Full CV as PDF (updated June 2016)
education
PhD 2005 MA 1999 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communication Arts (film studies)
BA 1994 McGill University, English literature
faculty positions
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies
Associate Professor 2013- (chair 2015-)
Assistant Professor 2007-2013
books
Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America (MIT Press, 2017)
Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium (Columbia University Press, 2014)
reviewed in Choice (Outstanding title!), Technology and Culture, Film Quarterly, PopMatters, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; interview with the author in Critical Margins
Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status, co-authored with Elana Levine (Routledge, 2012)
2012 best book award, National Communication Association, Critical and Cultural Division
reviewed in Screen, Transformative Works and Cultures, Canadian Journal of Film Studies, The Communication Review
Indie: An American Film Culture (Columbia University Press, 2011)
reviewed in Journal of American Studies, Journal of Popular Culture, Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Rogue Cinema
journal articles
“Quality TV as Liberal TV,” Western Humanities Review 70.3 (Fall 2016), 70-98.
“Say ‘Pulp Fiction’ One More Goddamn Time: Quotation Culture and an Internet-Age Classic,” New Review of Film and Television Studies 12.2 (2014)
“Free TV: File-Sharing and the Value of Television,” Television & New Media, 13.6 (November 2012), 463-479, anthologized in Gender, Race and Class in Media, 4th ed., edited by Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez (Sage, 2015)
“PowerPoint and Labor in the Mediated Classroom,” co-authored with Ira Wagman, International Journal of Communication 5 (2011)
“New Media, Young Audiences, and Discourses of Attention: From Sesame Street to ‘Snack Culture,’” Media, Culture & Society 32.4 (July 2010), 581-596
referenced in the New York Times Magazine
“Ze Frank and the Poetics of Web Video,” First Monday 13.5 (May 2008)
“Character and Complexity in American Independent Cinema: 21 Grams and Passion Fish,” Film Criticism 31.1-2 (Fall-Winter 2006), 89-106
“From Beats to Arcs: Toward a Poetics of Television Narrative,” The Velvet Light Trap 58 (Fall 2006), 16-28, anthologized with a 2016 Postscript in Literary Theory: An Anthology 3rd ed., edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017)
“Characterization as Social Cognition in Welcome to the Dollhouse,” Film Studies: An International Review 8/9 (May 2006), 53-67
book chapters
“Indie Film as Indie Culture,” in A Companion to American Indie Film, edited by Geoff King (Wiley Blackwell, 2017)
“The Name of the Game is Jocktronics: Sport and Masculinity in Early Video Games,” in Playing to Win: Sports, Video Games, and the Culture of Play, edited by Tom Oates and Rob Brookey (Indiana University Press, 2014)
“Masculinity,” co-authored with John Vanderhoef, in The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, edited by Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron (Routledge, 2014)
“Everyday Italian: Cultivating Taste,” in How to Watch Television, edited by Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell (New York University Press, 2013)
“Movies for Hipsters,” in American Independent Cinema: Indie, Indiewood, and Beyond, edited by Geoff King, Claire Molloy, and Yannis Tzioumakis (Routledge, 2013)
shorter/online publications
Zigzigger, blog begun 2006
“The Romcom/Sitcom/YouTube Musical: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Film Criticism (May 13, 2016)
“GIFs: The Attainable Text,” Film Criticism 40.1 (January 2016)
“No Devices at the Table,” Medium (December 20, 2015)
“Telling Our Story,” UWM AAUP blog (November 11, 2015)
“Teach-Ins and Twitter,” Flow (September 21, 2015)
“How to Read a Book,” Medium (September 2, 2015), republished as “Reading with Purpose,” University Affairs (September 30, 2015)
“Public Stadium Financing: The World’s Greatest ‘Save Our Show’ Campaign,” Antenna (July 21, 2015)
“#SCMS15: The Conference as Media Event,” Antenna (March 30, 2015)
“Illustrating Media History: Problems and Solutions,” In Media Res (March 19, 2015), a video essay with accompanying written essay
“The Tweeting Child, or What I Learned about Social Media from a Five Year-Old,” Medium (February 25, 2015)
“Is Football Our Fault?” Antenna (September 17, 2014)
“Liking Facebook,” Antenna (May 5, 2014)
“Live Video, Then and Now,” Columbia University Press Blog (April 22, 2014)
“The Celebrity Sex Tape: Where Porn Meets Reality TV,” Flow (April 7, 2014)
“Immersive Media: Whose Fantasy?” Flow (February 11, 2014)
“When Television Marries Computer,” Flow (November 18, 2013)
“Syllabus Fantasies,” Antenna (March 8, 2013)
“Intermediality and Transmedia Storytelling,” Center for 21st Century Studies (September 17, 2012)
“Atari Commercials and the Boy Culture of Video Games,” In Media Res (June 26, 2012)
“Notes on the Laugh Track,” Antenna (November 9, 2011)
“’Running Wilde’ and the State of Network Comedy,” In Media Res (September 24, 2010)
“DVR vs. Twitter,” Antenna (May 29, 2010)
“New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Video Game Nostalgia,” Antenna (February 20, 2010)
“The Return of Jezebel James,” The Velvet Light Trap 64 (Fall 2009), 77-78
“Tween Comedies and the Evolution of a Genre,” In Media Res (October 18, 2009)
“P2P TV: Ethical Considerations,” Flow (April 3, 2009)
“TV Binge,” Flow (January 23, 2009)
“The Bronze Fonz: Public Art/Popular Culture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” Flow (October 31, 2008)
“Transgression, Confession, and Ying Yang Twins’s ‘Wait (The Whisper Song),’” In Media Res (February 20, 2008)
“Indie Volkswagens on Screens Big and Small,” In Media Res (February 27, 2007)
“lonelygirl15: The Pleasures and Perils of Participation,” Flow (September 22, 2006)
book reviews
I AM ERROR: The Nintendo Family Computer/Entertainment System Platform, Nathan Altice, The American Journal of Play, Winter 2016, 281-283
“Television’s New Men,” review essay of Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television, Michael Mario Albrecht; Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century, Amanda D. Lotz; and Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Brett Martin, Feminist Media Studies (published online December 22, 2015), DOI 10.1080/14680777.2016.1120494
Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence, Charles R. Acland, Screen 56.3 (2015), 378-380
Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife, Raiford Guins, Rethinking History (2014), DOI 10.1080/13642529.2015.954783
Cinema and Nation, edited by Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie, The Velvet Light Trap 48 (Fall 2001)
work in progress/forthcoming
“Indie Culture and Mass Media in the United States,” Culture et (in)dependences.: Discours et pratiques de l’indépendance dans les industries culturelles, edited by Sophie Noel, Olivier Alexandre, and Aurélie Pinto (Peter Lang, to be published 2017)
“Taste,” co-authored with Elana Levine, chapter for Keywords in Media Studies, edited by Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray (New York University Press, to be published 2017)
“Ball and Paddle Games: Domesticity,” chapter for How to Watch Video Games, edited by Matthew Payne and Nina Huntemann (New York University Press, submitted)
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