NEWS

Visiting Fellow in the UK

Professor Jennifer Gillan was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Warwick in the UK during June and July 2016.

Nominated by Dr Joanne Garde-Hansen (Centre for Cultural Policy Studies) Professor Gillan (Bentley) along with Jonathan Gray (UW-Madison) participated in a variety of research events at the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, the Institute of Advanced Study, and the Department of Film and Television Studies, in collaboration with the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory.

The series, titled "Paratextual Memory," brought together for the first time a range of key thinkers from the UK and USA from paratextual studies and memory studies. The ‘paratextual cohort’ as it is called consists of researchers in film, television, digital media, fandom, audience, cultural, creative and media industries, literature, cultural history, sociology, technology studies, commercial media, marketing, branding and distribution studies. All these fields have an interest in the culture, creativity, media, popular art and literature that circulates around, beyond and beside literary and screen culture. Likewise, memory studies scholars are also exploring the everydayness of memory in terms of its disruptive, ephemeral, collective and community formations. They are also concerned to find new paradigms to critique the monetization of memory, the creation of new mnemonic currencies and the opening up a range of agents of mediated memory from creative producers, showrunners, media corporations, museums and heritage institutions to brand managers, grassroots intermediaries and fan audiences.

One seminar on television and new media seminar with Jennifer Gillan related to her book Television and New Media: Must-Click TV, particularly the chapter "Fan tracking, targeting, and interaction from the web to the WB"; with follow-up in the Epilogue chapter of Television Brandcasting (2015).

A second seminar on brandcasting with Dr. Gillan discussed in particular the chapter from her book Television Brandcasting (2015) on "Cable Brandcasting and the Disney Channel's Company Voice."