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The incident at the University of Florida last week brought many issues to the forefront.  The censorship and torture of a student is only one of those issues.  Horrified as I am by the events, I am interested in the responses in mainstream media that whitewashed the event, not unlike the response to protests in the 1960s and 70s, and the refusal of University administration to take responsibility (also like the earlier protest movements).  Now, however, the event and the questions it raises have been brought inescapably to the forefront by responses in networked media, with images and sounds that refuse the simplistic and reactionary responses by established voices.  More than anything else, this event tells us that (1) protest will never be only in “new” media, and (2) that emergent media forms work through a sophisticated approach to conflict, not consensus, in which community is a process of change and contestation.

With landscape as a visual and conceptual framework, this paper discusses the ideological implications of the film franchises The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, and Terminator. Through a discussion of landscape theory and its implications within a larger postmodern paradigm, it will examine how imagery and narrative construct visions of politics in the United States that deviate from their (often ostensibly progressive) surface-level messages. As each trilogy is a landmark in popular and film culture, and as they attained considerable symbolic capital in both subculture and dominant culture, they are ideal entry points for a discussion of negotiated popular ideology. Moreover, as the Terminator trilogy spans twenty years from its first to its third film, and changes considerably in its politics, it provides a useful counterpoint to the massive The Matrix and Lord of the Rings productions. By discussing all three through their visual rhetoric, it is possible to navigate the often perplexing worlds of United States ideology, and the increasingly blurred lines between progressive and reactionary agendas.

International Communications Association Annual Conference, San Francisco 5/28/2007 10:30-11:45 am

In recent years, particularly after the 2004 presidential elections in the United States, sexuality has become an increasingly charged location for political articulation.  Often not centered in traditional identity politics, such articulations actively use sexuality to accentuate or reinforce institutional, socio-political, and economic norms.  Primarily centered in what intellectuals such as Michael Warner, Lisa Duggan, Wendy Brown, and Judith Butler see as a disturbing unity between neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies, political discourse has retained traditional public/private emphases while simultaneously relying on the breakdown of such binaries for much of their currency.  Mass media have of course played a large role in this process, as the “gay fad” becomes a multi-billion dollar industry with such shows as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace.  However, because the rhetoric involved relies on both the division between “public” and “private” and its breakdown, it becomes simultaneously easier and more important to locate instances of instability and discursive flux.  Through a historical genealogy of sexuality in television, followed by specific case study analyses of V for Vendetta, South Park, and the vampire film, this panel will chart various ways in which sexuality is developed, used to destabilize or reinscribe the dominant, and is ultimately a site through which representation and political action are negotiated.

Society for Cinema and Media Studies National Conference, Chicago 3/11/2007 2:15-4:00 pm