Welcome to a special Guilty Pleasures-themed week from In Media Res. All the contributions this week address this concept through texts that we, as scholars, are often conflicted to admit we enjoy watching. Please feel free to respond to the contributors’ comments and add your own thoughts and ideas about the series as well. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org This week’s In Media Res line-up: Monday, February 18, 2008 – Dan Leopard (St. Mary’s College) presents: “Carl Sagan’s Contact” Tuesday, February 19, 2008 – Barbara Selznick (University of Arizona) presents: "Mothers and Daughters: Watching The Gilmore Girls” Wednesday, February 20, 2008 – Michael Z. Newman (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) presents: "Transgression, Confession, and Ying Yang Twins's ‘Wait (The Whisper Song)’” Thursday, February 21, 2008 – Sarah Kremen-Hicks (Independent Scholar) presents: "A Demonic Ménage à Trois: Audience Participation and Bedroom Politics in Hex” Friday, February 22, 2008 – Jeremy Butler (University of Alabama) presents: "Guts Don't Come Cheap in the Cinématheque, Pal: Guilt, Pleasure, and America's Funniest Home Videos” Please check out these wonderful contributions and offer your thoughts via a comment. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org In Media Res is envisioned as an experiment in just one sort of collaborative, multi-modal scholarship that MediaCommons will aim to foster. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media in a manner closer to how we typically experience mediated texts. Each day, a different media scholar will present a 30-second to 3-minute clip accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. The goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship through clips chosen for either their typicality or a-typicality in demonstrating narrative strategies, genre formulations, aesthetic choices, representational practices, institutional approaches, fan engagements, etc. Best, Avi Santo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Avi Santo, Ph.D. Assistant Professor 3014 Batten Arts & Letters (BAL) Department of Communication and Theatre Arts Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia 23529 (757) 683-6971 [log in to unmask] Co-Coordinating Editor: MediaCommons: A Digital Scholarly Network http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org Co-Creator: Flow: Television and Media Culture http://www.flowtv.org _________________________________________________________________ ---- Learn to speak like a film/TV professor! Listen to the ScreenLex podcast: http://www.screenlex.org