Back to the Future | USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study

Mar 22 2023

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

RSVP Required

RSVP Code: PIZZA0322

Event Details

Much of our present technological and socio-cultural progress was imagined in Sci-Fi art, film, and literatures in the past. What are we imagining now that might illuminate our future?

Henry Jenkins, Cinematic Arts

M G Lord, Associate Professor of the Practice of English

Speaker Information

Speaker

Henry Jenkins

Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education Primary Investigator, Civic Paths Research Group

Henry Jenkins is the author or editor of 20 books on various aspects of media and popular culture. Among his best known works are Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Meaning and Value in a Networked Culture, By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activists, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change and Comics and Stuff.

Jenkins came to USC after 20 years as a faculty member at MIT, where he created and co-chaired the comparative media studies master’s program and launched an innovative agenda of public-facing scholarship concerning new media literacies, educational and innovative gaming, convergence culture and civic media.

He has a long-standing commitment to increase public access and awareness of communication, media studies, and cultural studies research. In the service of that mission, Jenkins co-hosts the podcast How Do You Like It So Far? with ASCJ faculty member Colin Maclay and has run his widely read blog, Confessions of an Acafan, for more than 15 years.

M G Lord

Associate Professor of the Practice of English

M. G. Lord is the host of Blood, Sweat & Rockets, a new podcast from LAist Studios, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.

She is the author of Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science, a family memoir about Cold War aerospace culture. The book includes the dark origin story of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Lord is also the author of the widely praised books, Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times. A graduate of Yale, Lord was for 12 years a syndicated political cartoonist based at Newsday.