Welcome to a special Toys-themed week from In Media Res. Please feel free to respond to the contributors’ comments. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org This week’s In Media Res line-up: Monday, May 5, 2008 – Raiford Guins (State University of New York, Stony Brook) presents: “Mint on Card (MOC)” Tuesday, May 6, 2008 – Caryn Murphy (University of Wisconsin, Madison) presents: "'She'd Like to Be a Veterinarian': Parents, Parent Companies, and the Princess Movement” Wednesday, May 7, 2008 – Henry Jenkins (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presents: "‘Sometimes My Kids Seem Like a Bunch of Kangaroos!’” Thursday, May 8, 2008 – Derek Johnson (University of Wisconsin, Madison) presents: " “‘The Legend of G.I. Joe…New from Marvel Comics!’: The Toy as Comic Book on Television” Friday, May 9, 2008 – Avi Santo (Old Dominion University) presents: "‘Save Me Captain Stubing! Skeletor and The Lone Ranger have joined forces and are attacking the General Lee’: The place of play in building story-worlds” 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 _________________________________________________________________ If you like crossword puzzles, then you'll love Flexicon, a game which combines four overlapping crossword puzzles into one! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/208 ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu