http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/645
is my chat with Eason Jordan and Ian Masters about television and politics
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
MY LATEST RANT
Available at http://thecommunicationspace.com/forum/topics/a-very-public-exit-interview
A Very Public Exit Interview with Toby Miller
Posted by JPG on December 15, 2010 at 11:11pm in Reading + Discussion
View Discussions
There are many labels one could put on Toby Miller; researcher, author, editor, teacher, mentor, friend, but for me, it’s in the capacity of editor and friend that I’ve known Toby for these last years. Toby is the Chair of the Department of Media & Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside, and for the past 11 years, he’s been the editor of Television & New Media, a landmark journal in the field. He’s best known for his research on media, sports, gender, labor, race and Hollywood. As Toby steps down as editor of TVNM at the end of this month, I decided to give him a very public exit interview.
This is what he had to say.
Toby, you founded TVNM and developed it into one of the leading journals in the field, the only journal that melded the established medium of television with up and coming new media. There was debate over whether TV was a dead medium 11 years ago; I guess that was wrong, how about now? Is TV still alive?
First of all, JP, I'd like to thank you very much for your kind introduction.
Regarding the first question, I have been talking about this in many countries and contexts over the last year and a half. My conclusion is that the world is full of middle-aged men announcing that their children don't watch television and hence the medium is dead. These middle-agers can be executives, academics, camera operators, or deans − but they all know the score because of what they think is going on in their household (which is still their castle, it seems). How deluded they are.
Children aged 6 to 14 in the US watch television at rates unprecedented for 20 years; 69% of them have sets in their bedrooms, versus 18% with internet access and 49% owning or subscribing to video games. Children between 2 and 11 devoted 17.34 hours to television a week in 2006, an increase on the previous year. The keenest US viewers are young girls. They quite like new technology, and adopt it at a frenetic pace − but ‘TV is king,’ in the words of the old song by The Tubes. People born between 1984 and 1990 choose TV over the internet and the cell phone for both entertainment and information. Half the internet sites that children aged between 6 and 11 visit, first attract their attention through advertising on television or in print. Right across the age spectrum, TV is the most influential advertising medium. Its influence is greater than during the pre-web period. In OECD nations, the number of cable and satellite networks increased from 816 in 2004 to 1,165 in 2006 − 43% growth. In 2007, 2.5 billion people averaged over three hours a day watching television worldwide. In the decade since deregulation opened up TV in Europe to more and more commercial stations and niche channels, viewing has consistently increased, across dozens of nations, by an average of 20 minutes per day. In the Global South, a television set is the principal consumer priority. India is seeing an explosion of TV channels and networks, and newspapers (one more instance where cybertarians are as inaccurate as they are solipsistic in saying papers are dying out). The vaunted Indian film industry has become part of the televisual warehouse, with big and little stars alike charging towards television, and TV actors brokering their way into cinema through mass exposure. For its part, China has gone from 50 sets in 1958 to over 500 million today. Consider Argentina, a country on the cusp of the Third and First Worlds in living standards. Only a third of households have computers, and half of those are connected to the internet. For young people, television is the preferred medium. It boasts the greatest credibility and use, by far − just 1 in 20 adolescents privilege the internet for social and political knowledge.
TV is changing, of course − the TV and the typewriter were models for the computer, which is now remodeling them in turn. But, sorry, this is the golden age of TV. If people want to see the sources for my remarks, they can take a peek at my 2010 book, Television Studies: The Basics (with Routledge).
In the 10th anniversary issue of the journal, your piece “Media Studies 3.0” progresses the vision of the field from ownership and means to consumption, leaving version 3.0 to be a transcendent version based on aesthetics and political economy, but ultimately media-centered. Have you seen this shift almost two years out from the piece? Is a diasporic, non-ethnocentric version upon us?
In the countries of the Global North dominated by English, it's the same old same old. The media will make us free. The media will enslave us. Games are good for you. Games are bad for you. Audiences are smart. Audiences are stupid. It's the same tired and tiring dialectic we've had for a millennium. Get over it, Anglo dudes and dudesses, whether you're nerdy guys with draggly beards and left-over acne, Italian-suit-wearing consultants on creative industries, pessimistic political economists in plaid, or feisty feminists favoring pumps. The interesting ideas are abounding, but not in your world. China, India, Brazil, and Mexico are the places I look to nowadays − Yuezhi Zhao and John Nguyet Erni in China; the Sarai collective in India, notably Ravi Sundaram and Ranjani Mazumdar; João Freire Filho and Paula Sibilia in Brazil; Néstor García Canclini and Rosalía Winocur in Mexico − they pose the most interesting questions in the most interesting ways.
A lot has changed from the beginning days of the journal. You’ve seen it grow in content and prestige. This year TVNM was accepted into the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and will get its first impact factor in two years. This is obviously a great thing for the journal, but what of it for academic publishing? Has impact factor run its course? Is academic publishing better for having such a metric?
I'm very concerned at the Taylorization of academic knowledge, especially in edgy areas. I find journals run by professional associations essentially unreadable − they are about paying obeisance to not-very-smart gatekeepers; they're actively anti-intellectual; and they're essentially sectarian rites of passage. Once those anal norms are applied to journals of tendency as well as to these sites of mediocrity, we're potentially all in trouble. That said, of course, I'm glad TVNM's readership will expand thanks to its recognition by the Index. But I can't tell you how annoyed I got when nobodies wrote to me and asked what our rejection rate was − excuse me, judge us on what we published, not what we didn't. Duh. This kind of evaluation will pass on and be regarded as a foible of its time. Let's encourage intellectuals, not careerists.
On any given day at least two of the top 10 most read articles in TVNM are about reality television. This shows a staying power in the genre and research in it. What do you think the next “reality TV” will be, not only for television, but for new media in general? What has staying power? Is “The Jersey Shore” worth watching?
All TV is wonderful and I know because I became an American on December 29, 2010. More seriously, reality TV is in because it's cheap. Again, I explain why at length in the book mentioned above. Sport is much more popular with audiences − just not with academics writing about television. It has stamina, as does drama − this is the golden age of US TV drama (forget those pitiful one-shot shows of the '50s, which are boring, racist, sexist, and slow-paced). Showtime and HBO use the money they get from working-class brown and black men paying to watch boxing to fund the white bourgeoisie's enjoyment of high-quality series.
Shifting gears here. You’ve made waves into the crisis of electronic-waste, studying the impact our used-up monitors; Blackberrys and iPods can have on the earth. How can active, competent citizenship and participatory culture bring this subject to the forefront to influence policy makers?
Thanks for raising this. Rick Maxwell and I have published some op-eds here and in Latin America plus half-a-dozen scholarly pieces on the subject, and we have a book coming out with Oxford. You can follow my views on the topic at greencitizenship.blogspot.com and read our articles at tobymiller.org. But here's the scoop in brief:
The media are not only means of awareness, analysis, and ecstasy. In addition to their imperialistic and accumulationist roles, they are also responsible for climate change, pollution growth, biodiversity decline, and habitat decimation − the constituents of our global ecological crisis. For the fact is that producing and powering the media consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources and exploits people at an ever-increasing rate. Information and communication technologies and consumer electronics contain toxic substances that pervade the sites and environs where they are manufactured, used, and thrown away, poisoning humans, animals, vegetation, soil, air and water. Rapid cycles of innovation and planned obsolescence accelerate both the emergence of new electronic hardware and the accumulation of obsolete media, which are transformed overnight into junk. Today’s digital devices are made to break or become un-cool in cycles of twelve months, and counting down (check your warranty). This planned obsolescence reinforces consumerism and animates the ideology of growth that says technological innovation is necessary and good. Such managerial “efficiencies” waste natural and human resources. Immediacy and interactivity induce ignorance of inter-generational effects of consumption, including long-term harm to workers and the environment. Constant connectedness diminishes the ability to dwell on interconnections between the media and the Earth. Media technology leaves an environmental legacy of poisoned waterways, sickened workers, and toxic habitats.
In 2007, a combination of ICTs, CEs, and media production accounted for 3% of all greenhouse gas emitted around the world. Between twenty and fifty million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated annually, much of it via cell phones and computers, which wealthy people throw out regularly in order to buy replacements. (Presumably this fits the narcissism of small differences that distinguishes them from their own past.) E-waste is historically produced in the Global North − Australasia, Western Europe, Japan, and the US − and dumped in the Global South − Latin America, Eastern Europe, and China, in the form of a thousand different, often deadly, materials for each computer.
What can we do? First, stop the ranting utopias about media technology. Second, learn some science. Third, historicize the media environmentally. Fourth, query the idea that texts are without cost to the earth. Fifth, lobby politicians to pass meaningful legislation prohibiting the export of e-waste and making appliances safe. Oh, while we're at it, put labels on cell phones alerting users to the dire consequences of these backward toys for their own health and that of others called upon to bury or burn the remains.
What’s next for you? Books, travel, what can the world expect from Toby Miller?
So, the one with Rick is almost finished. I'm also writing a book on global media studies with Marwan Kraidy for Polity, which we hope will be done in early 2011 as well. Travel in 2011? Keynotes in Brazil in May and Spain in July; graduate master class in Australia in June; odds and sods around the US. I'm writing op-ed for the Murdoch press in Australia (gratis) and I have a podcast (around 20 episodes so far) about media and cultural studies, available free at itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141.
Lastly, you’ve worked with SAGE for a long time, the last three years with me (this must have been pretty exciting for you). Any great memories or lessons to share about being a journal editor?
I have loved working with Sage. I edited the Journal of Sport & Social Issues from 1997-99, despite being third choice; I started TVNM, despite a woman on a yacht in 1999 telling an exec that TV was dead when asked about my proposal; the India office threw me a great party in 2002; the London office is studded with terrific people, like the California one; and I've been given a free hand to innovate by people who trusted me. Peter Labella, now with another company, first signed me, and everyone I've worked closely with since has been terrific. You, JP, are a trustworthy and brilliant colleague. It has been a source of pleasure, and not least thanks to the wonderful managing editors from NYU and UCR − Mariana Johnson, Leshu Torchin, Jennifer Zwarich, Aparna John, and Rebecca O'Connor. It has been a joy to know you all and benefit from your wisdom, skill, and work.
Tags: Cultural, Gender, Hollywood, Media, Miller, New, Race, Studies, TVNM, Television
© 2010 Created by SAGE Publications
A Very Public Exit Interview with Toby Miller
Posted by JPG on December 15, 2010 at 11:11pm in Reading + Discussion
View Discussions
There are many labels one could put on Toby Miller; researcher, author, editor, teacher, mentor, friend, but for me, it’s in the capacity of editor and friend that I’ve known Toby for these last years. Toby is the Chair of the Department of Media & Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside, and for the past 11 years, he’s been the editor of Television & New Media, a landmark journal in the field. He’s best known for his research on media, sports, gender, labor, race and Hollywood. As Toby steps down as editor of TVNM at the end of this month, I decided to give him a very public exit interview.
This is what he had to say.
Toby, you founded TVNM and developed it into one of the leading journals in the field, the only journal that melded the established medium of television with up and coming new media. There was debate over whether TV was a dead medium 11 years ago; I guess that was wrong, how about now? Is TV still alive?
First of all, JP, I'd like to thank you very much for your kind introduction.
Regarding the first question, I have been talking about this in many countries and contexts over the last year and a half. My conclusion is that the world is full of middle-aged men announcing that their children don't watch television and hence the medium is dead. These middle-agers can be executives, academics, camera operators, or deans − but they all know the score because of what they think is going on in their household (which is still their castle, it seems). How deluded they are.
Children aged 6 to 14 in the US watch television at rates unprecedented for 20 years; 69% of them have sets in their bedrooms, versus 18% with internet access and 49% owning or subscribing to video games. Children between 2 and 11 devoted 17.34 hours to television a week in 2006, an increase on the previous year. The keenest US viewers are young girls. They quite like new technology, and adopt it at a frenetic pace − but ‘TV is king,’ in the words of the old song by The Tubes. People born between 1984 and 1990 choose TV over the internet and the cell phone for both entertainment and information. Half the internet sites that children aged between 6 and 11 visit, first attract their attention through advertising on television or in print. Right across the age spectrum, TV is the most influential advertising medium. Its influence is greater than during the pre-web period. In OECD nations, the number of cable and satellite networks increased from 816 in 2004 to 1,165 in 2006 − 43% growth. In 2007, 2.5 billion people averaged over three hours a day watching television worldwide. In the decade since deregulation opened up TV in Europe to more and more commercial stations and niche channels, viewing has consistently increased, across dozens of nations, by an average of 20 minutes per day. In the Global South, a television set is the principal consumer priority. India is seeing an explosion of TV channels and networks, and newspapers (one more instance where cybertarians are as inaccurate as they are solipsistic in saying papers are dying out). The vaunted Indian film industry has become part of the televisual warehouse, with big and little stars alike charging towards television, and TV actors brokering their way into cinema through mass exposure. For its part, China has gone from 50 sets in 1958 to over 500 million today. Consider Argentina, a country on the cusp of the Third and First Worlds in living standards. Only a third of households have computers, and half of those are connected to the internet. For young people, television is the preferred medium. It boasts the greatest credibility and use, by far − just 1 in 20 adolescents privilege the internet for social and political knowledge.
TV is changing, of course − the TV and the typewriter were models for the computer, which is now remodeling them in turn. But, sorry, this is the golden age of TV. If people want to see the sources for my remarks, they can take a peek at my 2010 book, Television Studies: The Basics (with Routledge).
In the 10th anniversary issue of the journal, your piece “Media Studies 3.0” progresses the vision of the field from ownership and means to consumption, leaving version 3.0 to be a transcendent version based on aesthetics and political economy, but ultimately media-centered. Have you seen this shift almost two years out from the piece? Is a diasporic, non-ethnocentric version upon us?
In the countries of the Global North dominated by English, it's the same old same old. The media will make us free. The media will enslave us. Games are good for you. Games are bad for you. Audiences are smart. Audiences are stupid. It's the same tired and tiring dialectic we've had for a millennium. Get over it, Anglo dudes and dudesses, whether you're nerdy guys with draggly beards and left-over acne, Italian-suit-wearing consultants on creative industries, pessimistic political economists in plaid, or feisty feminists favoring pumps. The interesting ideas are abounding, but not in your world. China, India, Brazil, and Mexico are the places I look to nowadays − Yuezhi Zhao and John Nguyet Erni in China; the Sarai collective in India, notably Ravi Sundaram and Ranjani Mazumdar; João Freire Filho and Paula Sibilia in Brazil; Néstor García Canclini and Rosalía Winocur in Mexico − they pose the most interesting questions in the most interesting ways.
A lot has changed from the beginning days of the journal. You’ve seen it grow in content and prestige. This year TVNM was accepted into the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and will get its first impact factor in two years. This is obviously a great thing for the journal, but what of it for academic publishing? Has impact factor run its course? Is academic publishing better for having such a metric?
I'm very concerned at the Taylorization of academic knowledge, especially in edgy areas. I find journals run by professional associations essentially unreadable − they are about paying obeisance to not-very-smart gatekeepers; they're actively anti-intellectual; and they're essentially sectarian rites of passage. Once those anal norms are applied to journals of tendency as well as to these sites of mediocrity, we're potentially all in trouble. That said, of course, I'm glad TVNM's readership will expand thanks to its recognition by the Index. But I can't tell you how annoyed I got when nobodies wrote to me and asked what our rejection rate was − excuse me, judge us on what we published, not what we didn't. Duh. This kind of evaluation will pass on and be regarded as a foible of its time. Let's encourage intellectuals, not careerists.
On any given day at least two of the top 10 most read articles in TVNM are about reality television. This shows a staying power in the genre and research in it. What do you think the next “reality TV” will be, not only for television, but for new media in general? What has staying power? Is “The Jersey Shore” worth watching?
All TV is wonderful and I know because I became an American on December 29, 2010. More seriously, reality TV is in because it's cheap. Again, I explain why at length in the book mentioned above. Sport is much more popular with audiences − just not with academics writing about television. It has stamina, as does drama − this is the golden age of US TV drama (forget those pitiful one-shot shows of the '50s, which are boring, racist, sexist, and slow-paced). Showtime and HBO use the money they get from working-class brown and black men paying to watch boxing to fund the white bourgeoisie's enjoyment of high-quality series.
Shifting gears here. You’ve made waves into the crisis of electronic-waste, studying the impact our used-up monitors; Blackberrys and iPods can have on the earth. How can active, competent citizenship and participatory culture bring this subject to the forefront to influence policy makers?
Thanks for raising this. Rick Maxwell and I have published some op-eds here and in Latin America plus half-a-dozen scholarly pieces on the subject, and we have a book coming out with Oxford. You can follow my views on the topic at greencitizenship.blogspot.com and read our articles at tobymiller.org. But here's the scoop in brief:
The media are not only means of awareness, analysis, and ecstasy. In addition to their imperialistic and accumulationist roles, they are also responsible for climate change, pollution growth, biodiversity decline, and habitat decimation − the constituents of our global ecological crisis. For the fact is that producing and powering the media consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources and exploits people at an ever-increasing rate. Information and communication technologies and consumer electronics contain toxic substances that pervade the sites and environs where they are manufactured, used, and thrown away, poisoning humans, animals, vegetation, soil, air and water. Rapid cycles of innovation and planned obsolescence accelerate both the emergence of new electronic hardware and the accumulation of obsolete media, which are transformed overnight into junk. Today’s digital devices are made to break or become un-cool in cycles of twelve months, and counting down (check your warranty). This planned obsolescence reinforces consumerism and animates the ideology of growth that says technological innovation is necessary and good. Such managerial “efficiencies” waste natural and human resources. Immediacy and interactivity induce ignorance of inter-generational effects of consumption, including long-term harm to workers and the environment. Constant connectedness diminishes the ability to dwell on interconnections between the media and the Earth. Media technology leaves an environmental legacy of poisoned waterways, sickened workers, and toxic habitats.
In 2007, a combination of ICTs, CEs, and media production accounted for 3% of all greenhouse gas emitted around the world. Between twenty and fifty million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated annually, much of it via cell phones and computers, which wealthy people throw out regularly in order to buy replacements. (Presumably this fits the narcissism of small differences that distinguishes them from their own past.) E-waste is historically produced in the Global North − Australasia, Western Europe, Japan, and the US − and dumped in the Global South − Latin America, Eastern Europe, and China, in the form of a thousand different, often deadly, materials for each computer.
What can we do? First, stop the ranting utopias about media technology. Second, learn some science. Third, historicize the media environmentally. Fourth, query the idea that texts are without cost to the earth. Fifth, lobby politicians to pass meaningful legislation prohibiting the export of e-waste and making appliances safe. Oh, while we're at it, put labels on cell phones alerting users to the dire consequences of these backward toys for their own health and that of others called upon to bury or burn the remains.
What’s next for you? Books, travel, what can the world expect from Toby Miller?
So, the one with Rick is almost finished. I'm also writing a book on global media studies with Marwan Kraidy for Polity, which we hope will be done in early 2011 as well. Travel in 2011? Keynotes in Brazil in May and Spain in July; graduate master class in Australia in June; odds and sods around the US. I'm writing op-ed for the Murdoch press in Australia (gratis) and I have a podcast (around 20 episodes so far) about media and cultural studies, available free at itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141.
Lastly, you’ve worked with SAGE for a long time, the last three years with me (this must have been pretty exciting for you). Any great memories or lessons to share about being a journal editor?
I have loved working with Sage. I edited the Journal of Sport & Social Issues from 1997-99, despite being third choice; I started TVNM, despite a woman on a yacht in 1999 telling an exec that TV was dead when asked about my proposal; the India office threw me a great party in 2002; the London office is studded with terrific people, like the California one; and I've been given a free hand to innovate by people who trusted me. Peter Labella, now with another company, first signed me, and everyone I've worked closely with since has been terrific. You, JP, are a trustworthy and brilliant colleague. It has been a source of pleasure, and not least thanks to the wonderful managing editors from NYU and UCR − Mariana Johnson, Leshu Torchin, Jennifer Zwarich, Aparna John, and Rebecca O'Connor. It has been a joy to know you all and benefit from your wisdom, skill, and work.
Tags: Cultural, Gender, Hollywood, Media, Miller, New, Race, Studies, TVNM, Television
© 2010 Created by SAGE Publications
NOT VERY PRODIGAL SON HALF-HOME
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/humanities/cinema-and-television-history-research-centre/news-events-conferences/toby-miller-joins-cath.jsp
discusses my new honorary job--back in my home town!
discusses my new honorary job--back in my home town!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
NEW COLUMN
My latest for the dirty digger can be read at
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/a-glut-of-graduates-in-america/story-e6frgcjx-1225971131909
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/a-glut-of-graduates-in-america/story-e6frgcjx-1225971131909
Sunday, December 12, 2010
NEW PODCASTS
Some exciting new podcasts to hear!
There are interviews with:
Nicholas Lowe of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Nick talks about his own work and the Roger Brown Collection
Rune Ottosen from Oslo in which we look at his dark Maoist past, the state of journalism yesterday and today, and questions of Nordic media and cultural studies
Vicki Mayer of New Orleans about her recent and prior work, on labor, gender, and media audiences. A warning! There are some major audio hiccoughs, including moments of silence, that have proven immune to editing, even by experts. Please persevere as Vicki has wonderful things to say!
Jim McKay of Australia, who details his research into national mythology, militarism, and gender plus an exchange about the history and present moment of the sociology and cultural studies of sport; and
Ian Masters of LA, covering US politics and journalism, plus his work at Pacifica Radio
They are available at iTunes via
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
or through podbean.com--look up 'culturalstudies'
Hope you enjoy them!
Toby
There are interviews with:
Nicholas Lowe of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Nick talks about his own work and the Roger Brown Collection
Rune Ottosen from Oslo in which we look at his dark Maoist past, the state of journalism yesterday and today, and questions of Nordic media and cultural studies
Vicki Mayer of New Orleans about her recent and prior work, on labor, gender, and media audiences. A warning! There are some major audio hiccoughs, including moments of silence, that have proven immune to editing, even by experts. Please persevere as Vicki has wonderful things to say!
Jim McKay of Australia, who details his research into national mythology, militarism, and gender plus an exchange about the history and present moment of the sociology and cultural studies of sport; and
Ian Masters of LA, covering US politics and journalism, plus his work at Pacifica Radio
They are available at iTunes via
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
or through podbean.com--look up 'culturalstudies'
Hope you enjoy them!
Toby
'AMERICAN VALUES'
http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/dec/13/american-values-reinvention/
This is an east-coast NPR program that is about to feature my work.
We frequently hear the term “values” discussed with regard to American politics, culture and life. But what are "American values?"
This whole week, we’ll be delving into that question. We're talking with experts and real people, both, and we’d love to hear from you as well: What do you consider to be "American values?"
We’re kicking off the series today with Toby Miller, a British-Australian-US interdisciplinary social scientist and author of “Makeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention.”
In Dr. Miller’s opinion, reinvention is one of the most distinctively American things about our culture.
This is an east-coast NPR program that is about to feature my work.
We frequently hear the term “values” discussed with regard to American politics, culture and life. But what are "American values?"
This whole week, we’ll be delving into that question. We're talking with experts and real people, both, and we’d love to hear from you as well: What do you consider to be "American values?"
We’re kicking off the series today with Toby Miller, a British-Australian-US interdisciplinary social scientist and author of “Makeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention.”
In Dr. Miller’s opinion, reinvention is one of the most distinctively American things about our culture.
Friday, November 5, 2010
NEXT TALK
With a large portion of the money that politicians raise for campaigns going to the television networks, do the media monopolies have any incentive to fix a system from which they benefit so profitably? Former CNN chief news executive and president of newsgathering and international networks, Eason Jordan joins us to provide a perspective on the choice between social responsibility and the corporate bottom line. Leading media and culture scholar Toby Miller also joins us to examine the medium from which most voters get their political information.
HAMMER FORUM - This ongoing series of timely, thought-provoking dialogues addresses current social and political issues. Hammer Forum is moderated by Ian Masters, journalist, author, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and host of the radio program Background Briefing, Sundays at 11AM, and The Daily Briefing, Monday through Thursday at 5PM, on KPFK 90.7 FM.
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required. Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00pm.
Hammer Public Programs
HAMMER Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
programs@hammer.ucla.edu
310.443.7000
HAMMER FORUM - This ongoing series of timely, thought-provoking dialogues addresses current social and political issues. Hammer Forum is moderated by Ian Masters, journalist, author, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and host of the radio program Background Briefing, Sundays at 11AM, and The Daily Briefing, Monday through Thursday at 5PM, on KPFK 90.7 FM.
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required. Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00pm.
Hammer Public Programs
HAMMER Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
programs@hammer.ucla.edu
310.443.7000
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Keynote
I'm on the train back from San Diego after giving a keynote at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, endowed in honor of the late Alan G Ingham. It was an honor to give the address. At a more mundane level, it's a joy that Amtrak now offers free internet service. Get out of your car!
Toby
Toby
Saturday, September 25, 2010
NEWEST PODCAST!
You can hear a conversation with Anjuli Kronheim about her work as an organizer for Common Cause and Democracy Matters, two major non-government organizations in the United States, at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/ or
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
Friday, September 17, 2010
AND TWO MORE PODCASTS!
A Conversation with Edward Buscombe in which we discuss his current work on the Western film genre, the tradition of film theory associated with Screen, the British Film Institute, and the Society for Education in Film and Television, and the BFI’s Film Classics
and a Conversation with Kate Oakley on creative industries egional development, New Labour–& a little bit of football. It's at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/
and
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
and a Conversation with Kate Oakley on creative industries egional development, New Labour–& a little bit of football. It's at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/
and
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
Thursday, September 16, 2010
PODCAST NEWS!
Just in from London yesterday afternoon. I recorded some podcasts, the first of which is already available. It is a conversation, seemingly bibulous but in fact deeply serious, with Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman. You can find it at
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
or
http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/culturalstudies/id385240141
or
http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
London
I'm about to leave London after the conference on the "War on Terror" and the media. My carrying-coals-to-Newcastle denunciation of Yanqui imperialism was trite, obvious, and politely-received.
My latest newspaper piece can be found here
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/a-glint-in-old-uncle-sams-eye/story-e6frgcjx-1225922815265
Toby
My latest newspaper piece can be found here
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/a-glint-in-old-uncle-sams-eye/story-e6frgcjx-1225922815265
Toby
Thursday, September 9, 2010
LONDON
Just arrived in London. Much drama on the plane with armed police and medics appearing as we sat and awaited departure from our tin can. Don't know what this was about. I got a lot of work done on the flight and rewrote my talk for tomorrow at Leicester and the one for London next week. I'm doing numerous podcasts with people this week, starting tonight. Radio Four look out
Monday, September 6, 2010
NEW PODCAST EPISODE
Another new cultural studies podcast--this one's in English--with artist and web designer Mila Sterling. You can listen at Listen at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com or search 'culturalstudies' at the iTunes store.
Friday, September 3, 2010
PODCAST NEWS
Back in LA, and the latest podcast is up:
It's a conversation with Armida de la Garza, Germán Gil Curiel, and Israel Tonatiuh Lay on Mexican Film and Policy. Once again, you can hear at culturalstudies.podcast.com or via iTunes by searching under 'culturalstudies' in the store (though it's free!).
Next week I'm off to the UK to give the talk mentioned below on terrorism and the media and also a keynote at the establishment of a new film and television research centre at De Montfort University. Fun.
It's a conversation with Armida de la Garza, Germán Gil Curiel, and Israel Tonatiuh Lay on Mexican Film and Policy. Once again, you can hear at culturalstudies.podcast.com or via iTunes by searching under 'culturalstudies' in the store (though it's free!).
Next week I'm off to the UK to give the talk mentioned below on terrorism and the media and also a keynote at the establishment of a new film and television research centre at De Montfort University. Fun.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Travels
The experience in Rio was marvelous. I taught the graduate class "Recreating the Nation" in Spanish. A few students spoke Spanish well, all could understand it via Portunhol, and some used English as well. I didn't learn a great deal of Portuguese, but it was a wonderful experience. The students were so much more sophisticated intellectually and politically than I am used to, I could barely believe it. Puts my daily norms into perspective. Then we had a superb conference on the obligation to be happy--a marvelous critique of the psy-function from numerous perspectives. Again, to be amongst people for whom socialism is not a bad name; who all work in various languages; who all break down the barrier--when it exists--between the social sciences and the humanities--was extraordinary. As usual, people gave me copies of their books, invited me back, and so on. This is not special to me--it's about the way they operate as intellectuals.
I went via Miami to Mexico next, where I consulted with Promexico, which has a tripartite group on cultural policy and film, and gave another talk at the Cineteca Nacional on the history of cultural policy and how to reach the US-based hispano-hablante public with films from Latin America via TV and the internet. I also gave interviews to my favorite paper after the Guardian (La Jornada) and Concaculta's TV coverage.
Now I'm headed home after an amazing week. Why can't we do these things in California?
I went via Miami to Mexico next, where I consulted with Promexico, which has a tripartite group on cultural policy and film, and gave another talk at the Cineteca Nacional on the history of cultural policy and how to reach the US-based hispano-hablante public with films from Latin America via TV and the internet. I also gave interviews to my favorite paper after the Guardian (La Jornada) and Concaculta's TV coverage.
Now I'm headed home after an amazing week. Why can't we do these things in California?
Sunday, August 22, 2010
RIO DE JANEIRO
I arrived in Rio de Janeiro this morning, my first day in Brazil. I'm here to teach a course called Recreating the Nation for graduate students in the school of communication. You can find the outline on this site, under the heading 'Espanol.' I can't speak Portuguese, so the class will be in Spanish, with perhaps some English, too. No-one will be operating in their first language.
I gave an interview today to a journalist from O Globo and also lunched with one of the symposium organizers. Then I was lucky enough to have time to catch some waves at Copacabana Beach, which is just a block or two from my hotel. Even though it's winter, the waters were warm as well as beautiful.
Now it's time to read over the syllabus and think about the clips of Ignacio Martin-Baro and Michel Foucault we'll be watching in class, in addition to nutting my way through Martin-Baro in Portuguese
Toby
I gave an interview today to a journalist from O Globo and also lunched with one of the symposium organizers. Then I was lucky enough to have time to catch some waves at Copacabana Beach, which is just a block or two from my hotel. Even though it's winter, the waters were warm as well as beautiful.
Now it's time to read over the syllabus and think about the clips of Ignacio Martin-Baro and Michel Foucault we'll be watching in class, in addition to nutting my way through Martin-Baro in Portuguese
Toby
PODCASTS
I've re-edited the podcast interview with David Theo Goldberg, some of which was lost in translation between programs, wires, fingers, and ears. I have also added a second interview with Bill Grantham. Like my other guests, I think these chats are well worth hearing.
Toby
Toby
Sunday, August 15, 2010
PODCAST UPDATE
Listen to my latest culturalstudies podcast here: http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/. It's with Bill Grantham. He discusses the law and film finance, relationships between literary and cultural studies, and the life of a journalist, inter alia.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
TALKS
For folks who may be interested, I'll be giving three keynotes or plenaries in the next month:
at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro August 25, 2010 on happiness http://www.ufrj.br/mostraNoticia.php?cod_noticia=10133;
the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City August 28, 2010 on film policy; and
the Universities of Westminster and Goldsmith's September 13, 2010 on media and terrorism http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/media/camri/events/camri-events-calendar/2010/global-media-and-the-war-on-terror-an-international-conference
at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro August 25, 2010 on happiness http://www.ufrj.br/mostraNoticia.php?cod_noticia=10133;
the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City August 28, 2010 on film policy; and
the Universities of Westminster and Goldsmith's September 13, 2010 on media and terrorism http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/media/camri/events/camri-events-calendar/2010/global-media-and-the-war-on-terror-an-international-conference
NEW PODCAST
The latest pod entrant is Ellen Seiter, who speaks about the avant garde, film, soap opera, the law, and feminism. Hear her now by going to the iTunes store and looking up 'culturalstudies' or at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com/
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
NEW PODCAST
Latest podcast is with Tiffany López--find it at http://culturalstudies.podbean.com or go to the iTunes store and look up 'culturalstudies'
Tiffany speaks compellingly about Latin@ culture, violence, theater, art, and academia
Tiffany speaks compellingly about Latin@ culture, violence, theater, art, and academia
Friday, August 6, 2010
podcasting
I've posted my first three podcasts in the last few days--one where I briefly adumbrate my views on cultural studies, and two hour-long interviews, with Douglas Kellner and Sarah Banet-Weiser respectively. The podcast has been accepted by iTunes and is also available through the host I am renting from, podbean.com. I'm recording them with Garage Band at my home, then Fetch transforms them into the appropriate file protocols for posting. Several more interviews are planned, with academics, artists, and activists. All the As
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Cognitariat
My latest account of cultural labor at David Ruccio's fabulous blog: http://anticap.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/the-cognitariat/
David's site is a superb one for those interested in progressive economic analysis with humor and brilliance. My wee words lower the tone, but...
David's site is a superb one for those interested in progressive economic analysis with humor and brilliance. My wee words lower the tone, but...
Sunday, August 1, 2010
NEWNESS
I'm loving the discourse of newness in British politics since Druggy Dave (AKA David Cameron) became Prime Minister in May. Just as Obama's notion of bipartisanship echoed the equally imperialistic Bush's 2000 rhetoric, so Cameron's assertion of a new politics is a restatement of the equally imperialistic Tony Blair's 1997 rhetoric. Each one argues for a post-political high ground of decency domestically. Each one lays claim to a newly ethical foreign policy. Each one bargains that the journalists covering them will be ignorant of history, and their publics gullible.
It's worth downloading the Guardian's weekly podcast of Prime Minister's Question Time to hear how nasty, personal, and obvious Druggy Dave is--an awful echo of Blair and Gordon Brown. Similarly, it's worth downloading the weekly radio appeals made by Obama and Bush as they promise to rule the world and distribute the benefits domestically. Plus ca change...
It's worth downloading the Guardian's weekly podcast of Prime Minister's Question Time to hear how nasty, personal, and obvious Druggy Dave is--an awful echo of Blair and Gordon Brown. Similarly, it's worth downloading the weekly radio appeals made by Obama and Bush as they promise to rule the world and distribute the benefits domestically. Plus ca change...
THE ECONOMIC CRISIS, 1929-?
I grew up in the shadow of the Depression. For my parents, it was the defining event of their lives, rather than the Second World War. During their formative years in the 1930s and ’40s, no-one had invented what US TV anchors came to name “the Greatest Generation” (shorthand, I assume, for the twenty million Soviets who died in the War Against Fascism, and particularly those who passed away during the Battle of Stalingrad, which, last I looked, decided the War in Europe).
World War II saw my parents lose many people; but the Depression left a greater mark on them. My father was the only child in his elementary school who wore shoes, because his father worked in a bank and was not laid off. For her part, my mother left school at thirteen, never to return, because she could obtain work and hence support her family. Although my parents had class mobility in the 1950s, they never assumed it would last. My father was an agnostic social democrat, my mother an atheistic lapsed Communist. Between them they instilled in me what is of course a basic lesson of Marxism—guess what, capitalism breeds conflict and crisis as profits fall while the economy grows. I was forever being warned not about nuclear war, but about unemployment.
So when the oil crisis of 1973-74 met the coalminers’ class struggle in Britain, it almost seemed natural to live through a three-day work week, to have commodity shortages, for there to be no TV after the 10 o’clock news, to study by gaslight, to bathe weekly, and so on. This was what my parents had always told me would come to pass. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, it again seemed almost inevitable. The actual timing and nature of the event surprised me, but like the attacks of September 11 2001, the chaos and destruction did not, so apparent were their triggers.
World War II saw my parents lose many people; but the Depression left a greater mark on them. My father was the only child in his elementary school who wore shoes, because his father worked in a bank and was not laid off. For her part, my mother left school at thirteen, never to return, because she could obtain work and hence support her family. Although my parents had class mobility in the 1950s, they never assumed it would last. My father was an agnostic social democrat, my mother an atheistic lapsed Communist. Between them they instilled in me what is of course a basic lesson of Marxism—guess what, capitalism breeds conflict and crisis as profits fall while the economy grows. I was forever being warned not about nuclear war, but about unemployment.
So when the oil crisis of 1973-74 met the coalminers’ class struggle in Britain, it almost seemed natural to live through a three-day work week, to have commodity shortages, for there to be no TV after the 10 o’clock news, to study by gaslight, to bathe weekly, and so on. This was what my parents had always told me would come to pass. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, it again seemed almost inevitable. The actual timing and nature of the event surprised me, but like the attacks of September 11 2001, the chaos and destruction did not, so apparent were their triggers.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Excellent e-waste video
can be sen on vimeo here
http://newamericamedia.org/2010/07/indias-poor-seek-wealth-in-e-waste.php
http://newamericamedia.org/2010/07/indias-poor-seek-wealth-in-e-waste.php
Thursday, July 29, 2010
WELCOME
This is the first blog at my new site. Many, many thanks to the gifted artist who has designed the destination--Mila Sterling.
I had a manicure this week from the salon at the end of my street.
The woman who 'did' my nails complained of sore eyes from the chemicals used there; she explained that for recently-arrived VietNamese migrants such as her self, this was a good job, however. Unlike undertaking further education, it had a quick financial return.
She asked me whether I played guitar. I took this to be a comment on my nails being too long. No, she said, it's about your hair and earrings. 'You are a musician, in a band.'
The woman next to me was paying for her pedicure. She insisted on using a credit card for the bill and tipping with cash, to ensure the workers received their share. I applauded her for this. She turned to me and confided 'They live seven or eight to a room. They don't pay taxes but they use all our services. i know. I used to teach. They've got to learn about taxes. They're illegal.' With that, she was gone, leaving me stunned by this blend of workerism and bigotry.
I had a manicure this week from the salon at the end of my street.
The woman who 'did' my nails complained of sore eyes from the chemicals used there; she explained that for recently-arrived VietNamese migrants such as her self, this was a good job, however. Unlike undertaking further education, it had a quick financial return.
She asked me whether I played guitar. I took this to be a comment on my nails being too long. No, she said, it's about your hair and earrings. 'You are a musician, in a band.'
The woman next to me was paying for her pedicure. She insisted on using a credit card for the bill and tipping with cash, to ensure the workers received their share. I applauded her for this. She turned to me and confided 'They live seven or eight to a room. They don't pay taxes but they use all our services. i know. I used to teach. They've got to learn about taxes. They're illegal.' With that, she was gone, leaving me stunned by this blend of workerism and bigotry.
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