Current location:	home
Current mood:	geeky
Current music:	raindrops and wind and meowing cats

Good God, it's 2008 already
How'd that happen?

Listening to the wind howl and the rain slash down (heh), hoping the lights don't go out. Am taking a month off to work intensely on my thesis, hope to defend come Spring. Last paper apparently went well (death and resurrection in SG-1) - lovely thesis chair suggested I tweak it for submission to the grad school journal, and present at the Spring scholarly competition - shocked the tar out of me, but hey, it was a lot of fun to write, so I'm game to go with it. Am currently bouncing like a ping pong ball between:
gender (Judith Butler, mainly)

philosophy (Foucault and Wittgenstein)

literary criticism (specifically scifi, but also storytelling in TV. recs: Reading Television by John Fiske and John Hartley; Quality Popular Television, edited by Mark Jancovich and James Lyons)

cultural studies (mainly tv emphasis. recs: Hop on Pop: the politics and pleasures of popular culture, edited by Jenkins, McPherson and Shattuc; The Wow Climax: tracing the emotional impact of popular culture by Henry Jenkins)

gay history (recs: Queering Teen Culture: All American Boys and Same-Sex Desire in Film and Television by Jeffery Dennis; Prime Time Closet: a history of gays and lesbians on TV by Stephen Tropiano; Gay TV and Straight America by Ron Becker)

fandom (recs: Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, edited by Hellekson and Busse; The Adoring Audience: fan culture and popular media, edited by Lisa Lewis, Fan Cultures by Matt Hill, Theorizing Fandom: Fans, subculture and identity edited by Harris and Alexander)

and cybercommunity (recs: Virtual Culture: identity and communication in cybersociety edited by Steven Jones; Life on the Screen: identity in the age of the internet by Sherry Turkle; The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory edited by Herman and Swiss - more for historical analysis since we're into web 2.0 now; Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide by Henry Jenkins, again)

Those are some that I've found most useful so far; have more to check out. Got a ton of journal articles (or at least it feels like it!) to put into the puzzle, but I'm thoroughly enjoying this. Now I just have to buckle down and start writing - funny thing one of my professors said awhile back -- you find yourself doing housework, or anything else, to put off the writing... and I love to write. But there are so many different pieces of the puzzle, and I want them ALL in there, and they won't all fit... Darned good thing I've got such a great thesis committee. Historians, a cultural studies person, a semiologist, a political economist; they'll keep me from running off madly in all directions.

Anyway, babbling done, lights are flickering - hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday, and welcome to 2008!!