I am now a 2nd year Ph.D. student. 😯 Boy did that first year fly by. And boy did the summer disappear.
Lesson learned: “summer break” does not really mean vacation. I travelled a ton and had amazing experiences, but each adventure held a very specific, usually research-related purpose. That holds its own sense of exhilaration, if not rest. I finally have a clearer sense of direction and trajectory for my life, and as part of that, I was able to spend my summer fleshing out some of my research in concrete ways.
Earlier this summer I shared my trip to Houston and NASA Space Center (which is hanging in there despite Harvey). Right after I got back to Denver, I had another first: my first Comic Con.
I was presenting on two panels at the Denver Comic Con. The first was part of the scholarly/lit track Page 23, where I gave a talk on HBO’s Westworld
The second was on a fan panel celebrating Syfy’s show The Expanse
Then the very next day after DCC ended, Josh and I were back on a plane (actually three), headed to Cape Town, South Africa. I still consider Cape Town home, but this was my first time heading back. . . on a research grant. Essentially, I was “home” on a business trip. That was a bit surreal, and it included my first chance getting to drive on the other side of the road. (I only hit one unfortunate bird . . . well he hit me. Flew right into me on the highway and gave me quite a shock.)
So why was I in South Africa? What kind of “research” was I doing?
Well, technically, I was really there to do pre-research. Since my dissertation will be centered on South African youth’s use of popular digital media, I really want to be in conversation with South African scholars doing similar work to my own. So I set out to meet with as many South African media & culture scholars as I could in three weeks. My trip took me to 3 cities and 3 universities: the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University in Grahamstown, and the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban.
I lost count of how many faculty and graduate students I met, and I still need to write up my report on what I did and learned. Returning to the US, I felt both inspired and overwhelmed. There is so much yet to be explored and studied, in regards to media, within South Africa. This affords me a wide frontier of possibilities but that simultaneously makes it much harder to narrow down specific projects. The good thing is that I’m only a 2nd year Ph.D, so I have time to figure things out. And now I have a network of incredible individuals to mentor and guide me. (Several of whom immediately took it upon themselves to assign me homework!)
So right now I’m trying to diligently read everything to which I was pointed during my trip. And I am also trying to get my head back into the game that is fall semester. (Thank goodness for Labor Day.) I am teaching two recitations at CU Boulder for a course called “Conversation” about discourse & democracy and an online high school course on visual literacy called “I Spy”. I also have 3 graduate seminars on Global Media & Culture; Digital Games & Society; and Foundations of Critical Theory to keep me busy.
So there finally is my belated update. I had a couple important deadlines that I’ve been feverishly working to complete, so I had to temporarily demote High and Low on my list of priorities. Next few posts will switch back to the standard critique and analysis. Josh and I have been playing a few new video games this summer, and I’m looking forward to writing about both. See you all then.
. I had a couple of people actually call to chat about their varied experiences of the film, which was quite fun, and I really appreciated many of the disagreeing perspectives offered. 
and 
, I found the sequels enjoyable but unremarkable. Unfortunately, this does seem to be the case often with TV and film. 
that completely blew audiences away this fall. Based on the Michael Crichton novel and the 1973 film, the show gives the viewer a fragmented view into a futuristic Western themed park staffed by ingeniously engineered and extremely lifelike androids. The idea behind the park is that visitors can come and be whoever they want, experimenting with violence and sexuality on the “hosts” as they are called. Extreme immoral behavior is justified because the androids aren’t “real”. The park becomes supposedly a place to escape and a space to avoid repression. Naturally it’s also a brilliant commercial endeavor. 
crosses a number of generic borders, so it’s not even really a horror piece: it plays with elements from science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and coming-of-age drama. (Indeed if it was truly horror, I wouldn’t have been watching it.) 
isn’t terribly intellectual, but the characters are fantastic and the story is gripping. We binged this one straight in a few days.
from its original production for the UK Channel 4 to now, as it is produced and distributed by Netflix. Black Mirror is an anthology series, like 
, meaning that each episode is standalone but together each episode functions to project a hypothetical near-future world in which our usage of media and technology has transformed human society in dysfunctional ways. Charlie Brooker, the creator of the show, remained at the helm when the show moved to Netflix, and as such, the show maintained its recognizable aura. What makes it so brilliant is that it speculates futures that you can almost recognize because they’re only half a step ahead of the world as we know it today. In addition, the show doesn’t focus on the technology but rather on the individuals using the technology and their relationships. As a result, the audience quickly empathizes with the messy, heartbreaking, or outright terrifying decisions that characters must make. While the show does critique some technology in its own right, it more often challenges the viewer to rather think about the way we implement technology in our lives–a far more nuanced and thoughtful position. Admittedly, I didn’t love all the episodes, but aside from a few meh ones, the rest are downright brilliant. My favorites from this season are “Hated in the Nation” (probably my favorite Black Mirror episode ever), and “San Junipero”.
is a show on the SyFy channel based on the book (and subsequent series) by James A. Corey entitled 
, which made my list last year. Luke Cage has bullet-proof, impenetrable skin along with super-strength and an obscure past that includes an undeserved stint in prison. We meet him not in Hell’s Kitchen, where Jessica Jones is set, but rather in Harlem where he juggles multiple menial jobs as a barber’s assistant and kitchen assistant. The show, like the previous Marvel-Netflix collaborations, is part-superhero origin story, part-mystery, part-human drama. Unlike the Marvel blockbusters, the characters in these shows are complex and believable; we want to spend hours upon hours with them. But Luke Cage goes even a step further and also dedicates a significant portion of the series to exploring the heritage and struggles of the African-American community in the U.S. For example, the very nature of his impenetrable skin is a commentary and reversal to how so often the color of one’s skin has put one in danger living in this nation. Here his skin is the very thing that protects him, and it is something that the community of Harlem can take pride in. There have been some valid critiques of how the show explores race, but it’s certainly worth watching and entering into the thought-provoking dialogue that the show’s creator, Cheo Hodari Coker, has initiated.
, which is a remarkably smart show and a lot of fun. It is currently in its 3rd season. Then my husband introduced me to 
, which is Dan Harmon’s (
) venture into the animated world. It’s a bizarre, irreverent nod to the science fiction genre, and it makes me so happy. Then I have some disappointments to log as well. The Netflix release of a new season of 
was underwhelming, though I must admit it was fun to hear mother and daughter cracking jokes that held contemporary relevance. I was also extremely irritated with the new season of 
, which felt completely hokey (including terrible South African accents). Finally, I finished off 2016 by binging the Netflix Original The OA, which I’m still trying to decide how I feel about. It’s not love, it’s not hate, but perhaps a mixture of the two.