MACALESTER ACADEMIC UPDATE 2018 FALL Media and Cultural Studies The major provides a working knowl- edge of the methods of historians and critics of culture and the media; an ability to explicate a specific body of culture or type of media in depth; and opportunities to appreciate different kinds of media and to produce original work. The minor concentrates on media studies and offers opportunities for critical research as well as for pre- professional experience in media production. Students in the depart- ment have found opportunities for internships with arts and other non- profit organizations and with media companies. Graduates have found employment in the media, in govern- ment, and in social and cultural institutions as well as opportunities for further study in doctoral programs and professional schools. Media studies examines the forces that shape media texts and those that govern their meanings in global culture and provides students with experience producing digital, print, and video texts that investigate and represent that culture in journalistic and alternative forms, such as news- paper and broadcast reporting, political documentary, and video. Cultural studies has developed in response to what critics have seen as exclusions and gaps in programs in the traditional humanities. It has broad- ened categories of cultural analysis to include multiple traditions. Faculty John Kim, associate professor and chair, has taught at the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, and Williams College. A theorist and practitioner of new media, he has published widely in journals and other print publications, and exhibited interactive works in galleries and festivals around the world, including MASS MoCA, Dia Center for the Arts, and Northern Spark. Before returning to teaching, John also worked as a programmer and designer at a handful of internet startups. Morgan Adamson, assistant professor, came to Macalester from Duke University where she was ACLS New Faculty Fellow in the Literature and Arts of the Moving Image Department. She completed her PhD in critical theory and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota. Her interests are in avant-garde film and new media, critical theory, and digital video production. Michael Griffin, visiting assistant professor, earned his PhD in visual communication and media studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a CBS Dissertation Fellowship for his work on the industrial shaping of visual aesthetics. Griffin teaches and writes on cultural history and theory, and practice of visual representation in film, photography, and television; and he regularly teaches Local News Media Institutions, where students get the opportunity to work with local media. Leola Johnson, associate professor, teaches courses on television, the press, and other mass media as social and cultural institutions. Her research focuses on media representations of race. Her most recent publication is “Barack Obama’s Body and the Body Politic,” in the International Journal of Communication. She is currently working on an essay about the way nineteenth-century slavery haunts contemporary popular culture, using the book Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes as a primary example. Howard Sinker ’78, visiting instructor, teaches news reporting. He authored a chapter in the textbook Real Sports Reporting and has run workshops for journalists with the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma and the Poynter Institute’s National Writers Workshops. Brad Stiffler ’07, visiting instructor, has a PhD in comparative studies in discourse and society from the University of Minnesota. He is also an instructor in the Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature program at the University of Minnesota. Contributing Faculty Eric Carroll, Art and Art History Zeynep Gürsel, International Studies Kiarina Kordela, German and Russian Studies David Martyn, German and Russian Studies David Chioni Moore, International Studies and English Khaldoun Samman, Sociology Sonita Sarker, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English Linda Schulte-Sasse, German Studies Joëlle Vitiello, French and Francophone Studies James von Geldern, Russian Studies and International Studies Chris Wells, Environmental Studies and History Recent Courses Advanced Documentary Studies: Theory and Practice Advanced Film Analysis Advanced Journalism: New Media Afrofuturism in Media and Popular Culture Blackness in the Media Community Video Cultures of Neoliberalism Documentary Video Environmental Issues and the Media