The Extratextuals

I am very happy to announce that I’ll be moving to the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, effective this summer. I’m thrilled to be joining the Media and Cultural Studies group, along with the other Comm Arts folk. There are many reasons to be happy, and some to be sad. I’ve had to be relatively secretive about the whole search process, and thus I want to share for those who may’ve been in the dark. For any readers who don’t really give a damn, forgive my self-indulgence. For others …

I should explain that it’s not just me who’ll be starting at Wisconsin. My wife, Monica, has also been hired there, in the Sociology department. Wisconsin’s Sociology dept. is ranked as one of the very best in the country, so this is a remarkable coup for someone just finishing her PhD. She’s worked remarkably hard, so I’m thrilled for her. Monica and I met in London, then spent a year with me commuting from London to New York, another two Berkeley to New York, and for these last four years, she’s spent considerable time in Philly (as a PhD student at University of Pennsylvania), so we’ve done the long distance thing to death. During that whole time, we’ve both worked as hard as we could so that one day we could either swing a spousal hire, or independently get ourselves to the same place. To have finally succeeded in that task is too wonderful for words. Monica is my best friend, a source of inspiration, humor, and calm, and the reason for much of my joy, and knowing that we’ll be able to have lunch dates on the lakeside is pretty darn awesome.

As for Communication Arts, I’ve always felt bonded to the program. The second media studies book I read was by John Fiske, then at Wisconsin. When I did my PhD in Goldsmiths at University of London, Wisconsin was a natural friend and sister university by most accounts. And when I moved to the U.S and started going to conferences and reading more US television studies work, I noticed that close to one half of everyone who I thought rocked (and probably half of the readership of this blog?) had either done their PhD at Wisconsin or had taught there. Vilas Hall has loomed large in my imagination. I even found myself in the odd position of being at another job interview this year, and getting into the car service to go back to the airport, I started chatting with the driver, only to hear that he was a former Madison football player; he heartily recommended that I go to Madison over the current location! An arrow was pointing the way, it seems. And so it’s a true honor to be joining their ranks.

I will also do so hopefully with tenure, as they’re putting me up immediately (ie: now). This represents a leap frog jump for me, given that my “clock” wasn’t up yet at Fordham. To some, tenure means a license to behave badly, and while I’m tempted to really test the boundaries and let my eccentricity run rampant (imagine me as Monty Burns saying “excellent”), what it truly means to me is a greater sense of freedom in what projects I can pursue. In media studies in particular, collaborative work doesn’t seem to be highly regarded or rewarded, and thus it’s perhaps not the best route to tenure, but with tenure, I can think about funky projects that involve other people, or that are for the online space, or that may not have seemed great to a tenure committee, but that advance scholarship and pedagogy nonetheless.

I enter with a great set of colleagues. Michele Hilmes is not only a superb media historian, and one of the very best at what she does, but also a lovely person. Mary Beltrán is also a great mix of scholar and person. And everyone else I met during my interview was really nice. Their grad students, too, excite me to no end, all of them working on relevant, interesting, and important topics, and some of their work in particular seems to click with mine naturally.

As I’ve learned, one of the things that sets Wisconsin apart from many other grad programs, and hence undoubtedly one of the reasons that they’ve produced so many excellent scholars, is the sense of intellectual community, fostered in particular by their Thursday colloquiums. I’ve always dreamed of being at a university where the ideas aren’t just in the classrooms, and where the belief is that camaraderie leads to better scholarship. Fordham’s been good to me, but it’s a New York City school, and thus almost everyone has long commutes, each understandably disappearing onto a train or car for an hour or more as soon as their classes end. But great ideas often work best with great beer, so I look forward to seeing the two together again.

And yet I’m also sad to be leaving Fordham when I am. James VanOosting (or JVObama, as a colleague took to calling him) took over this year as dept Chair, and has been doing a wonderful job. I have some wonderful friends, colleagues, and advocates at Fordham. Though the university’s financial straits may halt the dept’s current progress, its growth during my time there has been inspiring to see. I’ve been blessed with some great students, and the likes of Beth Knobel, JVO, Brian Rose, Robin Andersen, Tom McCourt, Mike Tueth, and others would be hard for any program to match in sheer collegiality and sense of humor.

As for the move from New York to Madison, on one hand, I’m sure I’ll miss things. When I’m too lazy to cook, and want to order out, I’ll miss having a choice of local Nepali-Japanese restaurants. I’ll miss having the Met Museum half an hour away, that I can see films before anyone else in the nation, the choice of three airports, the friends who visit while passing through, and fellow Extratextual Ivan, along with other friends like Chris, Gloria, and Randy. But I won’t miss the buffalo who lives above me, plays bad show tunes and Celine Dion at full volume, and stomps around in boots arguing with her partner who we all agree should’ve fled a long time ago. I won’t miss paying way too much rent for the privilege of hearing her. And I won’t miss feeling like a perpetual grad student, since I can’t afford to be a “real” adult in the city. Madison, on the other hand, will be freezing in Winter. But I can get back in touch with the Canadian in me, I can keep warm with cheese and beer, and I may have a few more options for working off that cheese and beer that don’t involve a gym full of New York posers. It’s a beautiful town, nestled in between the lakes. Its politics agree with me. It has a Trader Joe’s. I’m sure it’s stunning in the summer. And after the long horror of New York, Bay Area, and London rents, housing there is going to feel so very cheap. In short, I’m really excited about moving there.

I applied to several places this year, and met some wonderful people in some wonderful programs along the way. Thanks so much to them. I also received assistance, friendship, and guidance from a lot of people. Derek Johnson, Jason Mittell, Amanda Lotz, Aswin Punathambekar and Derek Kompare in particular have all been canonized. Michele Hilmes, Michael Curtin, and Sue Zaeske at Wisconsin have also been wonderfully helpful throughout the process.

It’s a very happy time at my place.

Uncategorized Madison