COURSES
CA 450 History of Broadcasting
CA 452 Media and Cultural Policy
CA 613 Television Industry Today
CA 613 Media and the Public Sphere
CA 950 Media, Nation, and Public
CA 950 Transnational Media Histories: Beyond "Americanization" - syllabus
CA 951 Media History and Historiography - syllabus
CA 951 Media History and Historiography: Sound Histories - syllabus

RESEARCH INTERESTS
I specialize in the history of broadcasting, with a strong emphasis on issues of historiographical theory and method. One of my primary areas of research is on radio, particularly the period before television, and in the developing field of sound studies. My latest publication is NBC: America’s Network, a collection of original articles by leading scholars on the history of the NBC network – see the link below. Recently I've been working on a comparative study of British and American broadcasting, looking at how each country influenced the other and how the two nations counterposed their own systems - commercial vs. public service - in a way that affected broadcasting structures and concepts around the world. I'm also very interested in issues of race, ethnicity, and gender in the media, and have written on radio as a medium of national identity and definition.

DEPARTMENTAL ACTIVITIES
I served eight years as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the department, stepping down in 2002, and then was appointed Associate Chair of the department from 2004 to 2006. I am currently the Director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, the department unit that works with the Wisconsin Historical Society to collect important visual, sound, and written archives in the field of media history. Most people are not aware that here in tiny Madison, Wisconsin we have one of the largest collections of media history materials in the nation, including the records of such major companies as the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), United Artists, Warner Bros., Monogram, RKO, MTM Productions, and from significant artists, producers and news figures such as Kirk Douglas, Agnes Moorhead, Edna Ferber, John Frankenheimer, David Susskind, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and many more. They are an invaluable resource that serve not only our faculty and graduate students, but draw researchers and media scholars from around the world.

• Ph. D. (1986) New York University, Department of Cinema Studies
  
• M.A. (1981) New York University, Department of Cinema Studies
  
• B.A. with Honors in Comparative Literature (1975) Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

HONORS/AWARDS/KEYNOTE ADDRESSES

• Sabbatical leave, Communication Arts Department, 2006-2007
• Keynote Address, “Blame Canada: Soap Opera, National Culture, and Transnational Migrations,” Conference on Media History in Canada, Toronto, June 2006
• Plenary Address, “Nationality and Television: The Anglo-American Connection and its Global Consequences,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Vancouver, March 2006
• Keynote Address, “Beyond Americansation: The Global Significance of the Anglo- American Relationship in Broadcasting,” Media, Communications, and Cultural Studies Association, Leeds, UK, January 2006
• Keynote address, “The Meaning of Live: How New Technologies Are Making Us Rethink Old Definitions, and What’s at Stake,” The Radio Conference 2005: A Transnational Forum, MIT/University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. July 11-13, 2005.
• Keynote speaker and member of International Board of Referees, Radio Summer School, University of Siena, Italy, July 26-30, 2004.
• Keynote address, “Front Line Family: Women’s Culture Comes to the BBC”, Visions II: BBC History Conference, University of Central Lancashire, UK, July 2004.
• Center for European Studies Travel Grant, December 2003
• Keynote Speaker, “British Quality, American Chaos: Historical Dualisms and What They Leave Out,” Radiodyssey Conference, Brighton, England, July 2001.
• Keynote speaker, "The Uses of Americanization", Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference, Helsinki, Finland, May 1998.
• Steenbock Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School, 1997
• WARF Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School, 1995
• Vilas Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School, 1999-2001
• Sabbatical leave, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999-2000
• Duke University Travel-to-Collections Grant, June 1993
• Vilas Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School

Books
NBC: America’s Network. Editor. University of California Press, 2007.

Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States. Wadsworth Press. Second edition, 2006

The Television History Book (editor) British Film Institute, 2003.

Connections: A Broadcast History Reader (editor) (Wadsworth, 2002)

Only Connect: A Cultural History of US Broadcasting (Wadsworth, 2001)

Radio Reader: Essays on the Cultural History of American Radio (co-editor with Jason Loviglio, Routledge, 2001)

Hollywood and Broadcasting: From Radio to Cable (University of Illinois Press, 1990)

Articles and Chapters
“Front Line Family: Women’s Culture Comes to the BBC,” Media, Culture and Society 29:1, January 2007, 5-29.

“NBC and the Network Idea: Defining ‘The American System,’ 1926 to 1934” in NBC: America’s Network, 2007.

“Network Nation: Writing Broadcasting History as Cultural History,” with Shawn Vancour, in NBC: America’s Network, 2007.

“The Bad Object: Television in the American Academy,” Cinema Journal 45:1, Fall 2005, 111-116.

“Radio’s New Wave: An Old Medium is Reinvented,” Boston Globe 22 May 2005.

"Fanny Brice and the Schnooks Strategy," Spectator, June 2005.

“Radio,” Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film. 2005.

“Transnational Radio in the Global Age,” invited foreword, Journal of Radio Studies, Summer 2004.

“The Wisconsin Historical Society’s Media Collection,” Encyclopedia of the Midwest. 2004.

“Radio Nations: The Importance of Transnational Media Study” in Atlantic Communications: Political, Social and Cultural Perspectives on Media and Media Technology in American and German History in the 20th Century. London: Berg Publishers, 2003.

“Broadcasting, Cable, and Satellites” Sage Handbook of Media Studies, ed. John Downing, DenisMcQuail, Ellen Wartella. London and New York: Sage, 2004

“The Rise of the Commercial Network Broadcasting System in the United States, 1922- 1946,” Die Idee des Radios V. 4, Media und History Annual, Studienkreis Rundfunk und Geschichte, Berlin, Germany, 2004.

"Femmes Boff Program Toppers: Women Break Into Prime Time, 1943-1948" in Susan Brinson and J. E. Winn, eds., Transmitting the Past: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Broadcasting. University of Alabama Press, 2005.

“The Origins of the Commercial Broadcasting System in the US,” “Cable, Satellites, and the Challenge of Digital Media,” “US Television in the Multichannel Age,” in The Television History Book. British Film Institute, December 2003.

“British Quality, American Chaos: Historical Dualisms and What They Leave Out,” The Radio Journal, Vol. 1 #1, Spring 2003.

"Who We Are, Who We Are Not: Battle of the Global Paradigms" in Planet Television, ed. Lisa Parks and Shanti Kumar (New York University Press, 2002)

"Radio" and "Soap Operas," Encyclopedia of Advertising (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, forthcoming 2003)

"Desired and Feared: Women's Voices in Radio History", Television, History and American Culture: Feminist Critical Essays (Duke University Press, 1999)

Work in Progress
Network Nations: How the Broadcasting Rivalry Between the US and Great Britain Shaped Twentieth Century Culture (in research stage)

“DVDs, National Culture, and Global Markets,” in Digital Culture: Understanding New Media ed. Glen Creeber, Open University Press, forthcoming 2008.

“Nailing Mercury: The Problem of Media Industry Historiography,” The Media Industries Studies Book, ed. Alisa Perren and Jennifer Holt. London: Blackwell, forthcoming 2008.

Professional Offices/Editorial Boards
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Executive Council, 2007-9

North American Radio Studies Network, executive board, 2004-

Console-ing Passions Executive Board, 1998-

International Advisory Board (founding), The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media. Ken Garner, Editor. Intellect Press, UK, 2001-

Editorial Board, Journal of Radio Studies (Broadcast Education Association), 2004-.

Editorial Board, Journal of E-Media Studies, 2004-

Editorial Board, Television and New Media, 2002-

Advisory Committee, “Women in Broadcasting,” Museum of Television and Radio, New York, 2004-

Professional Organizations
Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Broadcast Education Association

North American Radio Studies Network

Console-ing Passions Conference on Television and Feminism

Radio Studies Network (Great Britain)

American Studies Association

IAMHIST (International Association for Media and History)

SPERDVAC (Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety, and Comedy)