It’s the film studies textbook you’ve been waiting for: Cinema is a Cat, which teaches film theory, language, and history using examples of cats in movies. Frank Mondelli talks with author Daisuke Miyao about the book, its inspiration, some of his favorite movie cats, and what dogs might have to say about all this.

In this episode, we conduct an “exit interview” with the outgoing president of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Paula Massood, who discusses the downs and ups of her time leading the Society during a global pandemic. Before and after the interview, Chris and Michael discuss the decision to move the 2022 SCMS conference online. It might feel like Groundhog Day, but we’ve got you, babe.

The seventh episode of “Presenting the Past” features Jean Walkinshaw, an award-winning documentarian and producer in the Pacific Northwest for over 50 years. In 2021, Walkinshaw contributed 44 public television documentaries and full interviews conducted for the documentaries to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB). The Jean Walkinshaw Collection accessible online covers much of Walkinshaw’s lengthy career spanning the years 1972-2008. Her documentaries focused primarily on notable artists, writers, and social, cultural and ecological themes of the Pacific Northwest region.

In this episode, Jean guides listeners through her career and filmmaking process, highlighting titles in her collection available in the AAPB.

The sixth episode of our special series "Presenting the Past," a collaboration between The American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Aca-Media, features Bill Siemering, a radio innovator and advocate, who was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in October 2021.

As a founding member of the NPR Board of Directors, Siemering wrote NPR's original mission and goals, and as NPR’s first director of programming, led the development of All Things Considered. Siemering developed Fresh Air with Terry Gross at WHYY in Philadelphia, managed WBFO in Buffalo, NY, and KCCM in Moorhead, MN, was the executive producer of the documentary series Sound Print, worked with the Open Society Foundation, focusing on Eastern Europe, Africa and Mongolia, and founded Developing Radio Partners to enrich the programming of local stations in Africa.

In this discussion, he reflects on the influences that helped shape his ideas and approaches to public radio programming throughout his career.

Highlighted in this program are clips from Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), including the inaugural FM broadcast in 1947, the Peabody Award winning series Afield with Ranger Mac, and the write-in radio program Dear Sirs. Be sure to also listen to “Strasburg, North Dakota” (1977) from Minnesota Public Radio. Co-produced by Siemering, it highlights his interest in incorporating soundscapes and compelling storytelling into radio programming.

This discussion is led by Neil Verma, assistant professor of sound studies in Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University, and a member of the AAPB Scholar Advisory Committee.

Credits:

Hosted by Neil Verma

Recorded and edited by Christine Becker

Produced by Ryn Marchese

Post-production and theme music by Todd Thompson

What happens when communication scholars confront professional liars? The answer is weirder than you might think. In this episode, we talk with Drew Zolides, who organized a silent protest of right-wing propagandist Lara Logan when she spoke at his university and ended up getting pulled into her performance in unexpected ways.

The collaboration between Aca-Media and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting continues with episode 5 of our special series “Presenting the Past: Exploring the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.” This is Part 2 of our two-part episode on Latino Empowerment through Latino Broadcasting.

The fifth episode of “Presenting the Past” explores the history of Spanish language public radio and television programming and its roots in community activism. The discussion features activists Hugo Morales, Executive Director and co-founder of Radio Bilingüe Inc., and Jesús Treviño, television director, author and creator of Latinopia.com, along with scholars Dolores Inés Casillas, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Director of the Chicano Studies Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Gabriela Rivera Marín, a doctoral student at the University of Florida studying Hispanic Linguistics and co-curator of the AAPB Latino Empowerment through Latino Public Broadcasting exhibit.

To visit the exhibit on the AAPB website, go to https://americanarchive.org/exhibits/latino-empowerment.

The collaboration between Aca-Media and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting continues with episode 5 of our special series “Presenting the Past: Exploring the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.” This is Part 1 of our two-part episode on Latino Empowerment through Latino Broadcasting.

The fifth episode of “Presenting the Past” explores the history of Spanish language public radio and television programming and its roots in community activism. The discussion features activists Hugo Morales, Executive Director and co-founder of Radio Bilingüe Inc., and Jesús Treviño, television director, author and creator of Latinopia.com, along with scholars Dolores Inés Casillas, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Director of the Chicano Studies Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Gabriela Rivera Marín, a doctoral student at the University of Florida studying Hispanic Linguistics and co-curator of the AAPB Latino Empowerment through Latino Public Broadcasting exhibit.

To visit the exhibit on the AAPB website, go to https://americanarchive.org/exhibits/latino-empowerment.

We’re back with a great bleeping episode! First, we interview Dmitri Latsis, head of SCMS’s Scholarly Interest Group Coordinating Committee about the role of SIGs within the Society. Then we take on Rolling Stone’s list of “100 Best Sitcoms of All Time” with an all-star roundtable of comedy scholars that is even more entertaining than the sitcoms they are talking about. And Chris and Michael banter about pretty much every bleeping thing you can think of.

This episode of “Presenting the Past” features Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President John F. Kennedy from 1961 until 1963. Minow would become a key figure in the establishment of public broadcasting in the U.S., and in this conversation, he reflects on his early vision for public service television.

Highlighted in this program are clips from the AAPB collection, including Minow’s famed “vast wasteland” speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961, his lesser known address to the same organization the following year, as well as a panel discussion with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the role of television in society.

Joining the discussion is Mr. Minow’s daughter, Mary Minow, Presidential Appointee to the National Museum and Library Services Board at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and current member of the AAPB Executive Advisory Council.

Since May 2020, Aca-Media has been bringing you a special series, “Talking Television a Time of Crisis,” organized by Hunter Hargraves, Lynne Joyrich, and Brandy Monk-Payton and featuring dozens of prominent academics and practitioners. These sixteen episodes over two seasons have helped us understand the relationship of TV Studies to, first, the COVID-19 pandemic, and then, following the murder of George Floyd, the struggle for racial justice in the context of multiple crises of political legitimacy, climate emergency, and more. In this finale, the organizers reflect on the series as a whole and offer their take-aways from this extraordinary series of podcasts.