TV After "Lost"

So the series finale of Lost aired last night, and I was only slightly disappointment. After six years of this show, I never thought it would end the way it did: three parts ambiguous, one part answers. But perhaps letting us know everything would ruin it. Show creator J.J. Abrams's Cloverfield monopolized on the mystery of the unknown, having a huge monster simply show up and destroy. Just like a viral video, a bunch of people filmed something horrifying and we never discovered the reason why anything happened. Lost functions is a similar way, allowing the audience more power in the interpretation process than other shows provide. However,much like the ending of Battlestar Galactica, I'd prefer a few more answers. What I like about TV shows to begin with is the time needed to develop stories and make the conclusions that much more satisfying, but many of them don't seem get there. Answers, perhaps I'll post more on this later. For now, still processing the end. My Lost friends and I will all have to find a new show to watch. Wipeout here we come.

Reflections on Academic Blogging

Over the past semester I've been attempting to be more aware of the direction of my blog writing, creating the feel of an academic blog. This isn't entirely new for my writing hear as my first post was a two-part argument where I claimed that church worship music represented Adorno's idea of standardization. Based on my personal experience of church music as a worship leader, I went into detail about a genre of music I felt was created based on a different standard of music making, one that tried to create a "neutral" sound, like elevator music or anything else that ignores cultural roots. Since then, the blog has existed between discussing my academic career and simply posting whatever I want, like my favorite post about using a women's bathroom and just writing about it as a story akin to something on This American Life. This semester, I tried to consider using the blog both more frequently, posting 10 times, and trying to examine what I'm posting about in a more academic way. For myself, academics comes in my personal approach to fan-related topics and attempting to contemplate their deeper meaning. I think I was successful in this on most posts, while others were posting because I just wanted to write about something and other venues just wouldn't cut it.

I've been blogging since 2005 on this site and I'll continue to do it now and in the future. One of my favorite moments remains when author David Dark (one of my favorites) found me and posted that he was intrigued by my enjoyment of first-person shooter video games coupled with one of my favorite books by a pacifist author, John Howard Yoder. This has been a wonderful space to be a part and I hope turning into a more academic blog will help me find the community that comes with it online, something I haven't been able to really do yet. Welp, it's been a great semester learning how use technology in more academic settings. Here's to more of it in the future.

My latest project

After much blood and tears, I've finished my first paper of the semester. For my Visual Research Methods course I had to create a space for it online. I love creating web space stuff even though it is a very frustrating process. Anyways, click here to read the paper.

Words of the semester

This is my second semester at Claremont Graduate University in the cultural studies program. I'll be finishing up my second master's degree this fall and hopefully moving into the PhD right after. My former degree in theology and culture gave me a very different take on cultural studies, thus I learned much about the discipline last year, learning about such key ideas as the culture industry, understandings of the bourgeoisie, subaltern studies, and many other concepts. I though it'd be fun to list those special key terms that continually come up this semester and have guided my research.

1. Cultural capital: my thesis focuses on fan studies, specifically fanboy culture, and the idea of cultural knowledge attained that provides various groups with power and status keep appearing everywhere I turn.
2. Authenticity: through studying Digital Storytelling and other forms of media that focus on portraying groups, the idea of something being "authentic" provides me with new ways to analyze not just non-fiction but fiction as well.
3. Diaspora: sure I'd heard the term before but my Transnational Media Theory course provided deeper insight into its use.
4. Double consciousness: D.E.B. Du Bois coined phrase provides exciting possibilities for my future studies on various groups and migration but also can be used for my specific focus in superhero studies, examining the duel role of a costumed hero and an "everyday" person moving through life split between two opposing identities.
5. Reappropriation: like the work "juxtaposition," I was just really excited to learn how to use it in a sentence.
6. Agency: understanding the role media texts play in people's lives, moving past simple explanations of escapist consumption.
7. Hybridization: I'm still working on what it means exactly in reference to idealized understandings of the effects of globalization, but its use continues to intrigue me.
8. Participatory culture: I've already learned about active reading and the more I read by Henry Jenkins and John Fiske help me understand this idea of engaging culture and making it a more active, rather than passive, part of daily life.
9. The Lesbian gaze: I've heard and read about the male gaze, but learning hot to distinguish between a lesbian and transgender gaze in cinema was new and incredibly helpful for understanding how the camera function in film.
10. Visual culture: I didn't know the phrase existed before this semester and I continue to want to know more about it. I did an video essay on an aspect of visual culture at the beginning of the semester and I'm a little bummed because I really would've loved to write more about it.