Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 16: Finale

Since May 2020, Aca-Media has been bringing you a special series, “Talking Television a Time of Crisis,” organized by Hunter Hargraves, Lynne Joyrich, and Brandy Monk-Payton and featuring dozens of prominent academics and practitioners. These sixteen episodes over two seasons have helped us understand the relationship of TV Studies to, first, the COVID-19 pandemic, and then, following the murder of George Floyd, the struggle for racial justice in the context of multiple crises of political legitimacy, climate emergency, and more. In this finale, the organizers reflect on the series as a whole and offer their take-aways from this extraordinary series of podcasts.

Participants: Christine Becker, Hunter Hargraves, Lynne Joyrich, and Brandy Monk-Payton
Theme music and final production: Todd Thompson
Original release date: Aug. 16, 2021

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Ep. 15: Academics

Our special series “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis” continues with episode 15: Academics. How have the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice affected academia, and how might they force a reimagination of the role of television studies inside and outside the academy?

Host: Joseph Clark (Simon Fraser University)
Guest Scholars: Lisa Guerrero (Washington State University), Lauren Herold (Beloit College), Victoria Johnson (University of California—Irvine), Andrew Owens (University of Iowa), Sharon Shahaf (Academic Writers Unblock)

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 14: Ethics

Our special series “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis” returns with a fascinating episode on ethics: What ethical practices should television employ in depicting and framing the pandemic and struggles for racial justice? And moving forward, what are the ethical responsibilities of audiences?

Host: Taylor Nygaard (Arizona State University)
Guest Scholars: Heather Hendershot (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Jorie Lagerwey (University College Dublin), Taylor Nygaard (Arizona State University), Yoruba Richen (Documentarian), Rebecca Wanzo (Washington University in St. Louis), Khadijah Costley White (Rutgers University)

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 13: Publics

Our special series “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis” continues with episode 13: Publics. What new viewing publics have been created over the past year? How have such TV publics both connected and disconnected us, particularly in these times of media bubbles, and with what effects?

Host: Swapnil Rai (University of Michigan)
Guest Scholars: Hannah Hamad (Cardiff University), Charlotte Howell (Boston University), Rahul Muhkerjee (University of Pennsylvania), Swapnil Rai (University of Michigan), Mel Stanfill (University of Central Florida)

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 12: Aesthetics

Our special series “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis” continues with Ep. 12: Aesthetics. Questions include: How is television transforming aesthetically, and what new developments in TV form and style have emerged in this time of crisis? How have new forms of television changed our relationship to the TV image?

Host: Nick Salvato [Cornell University]
Guest Scholars: Josie Torres Barth [North Carolina State University], Elana Levine [University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee], Yael Levy [Northwestern University], Jason Mittell [Middlebury College], Isabel Pinedo [Hunter College/CUNY], Nick Salvato [Cornell University]

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 11: Optics

This episode is dedicated to the late Jane Feuer. Find out how to donate to the “Jane Feuer Graduate Student Award” here.

In this episode, Mimi White hosts a conversation on television optics, beginning with discussion of the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Questions include: How does television seek to manage social and political crises around the world? How does television manage its own internal crises (of representation and of legitimation) in such a precarious cultural moment and climate of unrest?

Guest Scholars: Eva Hageman (University of Maryland College Park), Darnell Hunt (UCLA), Melissa Phruksachart (University of Michigan), Brenda Weber (Indiana University), Mimi White (Northwestern University)

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 10: Economics

Episode 10 of our special series “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis” is here: Economics. How has the business of television, from streaming to legacy media, changed in 2020? How can we rethink notions of value in the industry that might contest capitalist modes of production and consumption?

Host: Miranda Banks (Loyola Marymount University)
Guest Scholars: Sarah Banet-Weiser (London School of Economics), Melanie Kohnen (Lewis and Clark College), Al Martin (University of Iowa), and Alisa Perren (University of Texas, Austin).

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 9: Tactics

Our special series “Talking Television” is back for a second season, now as “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis”! In this second episode, we discuss tactics: How can we best analyze and address the power of television, particularly in times of crisis and controversy? How might we define a televisual activism—or is that a contradiction in terms?

Guest Scholars: Jonathan Gray (University of Wisconsin—Madison); Daniel Marcus (Goucher College); Quinn Miller (University of Oregon); Eve Ng (Ohio University); Samantha Sheppard (Cornell University)

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.

Talking Television in a Time of Crisis, Episode 8: Politics

Our special series “Talking Television” is back for a second season, now as “Talking Television in a Time of Crisis.” In this episode we discuss how television manages, amplifies, and contains our collective anxieties about the election and about other political issues, and we ask: How can we best use television to promote democratic aims?

Guest Scholars:  Matt Delmont [Dartmouth College], Sarah Kessler [University of Southern California], Kayti Lausch [University of Michigan], Roopali Mukherjee [Queens College], Susan Ohmer [University of Notre Dame]

For more on the participants and on this special series, click here.