Morally Ambiguous Character Gallery

“[T]he world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.” -Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Students in Media Marathoning class elected to profile these morally ambiguous characters, describing both “dark” and “light”…

Media Marathoning Book Announcement

I’m delighted to announce that I signed a Lexington Books contract for Media Marathoning: Immersions and Morality. I’m currently revising in response to peer feedback. The book may even be in print by the end of this year. I look forward to kicking off a scholarly conversation about media marathoning. In 2013, the popular press exploded with…

Will You Get the Reference?

The recent ice storm that crippled Atlanta had me thinking about The Walking Dead. The lines of stranded cars do evoke scenes from the zombie apocalypse, but my mind drifted to one small line from the show. In “18 Miles Out,” Rick recalls that when his cousin got stuck on I-85 for a whole day,…

Omne Trium Perfectum: Good Things Come in Threes?

In the end of July, Peter Jackson announced that The Hobbit would be split into three films. The decision was cause for concern, particularly among those who had a hard time picturing how a relatively short book would be coaxed into three separate films. (Would the story be sort of stretched, like butter scraped over…