Category: Media Studies

December 4, 2008

How did a confessed whore-loving, alcoholic, coked-out Hollywood agent, become the great hope of conservative America?

The answer to the question featured in this post’s title is revealed by Evan Wright in “Pat Dollard’s War on Hollywood,” a compelling portrait of a reckless Hollywood agent whose strange journey led him to Iraq (see picture of Pat...

October 31, 2008

Halloween Reading and Horror Films

For some readers what might be most scary about university press books is the sometimes seemingly inscrutable writing of the authors. However, here at Columbia University Press we have a few legitimate books that make for perfect Halloween reading. First...

October 23, 2008

Op-Ed Art from the New York Times

Jerelle Kraus, the former art director at the New York Times, and author of the just published All the Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some that Wasn’t): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page, reveals the true story of...

October 20, 2008

Don Hollenbeck: A Pioneer in Media Criticism

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran an article about Don Hollenbeck and Loren Ghiglione’s new biography, CBS’s Don Hollenbeck: An Honest Reporter in the Age of McCarthyism. The book and the article come on the heels of the...

October 3, 2008

Interview with Loren Ghiglione, author of CBS's Don Hollenbeck

The following is an interview with Loren Ghiglione, author of CBS’s Don Hollenbeck: An Honest Reporter in the Age of McCarthyism: Q:  Why should we care about a journalist who killed himself more than a half-century ago? Loren Ghiglione:  His...

September 15, 2008

David Foster Wallace

The sudden and very sad news of David Foster Wallace’s death is a tragic loss for admirers of his writing and for those who care about literature. His piece “Host” was included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2006. The...

August 27, 2008

The Panorama: Past, Present, and Future / A Post by Alison Griffiths

The following post is by Alison Griffiths, author of the just-published Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View. You can also read an interview with Griffiths. In his “State of the Art” column in the business section...

August 25, 2008

Zhang Yimou … Filmmaker

With the Olympics now finished, we can look forward to Victor Cha’s Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia, which provides historical and political perspectives on the just-completed Games.For those more interested in the man behind the...

August 20, 2008

Saddleback a Comfy Fit for McCain – an op-ed by Alan Schroeder

In an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe yesterday, Presidential Debates author Alan Schroeder explains how the appearance of both candidates over the weekend at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church sheds light on what to expect for the upcoming presidential debates...

August 6, 2008

Re-Enactment

The following post is by Jonathan Kahana, author of Intelligence Work: The Politics of American Documentary  This is the third in a series of postings by Jonathan Kahana: read his first post and second post In his recent review of...

August 1, 2008

Hard-To-Find Classic Documentaries: A Post from Jonathan Kahana

 Jonathan Kahana is assistant professor of cinema studies at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and author of the just-published Intelligence Work: The Politics of American Documentary. My first post to this blog listed the “best documentary...

July 29, 2008

Interview with Alison Griffiths, author of Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinemas, Museums, and the Immersive View

The following is an interview with Alison Griffiths, author of Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinemas, Museums, and the Immersive View. Griffiths is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, and on...