New Books in Communications

Medieval manuscripts are our shared inheritance, and today they are more accessible than ever—thanks to digital copies online. Yet for all that widespread digitization has fundamentally transformed how we connect with the medieval past, we understand very little about what these digital objects really are. We rarely consider how they are made or who makes them. Digital Codicology: Medieval Books and Modern Labor (Stanford UP, 2022) demystifies digitization, revealing what it's like to remake medieval books online and connecting modern digital manuscripts to their much longer media history, from print, to photography, to the rise of the internet.Examining classic late-1990s projects like Digital Scriptorium 1.0 alongside late-2010s initiatives like Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis, and world-famous projects created by the British Library, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Stanford University, and the Walters Art Museum against in-house digitizations performed in lesser-studied libraries, Bridget Whearty tells never-before-published narratives about globally important digital manuscript archives. Drawing together medieval literature, manuscript studies, digital humanities, and imaging sciences, Whearty shines a spotlight on the hidden expert labor responsible for today's revolutionary digital access to medieval culture. Ultimately, this book argues that centering the modern labor and laborers at the heart of digital cultural heritage fosters a more just and more rigorous future for medieval, manuscript, and media studies.Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology and a volunteer at Interference Archive. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Sabrina Mittermeier's edited volume Fan Phenomena: Disney (Intellect Books, 2023) analyzes the fandom of Disney brands across a variety of media including film, television, novels, stage productions, and theme parks. It showcases fan engagement such as cosplay, fan art, and on social media, as well as the company’s reaction to it. Further, the volume deals with crucial issues—race and racism, the role of queerness, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the advent of the streaming service Disney+—within the Disney fandom and in Disney texts.The authors come from a variety of disciplines including cultural and media studies, marketing and communications, cultural history, theater and performance studies, and more. In addition to interviews with fan practitioners, the essays feature both leading experts in fan and Disney studies alongside emerging voices in these fields. A vital new addition to the growing subdiscipline of fan studies, it will be popular with scholars of cultural studies, cultural history, and media studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

This episode is a recording of a short paper presented by Kim and Saronik in the panel “Literary Criticism: New Platforms” organized by Anna Kornbluh at the 2023 Convention of the Modern Language Association. In the paper, they reflect on the nature of the voice in the humanities and the role of the humanities podcast inside and outside institutions.Image: © 2023 Saronik Bosu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

What needs are satisfied in digital gaming? And what does the shift of these need satisfactions into the digital space say about the social realities in which they are embedded?Harald Koberg lets gamers themselves have their say and follows their traces of the described fascinations and passions in his latest book Free Play: Digital Gaming and the Longing for Effectiveness (Freies Spiel: Digitales Spielen und die Sehnsucht nach Wirkmächtigkeit). The answers found aim at experiences of efficacy: digital games and the communication spaces around them offer particular opportunities to experience one's own decisions and actions as relevant and effective. It is not only about narrated stories and interactions with the game, but also about the rules and limits of communication, spaces of unfolding, self-dramatization, and norm-setting.Using the examples of adolescent search for free spaces, insecure masculinity, and achievement society overload, Harald Koberg shows why critique of the medium of video games must focus on people and how much can be determined about larger social contexts along the way.Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

The traditional folklore and animistic beliefs of the Sámi, the Indigenous nomadic peoples of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia, are under-studied and their cultural significance rarely acknowledged, even in the Scandinavian countries where Sámi traditions have intermingled with mainstream ones. The spread of Christianity and the influence of Christian missionaries in the Scandinavian north have especially distorted and shaped the reception and transmission of Sámi religious beliefs and practices in the modern era. The traditional Sámi religion recently gained widespread attention and reconsideration from a somewhat unexpected source, however, thanks to the incorporation of elements of Sámi folklore in Walt Disney Animation Studios' Frozen movie series. In this episode, artist and folklorist Niina Niskanen joins me to discuss her research into Sámi religious systems, folklore and oral culture, the cultural impacts of Sámi beliefs on mainstream Scandinavian society, how Sámi folklore traditions are represented in mass media, and how pop culture artifacts like Disney's Frozen have prompted a resurgence of interest in Sámi folklore and introduced Sámi culture to a new audience. This episode is part two of a two-part series looking at the Sámi in Disney's Frozen movies; part one, focusing on the making of Frozen II, can be listened to here.Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Despite the box-office and critical success of Walt Disney Animation Studios' 2013 film Frozen, it also drew criticism and backlash for how it incorporated elements of the culture and heritage of the Sámi, the Indigenous people of northern Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Russia. Sámi representatives had not been consulted in the making of Frozen, and the film's use of elements of Sámi culture such as music and clothing came as a surprise to the Sámi community. In response, when the film's sequel was announced, Sámi organizers forged a partnership with Walt Disney Animation Studios in which a group of Sámi experts offered creative consultation and input on the representation of the Sámi in Frozen 2. In this episode, I speak with Aili Keskitalo, who helped organize the collaboration with Walt Disney Animation Studios during her tenure as President of the Sámi Parliament of Norway, about working with WDAS, Sámi politics, the impact of the Frozen films on the Sámi community, and the importance of telling Indigenous stories with Indigenous voices.The agreement signed between Sámi representatives and Walt Disney Animation Studios is available here.This episode is part one of a two-part series on the Sámi in Disney's Frozen movies; part two, focusing on representations of Sámi culture and folklore in Frozen, can be found here.Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Roma figures have been an essential part of European folklore, myths, and literary traditions for centuries, with writers from Cervantes to Shakespeare to Victor Hugo drawing on the stereotype of the free-spirited, bohemian "Gypsy." Post-World War II, Roma characters began to appear in a new literary medium: American comic books. Roma heroes and villains alike fill the pages of DC and Marvel comics, with iconic characters like Dr. Doom, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, and Nightcrawler depicted as Roma. Almost exclusively written and drawn by non-Romani, however, these characters are often flawed or stereotypical, or, in recent years, they've been stripped of their Roma identity. Despite this, Roma comic book characters have become an important source of inspiration and empowerment for Roma youth around the globe. In this episode, Roma human rights activist and pop culture expert Vicente Rodriguez Fernandez joins me to talk about depictions of Romani characters in comic books, film and TV, the use of Roma identity as a literary trope, and comics as a tool of empowerment for minority groups.Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Robin Vose (St. Thomas University) talks about his new monograph, The Index of Prohibited Books: Four Centuries of Struggle over Word and Image for the Greater Glory of God (Reaktion, 2022), censorship, and the Reformation.The first comprehensive history of the Catholic Church’s notorious Index, with resonance for ongoing debates over banned books, censorship, and free speech. For more than four hundred years, the Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum struck terror into the hearts of authors, publishers, and booksellers around the world, while arousing ridicule and contempt from many others, especially those in Protestant and non-Christian circles. Biased, inconsistent, and frequently absurd in its attempt to ban objectionable texts of every conceivable description—with sometimes fatal consequences—the Index also reflected the deep learning and careful consideration of many hundreds of intellectual contributors over the long span of its storied evolution. This book constitutes the first full study of the Index of Prohibited Books to be published in English. It examines the reasons behind the Church’s attempts to censor religious, scientific, and artistic works, and considers not only why this most sustained of campaigns failed, but what lessons can be learned for today’s debates over freedom of expression and cancel culture.Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

What happens when politics becomes comedy and the jester becomes the king?Guests Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker Avi Steinberg, writer Kwesi Mensah, comedian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series.In this episode, our host Juan Llamas-Rodriguez discusses the book The Digital Border: Migration, Technology, Power (2022) by Dr. Lilie Chouliaraki and Dr. Myria Georgiou.You’ll hear about: What The Digital Border is about, its importance, and its implication; How the authors’ previous works helped build the foundation for writing this book collaboratively; Why and how the authors chose to focus on specific forms of media such as social media and journalism; A discussion of humanitarian securitization vis a vis entrepreneurial securitization; How to understand the theoretical shift from the “crisis of migration” to the “crisis of responsibility”; How do we contend the different temporalities of resistance as various actors produce or respond to border technologies and infrastructures; As the displacement of people are intensifying, what frameworks and toolkits can be useful for us to rethink global migration against the “crisis of imaginary” (imaginary as a representational framework that people normatively think about certain issues); What are the futures of globalization and its counter movements in Global North from the perspectives of migration and bordering; What are the areas the authors wish to further explore in the future. About the bookWhat is the role of digital technologies is shaping migration today? How do digital infrastructures, platforms, and institutions control the flow of people at the border? And how do they also control the public narratives of migration as a “crisis”? Finally, how do migrants themselves use these same platforms to speak back and make themselves heard in the face of hardship and hostility? Taking their case studies from the biggest migration event of the twenty-first century in the West, the 2015 European migration “crisis” and its aftermath up to 2020, Lilie Chouliaraki and Myria Georgiou offer a holistic account of the digital border as an expansive assemblage of technological infrastructures (from surveillance cameras to smartphones) and media imaginaries (stories, images, social media posts) to tell the story of migration as it unfolds in Europe’s outer islands as much as its most vibrant cities. You can find this book on the NYU Press website.Authors:Lilie Chouliaraki is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, where she also serves as the department’s Doctoral Program Director.Myria Georgiou is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, where she also serves as Research Director.Host: Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is an assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, where he researches and teaches global media cultures, digital technologies, border studies, infrastructure studies, and Latin American media.Editor & Producer: Jing Wang is Senior Research Manager at CARGC at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.Our podcast is part of the multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the very best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications