For my family, Christmas means television. As far as I know, we have never owned Monopoly, and the idea of playing charades is quite frankly laughable. The Royle Family Christmas specials were a staple of our Christmas TV schedule for many years.

Call for chapter proposals, working title: “Football Politics and Cultural Production in Africa: Issues and Discourses”. Deadline: April 30, 2024. Editor: Dr. Floribert Patrick C. Endong – University of Dschang, Cameroon Concept Notes In the popular imaginary, sports and politics do not mix.

REDEN (Revista Española de Estudios Norteamericanos, ISSN: 2695-4168) is an open access interdisciplinary, academic, double blind peer-reviewed journal focusing on the study of the US popular culture manifestations and the representations of the United States in popular culture.

Abstracts are sought for a proposed special journal issue, for which strong interest has been secured from a Q1 cultural studies journal. Special issue editors: Dr Laura Minor (University of Salford) and Dr Claire Perkins (Monash University) Deadline for abstracts: March 28, 2024. Over the past decade, ‘imperfection’ has emerged as one of the most recognisable themes in Western television focused on and driven by women.

On November 2, 3, 4, 2023, the Université de Montréal held an international conference on digital platforms.

Rare is the Christmas break where I don’t have a pile of research to catch up on, so it was a pleasure to luxuriate in books for a change. Two new arrivals were devoured instantly, and both reflected very different approaches to writing about screen media. One chiefly about film, the other squarely about television.

When I went with a friend to Plockton in the Scottish Highlands, admittedly over a decade ago, despite the fact that it was one of the main filming locations, memorabilia for Hammer Horror’s The Wicker Man (1973, dir. Hardy) were really nowhere to be seen. Instead, the tourist information centre had a number of Hamish MacBeth (BBC Scotland 1995-1997)[1] items on display.

How might we illustrate, explore, and begin to define the state of the nation film and television text? This free online conference invites consideration of these questions. The contours of the genre and tropes are fluid, and often the term is retrospectively ascribed.

For our readers outside the UK, I may have to let you know that something quite extraordinary has happened in the UK this week. A TV drama – a TV DRAMA – made, no less, by an, albeit commercial, but nevertheless PUBLIC SERVICE broadcaster, has thoroughly and utterly rattled the political establishment INTO ACTION. I am sorry for all the caps. But I feel it needs to be emphasised.

‘Nostalgia is always suspect’ (Atia and Davies 2010: 181). ** ** The trope of a hero who looks for a ‘normal’ life and then finds it unrewarding is common enough in the superhero and similar genres.

In 1983, the Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature was already noting Gothic’s altered eroticism from Byronic villainous figures in the works of Anne Rice; albeit still evil and dangerous and consumed by tormented doubt.  Since then, the indefiniteness of the Gothic genre in its latest iteration, AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, (2022) provides pictorial scope for the bold attractions of the male body.