Let’s take a look at some recent moments in pop culture…. Beyoncé has continued to embody and exude perfection, Macklemore performed “Same Love” at the Grammys after winning Best Rap Album, Miley has continued to be Miley, Jay Z won a golden sippy-cup for Blue Ivy, Laverne Cox was the…
This is my attempt at performing something of a late eulogy for the Italian composer, Riz Ortolani. (Perhaps the word “performing” is not proper in the context of eulogizing, and instead, I am probably thinking of performing a “séance” –waking the dead.) After all, I feel like Ortolani’s greatest work…
Final Thoughts on the Project How many US troops do you think are currently stationed in the United States? What about Vietnam? South Africa? Guam? What if I asked how many were stationed in Italy in, say, 1971? The students in Professor Tim Barney’s “The Rhetorical Lives of Maps” class…
Before Digital America (the journal) was a glimmer in my eye, the course Digital America promised University of Richmond students a rather bumpy tour through the history of digital culture and digitization. From the LSD infused Acid Tests of the 1960s to Edward Snowden’s stealth asylum in Russia, students attempt…
David Golumbia’s course “Challenging Media Studies” at Virginia Commonwealth University provides a topical survey of issues in current digital media studies. Dr. Golumbia passed out a list of dozens of topics that were possible entry points into the class. Students voted on which topics they wanted to discuss, and each…
Apparently, this thing called technology is progressing pretty fast, so fast that even Fox is beginning to believe that some fledgling networks will be used extensively in the future by featuring them in certain television shows. And Fox clearly is the head of what has the potential of being successful…
Consider this an open letter to the Internet, or at least to the fan communities, or “fandoms,” that seem to have found a home here. I kept my mouth shut when I found out that you were ‘shipping Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson. On some level, I get it. You…
The internet has undergone a fundamental shift in character. Where once the internet was defined by its anonymous nature and as a space for experimentation under the aegis of that anonymity, the recent trend has been towards connecting real world identities to a digital presence. Instead of possessing distinct offline…