Category: General

by on

After the past several weeks keeping up a steady pace of constant output, I’m in slow-collapse mode. I just finished putting together a paper that is due for a July 10 conference deadline, and I am breathing a deep sigh of relief. I’ve been scrambling to research and write it while also preparing for my trip to Texas, my two presentations at Denver Comic Con, and my trip to South Africa. Well, I’m currently in South Africa so everything else had come and gone successfully (to my relief), but this one last paper was being pesky. I’ve been feverishly working on it in airports, on planes, in bed . . . wherever I get a few moments to focus. But it’s mostly done, and now I get to relax a little more and focus on why I’m in South Africa. (A topic I’ll cover in a later post.)

As I mentioned above, I was recently in Texas with two objectives. Primarily, I was attending a conference in Waco as part of a teaching fellowship I am in. Since I had to fly to Texas anyway, I decided to rent a car in Waco and drive down to Houston–to pay a visit to NASA. 

One of the real-to-goodness Baylor bears.

While the core of my research is still focused on South African national identity and popular media, I have recently embarked on a side project that also involves my love of media and post-colonial theory. I have been looking at the rhetoric and philosophy around why we, as humanity and as particular nations, choose to explore space. This is a project partially fueled by the science fiction I read, which is where I started to think about how many of the topics I was studying in post-colonial studies pertained to our current extra-planetary actions. We talk about space as “the final frontier” or as a storehouse of potential resources. We speculate on how we might colonize Mars or some other exo-planet, which might serve as a back-up plan once we’ve destroyed Earth. When I hear such statements, all the warning bells go off for me because I immediately think about how Western Europeans colonized the New World. For those of us who are Caucasian, our ancestors said pretty much the same sorts of things, completely disregarding the indigenous people and animals already living on the land and with very little respect for the land itself. Such an exploitative attitude has continued to shape many of the political, economic, and ecological problems we see today.

I don’t propose to have all the answers, but I do think we should be asking more ethical and philosophical questions that challenge our intentions. For instance, who or what gives us the right to land on Mars and turn it into a Terran colony? That’s a very messy question, and one that people will no doubt disagree fervently over, but that discussion needs to be taking place and in the public arena. Perhaps we need to slow down the technological and scientific development for a moment to first hold these discussions and come to some tentative agreements or compromises.

Valkyrie

As part of this research, I’m doing a number of different mini-projects, such as analyzing news articles and feature films; surveying students preparing for work in space-related fields; and interviewing various key professionals. Earlier this year, I met Dan Huot, the NASA Public Affairs Officer responsible for all PR related to the International Space Station, and he invited me to visit him at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. So I did! It was a pretty incredible visit, complete with crawling into the cockpit of a space shuttle, meeting the lovely Valkyrie, and strolling among the desks of Mission Control while the ISS astronauts completed an assignment. My trip concluded with an official interview with Dan, the first of hopefully many fascinating conversations with a diverse group of individuals thinking about space from quite distinct perspectives.

Fan-girling hard at this moment!

What are your thoughts on space travel? Does it thrill you? Concern you? What do you think the public’s involvement should be in the decisions around how, when, and why we visit other planets? Please do share as I really am interested to hear the spectrum of perspectives!

Next up: Denver Comic Con!

by on

Summer is finally here. While many of us still have to keep “adulting” at our day jobs or other responsibilities, it does usually mean a little more time for leisure. The summer blockbuster is one American summer tradition. This year brings us Wonder Woman, Baywatch, The Mummy, Despicable Me 3, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and a number of other big budget, mostly mindless, “good fun” movies. Typically films released over the summer don’t generate much award interest; they’re provided to give our brains a break from the year–to help us relax.

But whether you are going to see a light summer blockbuster or an Oscar-nominated drama over Christmas, when you walk out of a movie, the first question asked by your companions is usually: So what did you think???!

How do you experience this question?
For me, usually my group has barely exited the auditorium when the question comes and I am still trying to readjust my eyes to the blaring fluorescent lights of the theater corridors—let alone figure out how to articulate my thoughts to this question. At that point, somebody else in the group will pipe up with how they feel and then their response usually shapes how the rest of the conversation goes.

If one person walks out exclaiming about how delightful the movie is, the entire group then has to recalibrate their opinion about the movie in relation to that first declared opinion. If you hated the movie, you might hesitate to express that and begin to question your own experience. Or perhaps you might respond with immediate shocked disbelief and a feisty discussion could ensue structured around the two most extreme perspectives.

Of course neither might happen and you might have a perfectly productive conversation, but I started to notice that I had social anxiety about the after-film dynamics. No doubt, this is probably because I am a filmmaker and thus really care about how I process each movie-watching experience.
So instead of feeding the anxiety, I channeled it into contemplating how people think about and talk about their movie experiences.

First, we tend to talk about “liking” or “not liking” a movie, but as Facebook has taught us, the act of “liking” can mean so many different things. What do you really mean when you say you liked Life of Pi? Are you talking about that feeling in your chest when you left the auditorium: the devastation; pure joy; heart-pounding adrenaline; apathy? Or are you trying to express that you thought the filmmakers did a masterful job of storytelling? Or maybe you are simply trying to communicate that you were glad you saw the movie and felt like it was money and time well-spent?

Maybe it is a little of all three?

Rather than trying to make the word “like” encompass all those different meanings, I would recommend we start using a collection of different verbs to talk about our movie experiences. Using a variety of verbs will allow us to speak more specifically about what we mean when we say we “like” a movie. I am going to propose three sets, including my suggestion of how the term “like” should be used, but I’d love to hear if you have other verb suggestions.

1) To Appreciate
This verb choice identifies your recognition of excellent filmmaking.
E.g. “I really appreciated the filmmakers’ use of color in Hero.”
“The performances in The Perks of Being a Wallflower were incredible; they really captured the tone of high school, and I appreciated that about the film.”

2) To Enjoy
This verb choice identifies the level of pleasure you experienced while seeing the film.
E.g. “Mad Max: Fury Road was a blast! I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“Watching Lawrence of Arabia was an exhausting experience; I did not enjoy those three hours.”

3) To Like/To Love
Overall how would you rate this film? This is the hardest verb category to explain: it takes into consideration both how you objectively would rank the film and subjectively how you experienced it. This verb also provides space for moral/ethical judgement. The two verb choices (like/love) reflect the degree of how strong your opinion towards the film is. (Examples below.)

This last verb option builds upon the previous two. Sometimes you will instinctively know that you really liked a movie, but often you will need some time (whether 30 minutes or 3 years) before you decide how you comprehensively feel about that film. This form of “like” is the product of both thoughtful reflection and gut emotional reaction.

Just because you like a film, doesn’t mean you necessarily appreciated or enjoyed it as well. What do I mean by this? Here are some examples to illustrate:

  • “I really appreciated the attentiveness of the filmmakers in Forrest Gump, but I found the film to be tedious and boring. I wouldn’t say I hated it, but I definitely did not like it.”
    • Here the viewer is able to appreciate the film but not enjoy or like it.
  • “Beverly Hills Chihuahua isn’t a great film in terms of story or technical prowess, but I still had a blast watching it because I love talking animals. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked the movie, but I certainly didn’t dislike it either!”
    • Here the viewer is able to separate out their enjoyment of the film from their perceived value of the film. In this scenario, the movie could be likened to a ride at an amusement park—good fun and not much else!
  • “Wow, Steven Spielberg really killed it with Schindler’s List. The performances were gut-wrenching, the cinematography was beautiful, and you could tell how intentional the directing was. I had a rough time getting through the full movie because the story was so depressing, but I am glad I watched it. That was a good movie.
    • Here, the viewer is able to appreciate and like the film even as they were not able to enjoy the movie due to the nature of its content. In these scenarios, it can be harder to use the word “like” (it can feel wrong to like a movie about the Holocaust), so other terms like “good” often get used even though they’re also vague.
  • “I think The Fountain is an absolutely stunning movie with incredible performances, and I really enjoyed watching it, but at the end of the day, I had serious concerns with the worldview portrayed and what I perceived as a problematic appropriation of Eastern spirituality.”
    • Here the viewer acknowledges a difference in how they experienced the film and their recognition of its cinematic quality with their personal beliefs about what the film was trying to do. The viewer appreciated and enjoyed it, but ultimately didn’t like it because of what they perceived it was doing.

As you can see, we don’t always actually use the words like/love/appreciate/enjoy when we talk about movies, but those different ideas are built into our conversations.

So to close, here are my tips for your next movie outing:

Social Guidelines for a Positive Post-Cinema Experience
1. Ask the group to wait to leave the theater till the end of the credits, so you have time to process through some of your thoughts and feelings about the film. (And to pay your respects to the many people who helped make the movie!)

2. Pick a public space like a coffee shop or restaurant to go and discuss the film afterwards as a group. Wait till you get there and are settled in with your drink/food orders before opening up the conversation.

3. Before asking if people liked the film, try teasing apart the above categories and discuss if and how each person was able to appreciate and enjoy the film.

4. After a productive conversation, let everyone reflect on how much (at that moment) they liked the film and would rate it. Remember this opinion might change later upon further reflection!

You can also use this process with movie nights at home. At first it might seem awkward and formulaic, but after practice, you’ll find yourself relaxing into a natural way of thinking and talking about movies!

Share your tips for watching movies with friends below, and pass this on to anyone you think might find it helpful! And of course, tell me how you have enjoyed, appreciated, liked, loved, or hated this year’s summer blockbusters.

Featured image captured by: Jake Hills

by on
I’m writing this from my gate at LAX as I wait for my flight back to Denver. I’ve spent three frenetic weeks back in Southern California, mostly centered around my trip to the International Communication Association Conference in San Diego.
 
While a substantial portion of a professor’s job is to teach students, that is really only the tip of the iceberg—the most visible element to society. We can divide a professor’s responsibilities into three key areas: teaching, research, and academic service. The time spent on each area varies depending on the type of university employing that professor (research university, liberal arts college, etc.) and the status of the professor (adjunct/temporary appointment/assistant/associate/full, etc.). CU Boulder is a tier one research institution so research is an extremely significant aspect to the responsibilities of all our faculty. 
 
This emphasis, in turn, trickles down to us graduate students—especially since the job market in higher ed has become increasingly competitive. When future employers take a look at my CV, they will particularly look for teaching experience and publications (preferably in top academic journals).
 
Conferences are a platform to share research papers that you will subsequently submit for publication. They’re a great space to float ideas, get feedback and criticism, and then revise your work before offering it up to editorial scrutiny. They’re also a useful venue to meet other scholars doing work in one’s field, whether they be peers or seniors. 
 
 
The ICA conference, which I just attended, is probably the top gathering of communication and media scholars across the globe. It’s competitive; this year I believe the conference accepted around 45% of submissions. The sessions cover quite a range of subfields, from more comm-oriented fields like interpersonal communication and organizational communication to social science-oriented studies of media, such as those scholars studying media effects, to humanities-oriented studies of media, asking more philosophically or historically grounded questions about the nature of media and culture. At any given time over the five-day conference, you could select from around 20 different sessions. Then every evening there were receptions to attend, hosted by universities and ICA divisions either at the hotel or at restaurants in downtown SD.
 
Academic conferences are expensive to attend, so scholars usually only attend when they are presenting. That way you can often get your conference travel sponsored by your institution. I managed to get in this year, not because of my current research, but from building on some research I did while working at Biola and subsequently while studying at Claremont. I participated on a panel about MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, but I spoke specifically about the Minerva Schools, which are a Silicon Valley endeavor to supposedly revolutionize higher education. 
 

Instead, I argue that the Minerva Schools are primarily an effort to transform U.S. higher education into a high-return export while simultaneously raising some serious concerns about what we understand the role of the university to be in contemporary society. 
 

I encourage you to peruse their website and watch some of their videos, but pay careful attention to their rhetoric and the tangible implications of what they suggest. I’d love to hear your reactions, positive or negative. What do you like about what they offer, and what concerns you about their vision for education?

I now have a few (mostly) uninterrupted weeks with which to focus on my research.
 I have a busy summer, but I will be keeping you updated on my research trips, remaining conferences, and other related activities. Plus I’ll be sharing some thoughts from my current research projects, along with some other things about media and society that I’ve been contemplating. Here’s to a delightful change of pace!
 
 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...