Category: Uncategorized
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The Pop Culture Lens Takes on Joss Whedon
On this eighteenth episode of The Pop Culture Lens, we present the recording of a second roundtable discussion from the 2015 Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference. This roundtable discusses the topic of director and showrunner Joss Whedon — and how much of a controversial figure and person he is for so many people, including his…
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The Pop Culture Lens: Fan Harassment
I have been talking about this idea of fractured fandom on this blog for awhile now, because I have been concerned with the problems and tensions fans are facing in contemporary fan communities and fandoms. Across the Internet and around the world, it seems that hardly a day goes by without another story, another anecdote,…
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Advice for Children on Social Media
My first piece of advice is to focus on teaching your children how to be respectful when they communicate and engage with people, online but also in person. This means being aware of not just what you are saying but how you are saying it, and that how is immensely important in social media with…
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The Hobbit International Research Project
Are you a Tolkien fan? Did you enjoy the Lord of the Rings films? What do you think of The Hobbit films? Join in with thousands of others and share your thoughts in this massive international survey! From Dr. Martin Barker, one of the lead researchers on the project, who previously oversaw a similar project…
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Chris’s Cult Catalogue: No Way Out (1973)
In Cult Catalogue, I offer my thoughts on cult movies, and try to determine whether or not they are essential, forgettable, or somewhere in between. Throughout this series I will endeavor to focus primarily on cultish, lesser-known, or largely forgotten films, though in the age of the Internet, nothing is ever truly forgotten, so occasionally…
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Pete Warden: Why Nerd Culture Must Die
Originally posted on Pete Warden's blog: Photo by Attila Acs My first girlfriend was someone I met through a MUD, and I had to fly 7,000 miles to see her in person. I read a paper version of the Jargon File at 15 and it became my bible. Just reading its descriptions of the internet I knew it…
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Fan Studies Network Conference 2014
Originally posted on Nicolle Lamerichs: This weekend I attended the Fan Studies Network Symposium (26-27 September 2014). It was an engaging conference, and I’d love to talk about it some more here about its main themes and sketch some future directions in which fan studies may develop. New Directions Fan studies is a small field that…
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The Convergent Nature of Professional Wrestling
UPDATED: Submissions Due Wednesday, September 24th Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience meeting Mick Foley, my new found interest in professional wrestling, and my initial academic thoughts on professional wrestling and Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment in particular. Since that time, I signed up for the WWE Network, the new online-only initiative recently launched by…
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The Conjuring: a Witch, a Wardrobe, and a Basement
When we started liveblogging our reactions to these exorcism cinema films, sometimes our friends on Facebook would wonder why we were doing it, which lead into some interesting discussions. During one of these discussions, my colleague at Dominican University suggested a movie that we should watch because it had an interesting variable that made it…
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Google Glass
Just in time for Google’s Tax Day sale / invitation to become an Explorer and buy Glass, my university released the video they made of me trying out our pair. I like the potential if not the current execution.
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