Stanley Rosen (University of Southern California) A second keynote speaker will be soon announced

Media, Diplomacy and Soft Power:


 Exploring the Relations Between Emerging Markets and Western Countries

Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti, May 20th-21st, 2019

 Confirmed keynote speaker

: Stanley Rosen (University of Southern California) A second keynote speaker will be soon announced

CfP: Media Mutations 2019 “Media, Diplomacy and Soft Power: Exploring the Relations Between Emerging Markets and Western Countries”. May 20-21, 2019 @ Università di Bologna (IT). Deadline: Jan 20, 2019.

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 “From Lucas to Disney: Star Wars in the Twenty-First Century”. Deadline: March 15, 2022.

“Well, we all need a little love in our lives.” So replied the actor-musician François Clemmons, who for 25 years played Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (Family Communications, 1968-2001), when he was asked recently why he thought it was that the new documentary about his friend Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor (Tremolo, […]

Website screenshot taken from Focus Feature’s film website.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Call for Submissions: At the Edge Media Fields Journal University of California, Santa Barbara Submission Deadline: September 28, 2018

Call for Submissions: At the Edge


 Media Fields Journal

University of California, Santa Barbara Submission Deadline: September 28, 2018

CfP: Media Fields Journal #14: At the Edges. Deadline: Sept 28, 2018.

MEDIA HISTORY FROM THE MARGINS CSF Summer Seminar at Monte Verità, Switzerland August 19-24, 2018 Co-organized by the Universities of Lausanne and Luxembourg, and USI Università della Svizzera Italiana Keynote Speakers Weihong Bao, University of Berkeley Jérôme Bourdon, University of Tel Aviv Lisa Parks, MIT Trevor Pinch, Cornell University  The summer seminar aims to rethink media history from the margins and to place at the center of our

CfP: Summer Seminar “Media History from the Margins” Aug 29-24, 2018 @ Monte Verità, Switzerland. Deadline: Jan 31, 2018.

Whatever happened to consensus? In the wake of World War II, the United States came to occupy what many proponents of American exceptionalism have long asserted to be a unique place in modern world history. Official and quotidian versions of postwar American self-understanding became dominated by narratives of a nation dedicated to such liberal values as “freedom” and “justice,” both at home and abroad.

CfP: GSNAS Graduate Conference “American Ambiguities: Is now the era of our disconsent?” May 22–24, 2019 @ Freie Universität Berlin (GER) Deadline: Jan 31, 2019.

Organized by

Céline Murillo (Université Paris 13), Mehdi Achouche (Université Paris 13), Anne-Marie Paquet Deyris (Université Paris Nanterre), Nicole Cloarec (Université de Rennes)

 September 6-8, 2023

Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers**, **Université Paris 13, France **Keynote Speakers         ** **Joan Hawkins (Indiana

CfP: SERCIA conference “Questioning the margins of English-speaking films and TV series”. September 6-8, 2023 @ Université Paris 13 (FR). Deadline: April 28, 2023.

David Levente Palatinus

In Television of the Anthropocene Part I (that I wrote exactly a year ago), I introduced the idea of the Television of the Anthropocene, and I suggested that ‘the re-emergence of sci-fi, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic genres and generic hybrids on television that address questions about human and non-human futures was unsurprising and was in line with the social and cultural status of the television as the dominant medium of storytelling’

TELEVISION OF THE ANTHROPOCENE (PART II): POSTHUMAN SENSIBILITIES AND POLITICAL TV

In her most recent blog, Elke Weissmann pointed out a peculiar characteristic of her own television viewing experiences – one that is presumably shared by a wide range of audiences.

WHAT DOES TELEVISION WANT? ON AFFECT AND PARTICIPATION

Back to the Future: Telling and Taming Anticipatory Media Visions and Technologies


 Special Issue of “Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies”

Guest-editors: Christian Pentzold (University of Bremen, Germany), Anne Kaun (Södertörn University, Sweden), and Christine Lohmeier (University of Bremen, Germany) Digital media, networked services, and aggregate data are beacons

CfP: Convergence special issue “Back to the Future: Telling and Taming Anticipatory Media Visions and Technologies”. Deadline: Dec 1, 2018.

Journal of Alternative and Community Media  SPECIAL ISSUE “The “Other” Alternatives: Political Right-Wing Media On- and Offline”  CALL FOR PAPERS – EXTENDED DEADLINE  Guest Editors: André Haller, University of Bamberg, Germany (andre.haller@uni-bamberg.de) Kristoffer Holt, Linnæus University, Sweden (kristoffer.holt@lnu.se) Renaud de La Brosse, Linnæus University, Sweden (renaud.delabrosse@lnu.se)  Research on alternative media is deeply rooted

CfA: special issue, JoACM “The ‘Other’ Alternatives: Political Right-Wing Media On- and Offline”. Deadline: May 30, 2018.:

Special Issue of the

 Journal of Tolkien Research

Co-edited by Janet Brennan Croft and Kristine Larsen janet.b.croft@rutgers.edu; larsen@ccsu.edu Connections between any of the works of both creative geniuses are fair game for this interdisciplinary volume. Some possible topics include: world-building, horror and the monstrous, critiques of heroism, women’s roles, Buffy-speak and elf-speak, and villainous motivations.

CfP: JTR special issue “J.R.R. Tolkien and the Works of Joss Whedon” Deadline: Aug 4, 2019

We are seeking proposals for a symposium to be hosted by the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University on May 5-6, 2018.


 Organisers: Dr Arin Keeble (Edinburgh Napier) and Dr Sam Thomas (Durham).


 Keynote: Professor Stephen Shapiro (Warwick University)

Contemporary US television is frequently conceived of, promoted and analysed as “literary”. Following the

Call for Proposals: Two-Day Symposium Exploring Contemporary US Television and “the Literary” @Edinburgh Napier University, May 5-6, 2018. Deadline: Dec 1, 2017.

While generally marketed as the further adventures of a popular character, spin-offs generally have the industrial function of creating more saleable content for a given studio and/or network.

ONE STEP BEYOND (AND TWO STEPS BACK?): BEYOND PARADISE

CAMP TV OF THE 1960s. A collection of new scholarly essays edited by Isabel Pinedo and Wyatt D. Phillips  Manifestations of camp became increasingly prevalent across American culture in the 1960s. More significantly perhaps, this was the decade in which camp moved from the margins and subcultures into the mainstream.

CfP: edited collection on “Camp TV”. Deadline: Aug 15, 2019.

Kerr Castle

First things first: what is comfort TV?

Well, the etymology of comfort presents a useful starting point. Comfort is about consolation, support and giving strength. Applied to television, comfort refers to those programmes or viewing routines that help to strengthen the position and resilience of the viewer in daily life.

CST Online

LETTER FROM AMERICA

LETTER FROM AMERICA

SKY EXCLUSIVITY? WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

CST Online Relaunch