Aca-Media

Chris has relearned how to sleep, and she’s back behind the Aca-Media mic. She and Michael bring you interviews with Alfred Martin and Michael Newman, members of the SCMS Katherine Singer Kovács Essay and Book Award committees respectively, as well as the inspiring backstory of the awards’ namesake. Then we head back in time to just before the 2014 SCMS conference, when we told you all about things to do in Seattle. Luckily, not that much has changed in the Emerald City since then, and Perry Como’s “Seattle” is still a killer earworm, so we’ve included the whole segment again on the eve of the 2019 SCMS conference. If you’re headed to Seattle, you’ll definitely want to listen to this one on your trip there to maximize the recommendations.

Aca-Media is back to ring in 2019! Join our hosts Michael Kackman and guest host Stephanie Brown as they explore what it means to build and nurture communities inside and outside academia. We first talk with scholar/filmmaker/activist/all-around legend B. Ruby Rich from UC-Santa Cruz about her illustrious career, representation and diversity in academia and industry, Film Quarterly and cross-cultural exchange, and the “dignity of the image” in a global context. We then hear from Derek Kompare on his experience as chair of the SMU Meadows Film and Media Arts department. We delve into the administrative, social, and even emotional aspects of this rewarding and critical role, providing some guidance on how to make it a success.

As fall semesters kick off, we’re back with the second part of Producer Stephanie Brown’s two-part series on job searching in this precarious academic job market! Stephanie takes us back into a multi-layered conversation with the job seekers, adjuncts, and search-committee members from the last episode as well as some new faces. After a montage of concrete advice for job seekers and search-committee members to make the process more bearable, our guests share their experiences with alternative career paths, open access publishing, and much more. Stayed tuned until the end for a happy ending!

Share this one with everyone you know who is on the academic job market! We present the first of a two-part series on job searches, with advice and empathy from those who are currently contending with the vagaries of the market. Producer Stephanie Brown talks with job seekers, adjuncts, and search-committee members in order to gain insight into the often frustrating process of gaining academic employment. Commiseration is provided! Then Christine Becker talks with Felan Parker about his new CJ article on Roger Ebert and the wars over video games as "art," including their relevance for more recent cultural struggles over games and gamers.

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In our final episode of 2017, we feature an interview with outgoing Cinema Journal editor Will Brooker addressing the past and future of the Society for Cinema Studies’ journal. In addition, we feature an interview with Maggie Hennefeld on her work as co-chair of the Comedy and Humor Studies Scholarly Interest Group (SIG) and her upcoming book Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes.

In this episode of Aca-Media, we feature Amanda Lotz discussing her recent work on internet-distributed television and her Media Business Matters podcast. In addition, Brandon Arroyo presents excerpts of his Porno Cultures Podcast including interviews with Peter Alilunas on his entry into the field and an audio tour of the Little Theater in Newark, New Jersey with Whitney Strub.