Description Slapstick performance and trick cinematography dominated early global cinema. People ... more Description Slapstick performance and trick cinematography dominated early global cinema. People climb into boxes and are tossed around; they jerry-rig all manner of dwellings and conveyances; they leap out of windows, crash through doors, dangle from clock towers, and slide down staircases; they appear and disappear like ghosts. But what did such visual gags look like in films made in Shanghai, as opposed to Los Angeles? How did filmmakers from different cultural traditions share or adapt comic tropes-and which ones? And how did their comedy change with technology, such as the advent of sound cinema, or with politics, war, and revolution? The following conversation between Henry Jenkins, a media scholar who works primarily on American popular culture, and Christopher Rea, a cultural historian of China, explores comic convergences on the silver screen, focusing on filmmakers who embraced a vaudevillian aesthetic of visceral comedy and variety entertainment. It offers a guided tour of cinematic comedy in comparative perspective, drawing out resonances between Hollywood and Chinese films from the 1910s to the 1950s. Illustrating the discussion are clips from a variety of films, from early works by Charlie Chaplin to the short-lived era of cinematic satire in Mao's China.
This talk, presented in 2015 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, addresses curren... more This talk, presented in 2015 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, addresses current industry speculations about the future audiences for Hollywood entertainment by tracing multiple histories of exhibition and reception. The first history describes the ways that film exhibition has always existed in relation to other kinds of entertainment experiences, many of which offered some form of immersion. The second history explores the various ways that fans and other film audiences have sought to participate more fully in the entertainment process. And the third suggests that contemporary talk of transmedia storytelling builds upon decades of attempts to link film with other media.
Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Bla... more Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Blackness, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, higher education has overlooked the university’s far future, opting to focus on readily conspicuous change. Along with this disregarded conversation, these crises present higher education faculty, administrators, and staff an opportunity to critically re-think the future of higher education given what we know now and what we do not. In this dialogic essay between a higher education policy doctoral student and a tenured media and communications professor, the authors peer into the hit HBO series Lovecraft Country and its underlying themes of horror, fantasy, and historical reality to extract vital lessons for higher education. The authors further participate in conversations about utilizing world and storymaking tactics to help higher education envision the university of the future—a future that is radical and boundless.
Description Slapstick performance and trick cinematography dominated early global cinema. People ... more Description Slapstick performance and trick cinematography dominated early global cinema. People climb into boxes and are tossed around; they jerry-rig all manner of dwellings and conveyances; they leap out of windows, crash through doors, dangle from clock towers, and slide down staircases; they appear and disappear like ghosts. But what did such visual gags look like in films made in Shanghai, as opposed to Los Angeles? How did filmmakers from different cultural traditions share or adapt comic tropes-and which ones? And how did their comedy change with technology, such as the advent of sound cinema, or with politics, war, and revolution? The following conversation between Henry Jenkins, a media scholar who works primarily on American popular culture, and Christopher Rea, a cultural historian of China, explores comic convergences on the silver screen, focusing on filmmakers who embraced a vaudevillian aesthetic of visceral comedy and variety entertainment. It offers a guided tour of cinematic comedy in comparative perspective, drawing out resonances between Hollywood and Chinese films from the 1910s to the 1950s. Illustrating the discussion are clips from a variety of films, from early works by Charlie Chaplin to the short-lived era of cinematic satire in Mao's China.
This talk, presented in 2015 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, addresses curren... more This talk, presented in 2015 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, addresses current industry speculations about the future audiences for Hollywood entertainment by tracing multiple histories of exhibition and reception. The first history describes the ways that film exhibition has always existed in relation to other kinds of entertainment experiences, many of which offered some form of immersion. The second history explores the various ways that fans and other film audiences have sought to participate more fully in the entertainment process. And the third suggests that contemporary talk of transmedia storytelling builds upon decades of attempts to link film with other media.
Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Bla... more Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Blackness, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, higher education has overlooked the university’s far future, opting to focus on readily conspicuous change. Along with this disregarded conversation, these crises present higher education faculty, administrators, and staff an opportunity to critically re-think the future of higher education given what we know now and what we do not. In this dialogic essay between a higher education policy doctoral student and a tenured media and communications professor, the authors peer into the hit HBO series Lovecraft Country and its underlying themes of horror, fantasy, and historical reality to extract vital lessons for higher education. The authors further participate in conversations about utilizing world and storymaking tactics to help higher education envision the university of the future—a future that is radical and boundless.
The Edison Project asserts that the Media and Entertainment industry is in the middle of its most... more The Edison Project asserts that the Media and Entertainment industry is in the middle of its most radical period of change since Edison and his team invented the kinetoscope. Stemming from a multi-year collaborative applied research and executive education initiative at USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, The Edison Project, focuses on anticipating and creating ways to take advantage of new trends and disruptions in the Media and Entertainment industry.
We have entered into a world of what-if and why-not. In some sense, if you can imagine it, why can’t you do it? Through The Edison Project, the Lab posits a transition from an Information Economy to an Imagination Economy, creating a vision for a new M&E ecosystem and working with a range of strategic partners to accelerate its arrival.
Why Now? What most people perceive as signposts of disaster, we in fact interpret as signposts of opportunity. This shift from an information economy to an imagination economy may represent the beginning of a new global boom with these four key characteristics.
The rise of ubiquitous and affordable technology, The rise of participatory culture and the new maker movement, The rise of a global broadband distribution platform, The rise of a rapidly growing global middle class These are all converging to reshape the media and entertainment industries—and quite possibly every other industry as well.
The Edison Project focuses on four main areas of research, each of which is integral to understanding and succeeding in the new Imagination Economy: The New Screens, The New Creators + Makers, The New Funding + Business Models, and The New Metrics + Measurement.
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Papers by Henry Jenkins
We have entered into a world of what-if and why-not. In some sense, if you can imagine it, why can’t you do it? Through The Edison Project, the Lab posits a transition from an Information Economy to an Imagination Economy, creating a vision for a new M&E ecosystem and working with a range of strategic partners to accelerate its arrival.
Why Now?
What most people perceive as signposts of disaster, we in fact interpret as signposts of opportunity. This shift from an information economy to an imagination economy may represent the beginning of a new global boom with these four key characteristics.
The rise of ubiquitous and affordable technology,
The rise of participatory culture and the new maker movement,
The rise of a global broadband distribution platform,
The rise of a rapidly growing global middle class
These are all converging to reshape the media and entertainment industries—and quite possibly every other industry as well.
The Edison Project focuses on four main areas of research, each of which is integral to understanding and succeeding in the new Imagination Economy: The New Screens, The New Creators + Makers, The New Funding + Business Models, and The New Metrics + Measurement.