Understanding Media Studies

Fall 2011 Shannon Mattern

JonWan Baik | Luis Tsukayama Cisneros Mario Hernandez | Aron Hsiao Kathleen Kelley | Sungchoon Park Sanja Trpkovic

Why are we here?

Via Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways

Septem Artes Liberales, from Hortus Delicarum by Herrad von Landsberg, ca. 1180

Via Mode2Design: http://bit.ly/7W6fE6

National Archives 83-G-41445 via http://bit.ly/h9gJcf

prepare[s] graduate students for taking an active role in shaping the future of the discipline
survey the historical development of the field critically examine some of the key terms presently at the center of debates concerning the defining goals and purposes of the work in the field

create a collaborative, explicitly intradisciplinary space within the department to explore the often competing commitments of our discipline and to articulate the stakes (individual, fieldwide, institutional, cultural) of the various approaches to reforming the field provide students with opportunities to locate themselves and their professional commitments in relationship to the field
Virginia Crisco, Chris W. Gallagher, Deborah Minter, Katie Hupp Stahlnecker & John Talbird, Graduate Education As Education: The Pedagogical Arts of Institutional Critique Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 3:3 (2003): 359-376.

Constant Nieuwenhuys, Symbolische Voorstelling van New Babylon, 1969

familiarize [students] with the rules, conventions, folkways, and habits of mind that inform the profession and the discipline
as sites for institutional critique, not as idealized future spaces wherein fully realized and credentialized professionals do their work

if we continue to view making and analyzing as mutually exclusive categories, then our students will never receive the full benefits of what media studies as a field of practices and knowledges has to offer
Joanna Hershfield & Anna McCarthy, Media Practice: Notes Toward a Critical Production Studies Cinema Journal 36:3 (Spring 1997): 108-112.

Via Julia Lupton: http://bit.ly/ifguWJ

Via Austin Kleon

Via Jason Permenter: http://bit.ly/e35oK r

 My Intro to Grad Studies course emphasized (amongst other things) citation style and basic writing techniques. Students b*tched and moaned about it at the time (and I'm sure I did too), but I'm glad I had it in retrospect (Grad Student Writing Chronicle Forums (6 November 2010)) Some of the things that scholars use most are rarely formally taught, in my experience -- things like: how do you organize your citations and articles when working on a topic? What kind of notes do you take when reading? [W]hen I started grad school I read by trying to read every word, slowly, in order, and it was disastrousA class that presented various professors', and more advanced grad students', ways of dealing with really practical stuff like this, without implying that any one way is "the" right way, would be very valuable in my opinion. (Intro to Grad Studies Chronicle Forums (20 July 2009))

 More discipline-specific information, ranging from the citation format(s) to the top and good journals in the field/subfields (ibid.). I also like the idea of the research overview. It catches everyone up to the current state of the field (as undergrad courses often lag behind in this regard) while giving an overview of all the different subfields. a series of meetings with different faculty members, each talking about his/her subfield and interests on a general level, might have been useful.

 What I felt like I was missing at the time was some basic information about how the whole program fit together. What were the advantages and disadvantages of writing a thesis for the MA? What is a DGS? I would have liked a basic road map for how the next several years of my life were supposed to work. Its somewhere between the nuts-and-bolts stuff people are suggesting and trying to understand what a field is and your place within it.

Works Cited Virginia Crisco, Chris W. Gallagher, Deborah Minter, Katie Hupp Stahlnecker & John Talbird, Graduate Education As Education: The Pedagogical Arts of Institutional Critique Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 3:3 (2003): 359-376. Grad Student Writing Chronicle of Higher Education Forum Discussion Msg. 22 (10 November 2010): http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,73301.15.html Michael D. Gunzenhauser & Cynthia I. Gerstl-Pepin, Engaging Graduate Education: A Pedagogy for Epistemological and Theoretical Diversity The Review of Higher Education 29:3 (Spring 2006): 319-346. Joanna Hershfield & Anna McCarthy, Media Practice: Notes Toward a Critical Production Studies Cinema Journal 36:3 (Spring 1997): 108-112. Intro to Graduate Studies Chronicle of Higher Education Forum Discussion (20-28 July 2009): http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,61830.0.html