Month: September 2014
Teaching Irony and The Office: A Reception Studies Approach
Last academic year, serving as a 2013-2014 HASTAC scholar, I began work on The Pedagogy Project (forthcoming). The HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences, Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) community asked fellow scholars to submit sample lesson plans or pedagogical strategies. I submitted a lesson that I use when I teach Twin Peaks, and I helped compile and
An Ambivalent “Fat Girl”: Weight Loss and Identity Categories that Don’t Quite “Fit”
We are finally exiting beach season, which fortunately means that celebrities looking hot or not-so-hot in bikinis will stop being news-worthy events. Unfortunately, who lost the baby weight, who gained ten pounds since the last Emmys, and who wore it best are year-round concerns. This fixation on celebrity fitness produces an interest in the infamous
The House Wife and The Good Wife
In a compelling and rich analysis of serial melodrama, Jason Mittell offers up a reading of the series in his new book on complex television. He claims that the series “complicates its gendered appeals through innovative genre mixing and storytelling strategies” (¶ 41). By this, he means that the show offers up stereotypically masculine and
#WhyINeedFeminism
#WhyINeedFeminism – Staci Stutsman (5 September 2014) Recently, the anti-feminist movement has gained increased visibility thanks to the popularity of the tumblr #WomenAgainstFeminism. Women have submitted photographs of themselves holding up signs that list all of the reasons that they don’t need feminism. These reasons range from “because no one should be shamed for being