M AC A L E S T E R AC A D E M I C U P DAT E2 0 1 8 FA L L

Media and Cultural StudiesThe major provides a working knowl-edge of the methods of historians and critics of culture and the media; an ability to explicate a specific body of culture or type of media in depth; and opportunities to appreciate different kinds of media and to produce original work. The minor concentrates on media studies and offers opportunities for critical research as well as for pre- professional experience in media production. Students in the depart-ment have found opportunities for internships with arts and other non-profit organizations and with media companies. Graduates have found employment in the media, in govern-ment, and in social and cultural institutions as well as opportunities for further study in doctoral programs and professional schools. Media studies examines the forces that shape media texts and those that govern their meanings in global culture and provides students with experience producing digital, print, and video texts that investigate and represent that culture in journalistic and alternative forms, such as news-paper and broadcast reporting, political documentary, and video. Cultural studies has developed in response to what critics have seen as exclusions and gaps in programs in the traditional humanities. It has broad-ened categories of cultural analysis to include multiple traditions.

FacultyJohn Kim, associate professor and chair, has taught at the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, and Williams College. A theorist and practitioner of new media, he has published widely in journals and other print publications, and exhibited interactive works in galleries and festivals around the world, including MASS MoCA, Dia Center for the Arts, and Northern Spark. Before returning to teaching, John also worked as a programmer and designer at a handful of internet startups.

Morgan Adamson, assistant professor, came to Macalester from Duke University where she was ACLS New Faculty Fellow in the Literature and Arts of the Moving Image Department. She completed her PhD in critical theory and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota. Her interests are in avant-garde film and new media, critical theory, and digital video production.

Michael Griffin, visiting assistant professor, earned his PhD in visual communication and media studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a CBS Dissertation Fellowship for his work on the industrial shaping of visual aesthetics. Griffin teaches and writes on cultural history and theory, and practice of visual representation in film, photography, and television; and he regularly teaches Local News Media Institutions, where students get the opportunity to work with local media.

Leola Johnson, associate professor, teaches courses on television, the press, and other mass media as social and cultural institutions. Her research focuses on media representations of race. Her most recent publication is “Barack Obama’s Body and the Body Politic,” in the International Journal of Communication. She is currently working on an essay about the way nineteenth-century slavery haunts contemporary popular culture, using the book Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes as a primary example.

Howard Sinker ’78, visiting instructor, teaches news reporting. He authored a chapter in the textbook Real Sports Reporting and has run workshops for journalists with the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma and the Poynter Institute’s National Writers Workshops.

Brad Stiffler ’07, visiting instructor, has a PhD in comparative studies in discourse and society from the University of Minnesota. He is also an instructor in the Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature program at the University of Minnesota.

Contributing FacultyEric Carroll, Art and Art History

Zeynep Gürsel, International Studies

Kiarina Kordela, German and Russian Studies

David Martyn, German and Russian Studies

David Chioni Moore, International Studies and English

Khaldoun Samman, Sociology

Sonita Sarker, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English

Linda Schulte-Sasse, German Studies

Joëlle Vitiello, French and Francophone Studies

James von Geldern, Russian Studies and International Studies

Chris Wells, Environmental Studies and History

Recent CoursesAdvanced Documentary Studies: Theory and Practice

Advanced Film Analysis

Advanced Journalism: New Media

Afrofuturism in Media and Popular Culture

Blackness in the Media Community Video

Cultures of Neoliberalism

Documentary Video

Environmental Issues and the Media

Media and Cultural StudiesFilm Analysis and Visual Culture

Finding Success on the Festival Circuit

Fundamentals of Video Production

Gender, Labor and the Media

Global Media Industries

Hip Hop and Representation

History of Film 1893–1941

History of Film Since 1941

Local News Media Institutions

Mass Incarceration and the Media

New Media

New Media: From the Counterculture to Digital Culture

News Reporting and Writing

Surrealisms: Art, Photography, and Film

Texts and Power: Foundations of Media and Cultural Studies

Honors ProjectsKelsey Fox ’17 (Cottage Grove, Minn.), “Converging Horror: Analyzing the Importance of Convergence Culture on a Digital Audience Through an Examination of the Conventions and Politics of the Horror Genre”

Simona Zappas ’15 (Los Angeles), and Isaac Mathison-Bowie ’15 (Newton, Iowa), “Scopophiliacs”

InternshipsZeam Porter ’20 (Minneapolis), Rondo Avenue, Inc., intern and panel creator for Rondo Plaza, St. Paul

Victoria Duan ’19 (Beijing), GogyUp, adult literacy workplace pilot lead intern, Minneapolis

Bianca Gonzalez ’19 (Los Angeles), Friends for a Nonviolent World, campus organizing intern

Rajnee Persaud ’19 (Bronx, N.Y.), FilmNorth: JuiceMedia intern; Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival intern

Madelyn Osmon ’18 (Rochester, Minn.), Office of Gov. Mark Dayton, public engagement and constituent services intern

Bijanca Clark ’17 (Moorhead, Minn.), Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, sales and marketing intern

After MacalesterMichael Khalid Karadsheh ’18 (Holland, Mich.) is pursuing an MFA in acting at Columbia University in New York.

Rosa Durst ’17 (Madison, Wis.) is a high school English teacher in Versailles, France.

Emma Andelson ’16 (Grinnell, Iowa) is an external affairs assistant, Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center.

Mackenzie Martin ’16 (Wausau, Wis.) is a Morning Edition host/features editor at WXPR-FM Public Radio in Rhinelander, Wis.

Zosha Winegar-Schultz ’16 (St. Paul) is pursuing a PhD in philosophy in the Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Department at the University of Minnesota.

Nicholas Contino ’15 (Sarasota, Fla.) is an afterschool community director with Jewish Kids Groups in Atlanta.

William Kent-Daggett ’15 (Los Angeles) is a junior web developer at Stink Studios in Los Angeles.

Sydney Nolan ’15 (Minneapolis) is a communications manager at the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health, Brookline, Mass.

John (Tanur) Badgley ’14 (Topeka, Kan.) is an English as a Second Language teacher at VIPKID, teaching English to Chinese students online in Thailand.

April N. Bethea ’14 (Wiesbaden, Germany) received an MA in media and cultural studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is now a membership and community associate for Made in NY Media Center by IFP in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Johanna Armstrong ’13 (St. Cloud, Minn.) is a fourth-grade teacher at Shanghai Pinghe School in Shanghai City who has an MA in international/global studies and an MS in communication and media studies.

Hanna Hurr ’13 (Vaasa, Finland) is the editor-in-chief of Mask Magazine, New York.

Andrew Keefe ’13 (Minneapolis) is a policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.

Rebecca Morelo Jackson ’13 (El Paso, Texas) is an international office communications assistant at the University of Texas–Austin, where she’s completed two graduate degrees. She’s also a film program assistant at Cine Las Americas.

Danielle Lauren Dweck ’12 (Sea Cliff, N.Y.) is a copywriter and content creator at Fisher-Price in New York.

Rose Holdorf ’11 (Corvallis, Ore.) is a market manager at Denison Farms in Corvallis, Ore.

Siarhei Biareishyk ’10 (Minsk, Belarus) is a postdoctoral research associate, Center for Literary and Cultural Research (Zentrum für Literatur-und Kulturforschung), Berlin.

Jeremy Meckler ’10 (Cleveland Heights, Ohio) is the Media and Cultural Studies Department coordinator, Macalester, and is pursuing a PhD in cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota.

Quinn Rivenburgh ’10 (Kenmore, Wash.) is an art therapist at PrairieCare in the Twin Cities, having received a master’s in art therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Joe Van Eeckhout ’10 (Lopez Island, Wash.) is a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, covering the East and Central African regions.

Updated August 2018

macalester.edu/mcs