Trump is back in office, letting Elon Musk loose and apparently giving in to Russia’s demands as far as Ukraine is concerned, all the while looking to see if he can get access to Ukraine’s minerals. Climate mitigating legislation has been and will be slashed further, while Ulrich Merz, newly elected Chancellor of Germany, is calling for greater European defence spending: these are troubling times.

‘In the not-too-distant future…’ For those of us of a certain age and from a certain geographic range, the lyric above was likely heard being sung by a range of voices including Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson and/or any number of robot associates.

Co-editors: Gábor Gergely, Júlia Havas, Victoria K. Pistivsek What is “Europe”? The term is far from self-evident. The emerging canon of Eastern European decolonial sociological scholarship shows that Europe is the product of the far-reaching legacies of global colonialism and ongoing ideological, cultural, and geopolitical contestations (Baker et al. 2024; Boatcă and Parvulescu 2020;

Because of the ambiguities inherent in the job, spy dramas tend to have morally grey characters, mutable moralities and can, though do not have to, engage in subversive critique of geopolitics and governments (cf Oldham 2017).

Original call here. Exploitation. Lowbrow. Cult. Underground. Trash. Poverty Row. Programmers. Pulp. Popular. Mass. … These descriptors of the “B” movie apply just as well to what we term “B-TV,” as they describe an aesthetics derived from the industrial realities that produced them.

Editor: Sabrina Mittermeier View the full call here >> https://intellectbooks.com/tv-matters TV Matters is a new series of short monographs (40,000 to 50,000 words) on television series, analysing their production history, cultural context, main themes, as well as fandom and audience reception. The focus is on shows that both have critical acclaim (as reflected by awards, media reviews), but more importantly, are genuinely ‘popular’.

I have something of an ambivalent relationship with travel documentaries.  While I often enjoy them, as someone who partially specialises in media representation and has lived, worked and travelled outside my country of origin for the majority of my adult life, I frequently find myself critiquing the various portrayals.

First of all, a happy New Year – we at CSTonline hope you have all had a good winter break. And while we certainly agree with more pessimistic assessments that see 2025 as not looking to be off to a promising start – with everything happening in the world right now – we are of the conviction that we can’t just throw our hands in the air and give in to resignation.

Santa has been very kind to me again this year.

In the 1960s and 70s, US TV networks were broadcasting a plethora of situation comedies, many of which featured families in a variety of shapes and sizes [1]. Child actors were integral to these programs, and part of their job was to perform the genre’s comedic conventions, make the audience laugh, and help sitcoms appeal to a family audience.

Science fiction and comedy are often used for social commentary and animated sf/fantasy sitcom Futurama (Fox 1999-2003, Comedy Central 2008-2013, Netflix 2023-) is no exception.  For those unfamiliar with the series, it is an animated workplace sitcom with science fiction elements (cf Geraghty, 2009).