How do you like it so far?

Most of us probably aren’t making an effort to hang out in public spaces lately, much less seeing them as playful – quite the opposite! But with a hopeful eye to the future, this week we’re joined by artist Reanne Estrada, Creative Director of Public Matters, a Los Angeles-based creative studio for civic engagement, and Benjamin Stokes, Assistant Professor at American University and Director of The Playful City Lab, to discuss the potential for – and benefits of – play in our public spaces. Reanne and Benjamin share thoughts on how we can use what we’ve experienced during this pandemic to reclaim and define new priorities for our shared public spaces. They consider ways we can expand equity in terms of access to public space and to opportunities for play in everyday life. They each identify ways communities can build the collective sense of power needed to make changes. We think about the affordances of play as a tactic for driving civic engagement, and acknowledge the ways play is already baked into our communities and the ways it has the potential to drive equity, even as it is not always available equitably.

Visit the episode page for the full transcript of this conversation!

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:

Writer, Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal winner Isabel Wilkerson

Washington, DC:
Push for statehood

Black Lives Matter Plaza (and tensions between DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and President Trump)
Push to Diversify Public Monuments
A Right to the City DC exhibition highlighting the successes of civic activism
Some of the history of DC’s segregated baseball leagues

Some of Benjamin’s earlier research on online volunteering

Public Matters projects in LA:
University Park Slow Jams - traffic safety & mobility justice
Market Makeovers - fruits & veggies parade costumes, east LA veggie zombies
The Chicharrón Chronicles - Historic Filipinotown walking tours focusing on food, language and labor, with Gustavo Arellano

Community-based games for civic engagement:
Commons - NYC - winner, Real-World Game for Change Challenge 2011
Macon Money - Macon, GA
The Participation Game - Helsinki, Finland

Photo: V-J Day in Times Square

Model Cities program in the US - role play for city officials - builds empathy for cause and effect systems

Eric Gordon - Meaningful Inefficiencies

Henry was referring to the tiles featuring kids’ artwork at Davis Square MBTA station

Reading up on historical town pageants

AOC's GOTV Twitch stream

For more thoughts on rituals, check out our episode with USC Dean of Religious Life Varun Soni

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected].

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
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Settle in for an extra-spooky Halloween episode! We’re joined by Michael Monello, one of the creators of The Blair Witch Project, Co-founder and Creative Director of Campfire Media and co-producer of the Video Palace podcast for Shudder, and Qiana Whitted, a professor English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina and author of EC Comics: Race, Shock and Social Protest, which won the 2020 Eisner Award for best academic/scholarly work. Together, they discuss horror in film, radio/podcast, comics, novels, television, and every-day life, helping to map the genre for our listeners. They start with reflections on their own early exposure to the genre. Whitted discusses the way EC comics introduced racism as a form of horror across their suspense and shock oriented titles and she situates these stories within the political debates that followed from Frederic Wertham’s attacks on horror and crime comics and the ways these paved the way for the comics code. Monello traces the ways Video Palace took inspiration from radio horror series in the ways it uses sound to draw the listener in with a mixture of fascination and dread. Along the way, they reflect on how horror has been a site for social transgression and artistic experimentation, and consider the ways international horror films can break the formulas and take us out of a familiar space. And they end with speculations about what forms of horror will allow us to rethink our society in the wake of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter.

Full Transcript will be available soon on our website at https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/episode-74-horror-social-change-and-experimentation-with-michael-monello-and-qiana-whitted/

Here’s your horror watch/read/listen list from this episode (you may want to leave the lights on!):

Horror in Cinema
Gremlins
Ghoulies
Nightmare on Elm Street
Universal Monsters
Midsommar
The Blair Witch Project
Media Horror
George Romero
Creepshow
UPA – “The Tell Tale Heart" (animated)
German Expressionism – from Germany to American horror film
Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
David Lynch – Blue Velvet
Dawn of the Dead (extended Mall Hours version)
Tod Browning – Freaks
Robin Woods
Audition (Japan)
Terrified (Argentina)
Carrie (multiple snap endings)
John Waters (outsider culture)
Jordan Peele – Get Out (alternate ending) ; Us
Host
Producer Val Lewton
A Quiet Place
Documentary: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror

Horror in Comics
EC Comics: Race, Shock and Social Protest
Swamp Thing
Tales from the Crypt
EC comics – William Gaines,  Al Feldstein
Vault of Terror
Haunt of Fear
Frederic Wertham and Moral Panic around Horror and Crime Comics
Comics Code
“The Whipping”
EC Comics illustrator Wally Wood
Bernie Krigstein – “Master Race” ; Impact
EC Shock Suspense Stories – “The Patriot” ; “You, Murderer” (adaptation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)

Horror Fandom
60s Monster Culture
Famous Monsters of Filmland – Forest J. Ackerman
Horror fanzines
Urban legends

Horror in Literature
Stephen King – IT ; Pet Semetery
Anne Rice
O. Henry
Video Palace: In Search of the Eyeless Man
H.P. Lovecraft – Weird Tales
Edgar Allen Poe – “The Masque of the Red Death”

Horror in Sound Media
Video Palace
Walt Disney’s Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House
Lights Out
Inner Sanctum 
Arch Oboler 
Quiet Please – “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
The Cramps – Bad Music for Bad People
CBGB punk culture
Passenger List podcast

Horror in Television 
Sid and Marty Krofft – Land of the Lost
Tales from the Crypt
Twilight Zone
Lovecraft Country

Interested in the parallels to comedy and improv Colin mentioned? Check out our earlier episode with Caty Borum Chatoo from American University and the Yes, And...Laughter Lab

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Featuring Walt Disney’s Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House https://youtu.be/H6rQyRxLBrY

And Bridge Of Death (From “Chernobyl” TV Series Soundtrack) · Hildur Guðnadóttir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM_HhU_CV44

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We’re joined by Crystal Echo Hawk, founder and CEO of IllumiNative, a research-driven initiative created and led by Natives that is challenging negative narratives and supporting accurate and authentic portrayals of Native communities in pop culture. IllumiNative builds on Echo Hawk’s massive research project, Reclaiming Native Truth, which laid bare the shocking reality that nearly 80% of Americans (broadly defined) know little to nothing about Native peoples or aren’t even sure they even still exist, and the real-life consequences this “vanishing” narrative continues to have on Native populations. Fortunately, amid the trial and tragedy of 2020 (including the disproportionate impact of COVID on the Navajo Nation), there have been remarkable gains for Native peoples, from the ongoing power rooted in the protests at Standing Rock to the shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Washington Football Team name change. We see media promise in the first Indigenous Filmmakers Lounge at Sundance in January to Peabody Award-winning Molly of Denali and a host of upcoming shows on various networks, Crystal is cautiously optimistic about the increasing visibility of Native Americans.

Visit the episode page for the full transcript of this conversation!

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:

See full panel from the January 2020 Indigenous filmmakers lounge at Sundance
More about the Sundance Indigenous Program (deadline for upcoming Merata Mita Fellowship program is 10/26/20)
June 2020 update from the Sundance Indigenous Program
More about Bird Runningwater, Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program

Delay of CARES Act funds to Native American tribes
Further delays to Alaska natives
Report on federal COVID-19 response in Indian Country
History of Native American vulnerability to pandemics

A Brief History of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis
Local response of AIM in the wake of George Floyd protests
History of AIM's American Indian Patrol responding to police brutality
Long history of native organizing against police misconduct in Minneapolis
2011 killing of a Native American man by Derek Chauvin

NDN Collective Calls for Closure of Mount Rushmore and for the Black Hills to be Returned to the Lakota
Why McGirt v. Oklahoma was a landmark decision for Native-treaty-rights

National Congress of American Indians’ Long Standing Opposition to Harmful "Indian" Sports Mascots
Key activists: Suzan Shown Harjo, Amanda Blackhorse

Effectiveness of the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock in North Dakota
These Are the Defiant "Water Protectors" of Standing Rock

“Invisibility is the modern form of racism against Native Americans”
Reclaiming Native Truth project
Stephanie Fryberg’s research on The Psychological Consequences of American Indian Mascots
Sarah Shear, Re/presentations of Indigenous Peoples in K–12 U.S. History Standards
List of Federally-Recognized Native Tribes in CA

IllumiNative website
Indigenous Futures Project
Change the Name campaign
Indigenous Peoples' Day 2020 Toolkit & Home-Educational Resources
IllumiNative’s On-Air podcast

Native Americans currently serving in US Congress:
Tom Cole (OK-04)
Markwayne Mullin (OK-02)
Deb Haaland (NM-01)
Sharice Davids (KS-03)

Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo

Molly of Denali (PBS Kids)
Creative Producer Princess Johnson on the development of the story
Actress Sovereign Bill
Grandpa’s Drum episode
Peabody Award; 2019 Peabody Awards also included winner The Refuge and nominee Warrior Women

Marvel Comics:
Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas collaboration on new Werewolf By Night
Native American Heritage Month (with images!)
Marvel’s Voices initiative
Other graphic novels and comics featuring Native American heritage

Television:
Rutherford Falls – Sierra Teller Ornelas (Peacock)
Reservation Dogs Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi (FX)

Endeavor Content development deal with producer Heather Rae

Visit us at howdoyoulikeitsofar.org or share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected].

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
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Share your via email at [email protected].

If you like religion, sports or popular culture, this episode is for you, dear listener… and if you think you’re not interested in them, it is even more definitely for you! We are joined by Varun Soni, USC’s Dean of Religious Life and the first Hindu to serve as the chief spiritual officer of an American university. We traverse pandemic-driven transitions in higher education, acknowledging potentially lasting harms to students and others. We back out to the way the pandemic challenges our human need to look ahead, noting that we have not yet dealt with the present and wondering what our new stories of the future will be. That takes us to popular culture, which confronts polarization and isolation, giving us unique frameworks to talk in a way we can’t elsewhere. The conversation launches into an exploration of sports as religion and the activist role of sports – especially the WNBA and NBA – in this period of change. From the connection between fandom and religion, we end with powerful insights on Bob Marley as musician… and prophet. 

Varun's Essay: How Universities Can Think About Community-Building Through the Coronavirus Pandemic
Loneliness Report and related resources
USC Mindfulness classes

COVID as an event is responsible for the 4th largest number of casualties in American history

Varun hosts the Religion of Sports Podcast
Catherine Albanese offers a definition of religion in America, Religions, and Religion

Derrick Bell: Interest-Convergence is a principle of critical race theory

Recent social activism in the NBA:
How the NBA Is Quietly Becoming the Most Progressive Pro-Sports League in America
NBA "Players' Strike" as a new form of athlete activism
NBA players "sit out" the playoffs

Longer history of activism in the WNBA:
WNBA players urge 'Vote Warnock' against Senator Kelly Loeffler
How The WNBA Paved The Way For The NBA Strike : Code Switch
The WNBA made the NBA strike possible.
Perspective | Taking a stand isn’t new for the WNBA. It’s a way of life.
The One Name the W.N.B.A. Won’t Say

Selected activists in Sports:
Bill Russell
Muhammad Ali
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
LeBron James
Megan Rapinoe
Colin Kaepernick

Religious services rescheduling around AYSO soccer

Famous image of MLK kneeling in prayer
Tomahawk chop

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

Ep 18: Diane Winston on religion and the entertainment media
Origin of the word “fandom”
Varun's Essay: How the LA Clippers Made Me a Better Hindu

Human stories about sports:
ESPN: 30 for 30
HBO: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel

Varun’s Essay: What We Can Learn From Bob Marley's Spiritual Legacy
Varun's book: Natural Mystics
Bob Marley: How He Changed the World
Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan
Basics of Rastafari

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Is This Love?” by Bob Marley and the Wailers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHekNnySAfM

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This week, from deep in the San Fernando Valley, we’re joined by filmmaker Set Hernandez Rongkilyo. A passionate storyteller from a young age, Set’s early love of Anime and desire to be an animator transitioned into becoming a passionate storyteller, through documentary film and now other forms as well. Set discusses their resistance to approaching documentary subjects from a supposedly neutral perspective, as well as the tropes of tragedy porn and binary narratives of the undocumented immigrant experience, and highlights some key influences and inspirations for the way they’ve worked differently in their film COVER/AGE and continue to do so with work-in-progress Unseen. They also detail their work with the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, striving to increase representation behind as well as in front of the camera, and in the audience, leaving us with the beautiful thought that storytelling is not just an act of imagination, but also an act of remembering.

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” ― Assata Shakur, from Assata: An Autobiography

The move to decolonize documentary
The complicated story of Nanook of the North
Episode 70: with Sue Ding
Film: Jaddoland

Disclosure – documentary by Sam Feder

The North Star – Frederick Douglas newspaper
Black Panther Newspaper

COVER/AGE film

Favianna Rodriquez - Center for Cultural Power
Sasha Costanza-Chock: Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets
By Any Media Necessary - DREAMing Citizenship
Julio Selgado and Jesús Iñiguez: Dreamers Adrift - Undocumented and Awkward
Tam Tran films:  Lost and Found; Seattle Underground Railroad
Undocumedia Nancy Meza
The Undeportables sketch comedy
Miko Revereza experimental documentary
Alan Pelaez Lopez spoken word/visual artist

Undocumented Filmmakers Collective
Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s film 12 years in the making
Getting Real – Int'l Doc Assn conference
Firelight Media
Netflix series: Living Undocumented
Rahi Hasan, UFC co-founder
UFC Panel at Black Star Film Festival

Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

India’s Grassroots Comics
Stacy Smith’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative research
Episode 25: Why do we need more critics of color? (with Jeff Yang & Mauricio Mota)
Episode 26: Reimagining the ecology of cultural criticism (with Elizabeth Mendez Berry & Carolina A. Miranda)
Episode 27: Critics of color: The added value of subtleties (with Eric Deggans)

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet 
https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X 
https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: 
https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: 
https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library 
https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Share your via email at [email protected].

the Furious, and in between, explores issues of documentary filmmaking, emerging media, and Asian-American identity. The episode features Sue Ding...

We begin our discussion of Ding’s recent film, The Claudia Kishi Club, by exploring how and why the character of Claudia from The Babysitters Club franchise spoke to a generation of Asian-American youth and inspired many to enter the arts, helping to pave the way for more recent representations of Asian-American characters in YA media and beyond. We consider what it means that a new generation of youth are coming of age in a world of more diverse and inclusive representations. Ding tells us about efforts by BIPOC documentary artists to form networks for mutual support and collaboration that are responding to their historic exclusion. Discussing her role programming emerging media for the Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival, Ding describes how Covid-19 and Zoom are changing what we mean by emerging media as well as why augmented reality, mixed reality, and other emerging forms offer potential to tell new kinds of stories. We close with some of her reflections on the importance of The Fast and the Furious franchise and its evolving representations of race and gender.  

Baby Sitter’s Club phenomenon

Claudia Kishi

Claudia and Asian American women

Which Baby-Sitters Club character are you?

Velvet Underground

The Claudia Kishi Club includes interviews with:

• Naia Cucukov
• Gale Galligan
• Sarah Kuhn
• CB Lee
• Yumi Sakugawa
• Phil Yu
  They Call Us Bruce episode on Claudia Kishi

Baby-Sitters Club author Ann Martin

The Baby-Sitters Club on Netflix

Some other current YA TV we mentioned:
Pen15
Sex Education
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Never Have I Ever

Asian characters in YA fiction
Bechdel Test
Manzanar National Historic Site
Sue’s sound installation for Manzanar
Grandmother Mimi

Mulan controversy
IndieWire – Documentary films have a race problem
Brown Girls Doc Mafia
Asian American Documentary Network

Emerging Media Program – Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
Film festivals go virtual

VR for a mass audience:
The Void
Star Wars VR
VR porn
For more discussion on VR, check out Episode 10: Nonny De La Peña on Ready Player One and the ethics and aesthetics of virtual reality

The Fast and the Furious:
Box office success
Global fan base
Wesley Morris on Race in The Fast and the Furious franchise
The Rock – Samoan background in Hobbes and Shaw
Vin Diesel as racially ambiguous

Sue’s episode of KCET’s Artbound: Light & Space

 

George Takei:
The Terror
They Called Us Enemy

Stacy Smith Annenberg Inclusion Initiative research

Lovecraft Country

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

Music:

“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.

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This week, we offer the second of an ongoing series of episodes focused on fandom and fandom studies. Last week, we explored fandom’s relationship with the creative industries. This week, we are looking at fan-based activism.

The episode features Janae Phillips, Director of Leadership and Education for the Harry Potter Alliance, who oversees the Granger Leadership Academy and the Fandom Forward study guides project, among other things. Shawn Taylor is one of the founders of Nerds of Color and a founding organizer of the Black Comix Arts Festival, a festival that highlights and promotes artists on the margins of the mainstream comic book industry. Shawn recently published a white paper, We The Fans: How Our Powers Can Change the World, as a Senior Fellow for the Pop Culture Collaborative. 

We begin our discussion by trying to understand what we mean by fan activism and why fandom has emerged as an important driver of movements for social change. We consider why fandom might not only enable young people to enter the political process but also how fan activism becomes more sustainable because of the elements of joy, empathy, and passion it brings with it. We consider the darker sides of fan activism, including links between “toxic fandom” and the alt-right, but we also consider how fandom has become a site for anti-racism work. We share our experiences at the Granger Leadership Program this summer as an example of how the Harry Potter Alliance is helping to train young activists and the Granger/Lovegood campaign as a specific effort with the goal of registering and informing potential young voters. Finally, Shawn closes us out with some reflections on Afro-futurism as a philosophy and model for social action and the risks that it has become too cool, too fast.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Karan Nevatia – a remarkable young producer, fan, activist, and professional.

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper: 

Here are some articles Henry has written about the Harry Potter Alliance’s model for social change and its Not in Harry’s Name Campaign. Henry’s research group had more to say about the Harry Potter Alliance in their book, By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism. 

This video about the Not in Harry’s Name campaign illustrates how the HPA builds on the infrastructure fandom provides.

HPA’s Hunger Games Campaign

More of HPA’s Fandom Forward Resources:

Star Wars

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Black Panther

Welcome to Night Vale

Pokemon

Doctor Who

Fandom Jargon

What is a Blerd?

Asian-American fans 

Nerds of Color: Ghost in the Shell controversy

Racebending 

Star Trek

E.E. “Doc” Smith – Lensmen Novels

The Book of Three, Prydain, The Horned King

Raiders of the Lost Ark – mythology

Save Our Show campaigns

What Steven Universe did for queer kids

Worldbuilding in Role-Playing Games

Translating fandom skills to digital organizing; fandom as a way to make activism sustainable:

Activist joy

The Handmaid’s Tale

Princess Leia at Women’s March

Hong Kong students and Les Miserables

Three finger salute in Thailand

Trump and Popular Culture

TiKTok  Protest

What’s different about youth activism

Exclusive vs. Inclusive Fandoms:

Comicsgate

Gamergate

Spider-Man 

Star Wars - Kelly Marie Tran

Transformative fandom/affirmational fandom

Yes And

Fandom Hierarchies and Ownership

Cross the Streams – Ghostbusters

Hermoine Granger - SPEW

Granger Leadership Academy

“the TERF who shall not be named”

Steven Universe and HPA

Granger/Lovegood 2020 "campaign"

Luna Lovegood

Afrofuturism

Alondra Nelson on Afrofuturism

Mark Dery on Afrofuturism

Shawn Taylor on Our Opinions are Correct - the history of Afrofuturism

Chadwick Boseman 

Mutabaruka

Shawn Taylor's Essay on Black Panther

Steven Barnes on Black Panther 

Afro-speculative

Buckminster Fuller

Astroblackness

Afrifutrism

More thoughts on "the White CIA guy" in Black Panther - Eve Ewing on Intercepted

Shawn’s film Afrofuturist recommendation: Destination Planet Negro

History of Fictional characters running for president:

Pogo, “I Go Pogo”

Pat Paulson

Archie Bunker

Bart Simpson

Some basics on K-pop fan activism

John Lewis “good trouble”

K-pop fans’ sabotage of Tulsa Trump rally

Check out these related past episodes:

Episode 14: Hye Jin Lee and Cristina Visperas on the Global Fandom for K-pop

Episode 22: On Conspiracy Theories, with Benjamen Walker and Wu Ming

Episode 66: The Legacy of Octavia E. Butler with Damian E. Duffy, John Jennings, and Shelley Streeby

Episode 40: Exploring the Dark Fantastic with Ebony Thomas

Episode 25: Why Do We Need More Critics of Color? with Jeff Yang & Mauricio Mota

Episode 26: Reimagining the ecology of cultural criticism: Elizabeth Mendez Berry and Carolina A. Miranda

Episode 27: Critics of color: The added value of subtleties, with Eric Deggans

Episode 5: Black Panther, comics and the history of Marvel

Episode 6: Define American’s Julian Gomez on Black Panther and empowering fan activism

Episode 8: Manouchka Labouba on Black Panther and African cinema today

Episode 9: Nicholas J. Cull on Black Panther and the politics of popular culture

Hear Karan Nevatia talking on NPR about his signature song, “No Scrubs” by TLC

Donate to the Harry Potter Alliance in memory of Karan Nevatia.

If you or someone you know needs someone to lean on for emotional support, call the Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. You can also chat them online.

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

Music:

“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X. 

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet

Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental

Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship

Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“No Scrubs” by TLC

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Share your via email at [email protected].

Welcome back to How Do You Like It So Far?, listeners! Today, we’re bringing you a time capsule of an episode: We recorded today’s conversation back in April, but it’s still as relevant as ever. Just don’t mind us thinking the coronavirus pandemic will be over in a couple of weeks. 

The episode features Suzanne Scott, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Austin and author of Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. She is also the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, an anthology that brings together an international and interdisciplinary collection of nearly 60 established scholars to reflect on the state of the field and to point to new directions in fan studies research. Also on the episode is Susan Kresnicka, a cultural and business anthropologist and president and founder of cultural research firm Kresnicka Research and Insights (see their Human Needs Model whitepaper). Susan holds an M.A. in social anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin, sits on the professional advisory board for UCLA’s Master of Social Science program, and regularly speaks publicly on fandom, gender, morality, identity, and the value of anthropology in business. In the episode, Susan and Suzanne lead us through a discussion of how we define the word “fan” and who it applies to. Then, we discuss the relationship between fandom and industry: How do industry choices shape whose voices matter in fandom? How do companies strike the balance between capitalism and fan culture? Should fans be entitled to have a voice in new iterations of their favorite texts? Other topics Susan and Suzanne cover are the differences and similarities between sports fandom and entertainment fandom, how toxic fans and trolls affect fandom, and how fandom’s relationship to the industry is shifting as a result of COVID-19.   

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper: 

Susan’s yearlong study on fandom: The Power of Fandom

Degrees of Fandom: Authenticity and Hierarchy

Suzanne’s study on repackaging fan culture and commercialization

Covid-19 and Fandom

Fandoms and virtual engagement in a time of social distancing

Exploring Fan Communities in Online Spaces

Instagram #PassTheBrush challenge

Disney+ “May the 4th” Tweets

Disney Terms of Use

“Fanocracy” and fandom of brands like Trader Joe’s, Southwest Airlines, etc.

“Joker” Fan Art contest

“A Portrait of the Auteur as Fanboy”

Chapter 5 of Suzanne’s book (on Fan Auteurs)

The Psychology of Sports Fandom

The beginning of the fan movement: brief history of the first fandoms

Matinee girls as the first fans

The Disjuncture between Sport Studies' and Pop Culture Studies' Perspectives on Fandom

African American acafandom and other strangers: New genealogies of fan studies

Esports and the future of fandom

“Creators of popular media are becoming increasingly wary of their fans. That’s a problem for everyone.”

Balance of Power Between Media and the Audience

From Sonic the Hedgehog to Star Wars, are fans too entitled?

Sonic and the costs of fan anger

What is Fan Service?

Sonic Movie Redesign VFX Studio Shuts Down After ‘Extreme Hours’ to Wrap it Up

Toxic fandom: “When Fandom is the Problem” 

On toxic fan practices: A round-table

Rian Johnson’s death threats after “The Last Jedi”

Archive of Our Own (fanfiction platform)

“How Do You Like It So Far?” Episode 16: Emily Andras, Maureen Ryan, and Louisa Stein Discuss Fans, Producers, and Queer Baiting

Share your thoughts via Twitter with  Henry, Colin  and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

Music: “In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.

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In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet

Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental

Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship

Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
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Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper: 

Scholarship on Online Learning:

PACE: What California’s Leaders Must Do Next to Advance Student Learning During COVID-19

Ed Week: The Disparities in Remote Learning Under Coronavirus (early in the pandemic, but similar trends)

McKinsey: COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime

Common Sense Media: Closing the K–12 Digital Divide in the Age of Distance Learning

Ed Trust: From Crisis to Opportunity: Recovering California’s Commitment to Equity

"On The Media" podcast episode about higher education, remote learning and political conventions 

Henry’s MIT Conference: We Wired the Classroom, Now What?

MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Initiative

Henry’s blog conversation on screen time: 

Sangita Shresthova and Susan Kresnicka

Civic Imagination Toolkit 

Civic Media Fellowship Program

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 59: On Communities with Colin and Henry

2020 Movies Available Online: 

Palm Springs

Da 5 Bloods

The Old Guard

First Cow

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 58: Open TV with A.J. Christian

ASMR on Twitch

Sequester (game)

Henry’s article on Dziga Vertov

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 1: Star Wars Cluster — Ahmed Best

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 34: Power and Pleasure of Podcasting (part three): Amber J. Phillips & Chenjerai Kumanyika on podcasting as a vehicle for counterhistory

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s fiery Republican National Convention speech

Sen. Amy Klobuchar's Full Speech At The 2020 DNC

Barack Obama’s Full Speech At The 2020 DNC

Michelle Obama Complete Remarks at 2020 Democratic National Convention

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at 2020 DNC

Joe Biden Acceptance Speech at 2020 Democratic National Convention

President Donald Trump Full Acceptance Speech at 2020 Republican National Convention

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Full Speech At The 2020 DNC

Sen. Bernie Sanders' Full Speech At The 2020 DNC

Gavin Newsom’s full speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s full speech at the 2020 DNC (“kitchens like this across America”)

Full Democratic roll call from Delegates across America

RNC delegates conduct roll call vote in person

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 7: March for Our Lives and the Census

2020 Census Adjustments due to COVID-19

Hansi Lo Wang’s Twitter feed (leading source of Census news)

LA Times Editorial on Decennial Census

How Do You Like It So Far? Episode 45: “Radicalized” with Cory Doctorow 

Cory Doctorow’s “Radicalized”

Cory Doctorow’s “Masque of Red Death”

The Ezra Klein Show: An inspiring conversation about democracy with Danielle Allen

Henry’s recommendations:

HBO's Perry Mason

Showtime’s Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

HBO’s Watchmen

Chadwick Boseman films:

Black Panther

42

Marshall

Get on Up

HDYLISF? Episodes on Black Panther:

Episode 5: Black Panther, comics and the history of Marvel

Episode 6: Define American’s Julian Gomez on Black Panther and empowering fan activism

Episode 8: Manouchka Labouba on Black Panther and African cinema today

Episode 9: Nicholas J. Cull on Black Panther and the politics of popular culture

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]!

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Share your via email at [email protected].

See full show notes on our website: https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/episode-66-the-legacy-of-octavia-e-butler/

This week (tears our FINAL week), we continue our series on how science fiction thinks about disaster, especially in our new normal surrounding COVID-19 and the global pandemic.  We examine the work and legacy of Octavia E. Butler, an exceptional science fiction writer who wrote about gender and sexuality in bold new ways.  Henry and Colin welcome Shelley Streeby, Professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at UC - San Diego, Director of Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop, and author of The Future of Climate Change: World Making Through Science Fiction and Activism, John Jennings, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and a Collaborating Faculty Member in the Department of Creative Writing at UC - Riverside, and Damian Duffy, a Cartoonist, Scholar, Lecturer, Writer, Curator, Teacher, #1 New York Times Bestseller Graphic Novelist.  Jennings and Duffy are collaborating on a project to adapt Butler’s Kindred and Parable of the Sower to graphic novels.  Listen in as Streeby, Duffy, Jennings, Henry and Colin discuss the ways Parable of the Sower can make us think of our current moment involving the coronavirus.  They also discuss in great detail Butler’s legacy and the influence she has had on the next crop of African-American science fiction writers.  Also, looking for something to read while stuck inside?  Check out the notes section for a list of Octavia E. Butler’s work, along with other great African-American writers!

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