This is pre-publication preview introduces the major questions, methods, and insights of my book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis & the Reproduction of Species (UC Press, 2023).

Without fail a study in any depth of our fondness for music must eventually address the issue of consonance and dissonance. Past approaches to this issue have been bounded by a limited knowledge base and, further, marred by logical flaws, occasional hand waving, and the myopia of reductionism. Despite the explosion of progress in the last few…[Read more]

“The company builds cars and destroys men” was the promotional tagline of one of the posters for “Blue Collar” (1978). Shot in Detroit and Kalamazoo, Michigan, the film stars Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto playing three Detroit auto workers in financial despair who break into and rob the offices of their own union. “Blue Collar”…[Read more]

La producción de los medios de comunicación constituye una expresión de la sociedad que los gesta. Los grupos sociales que intervienen en la producción televisiva actualmente son herederos de la práctica funcionalista y trasmisiva de los medios tradicionales de comunicación (prensa plana, radio y televisión). En esa lógica los temas que se represe…[Read more]

Los textosaudiovisualesdemandan una combinación de actividades entorno a larepresentación ydecodificación. El proceso se encuentra condicionado pordiferentesrolesen los procesos de producción y consumo televisivo. Se plantea como objetivo de la investigación: diseñarun modelo de producción para las comunidades de práctica televis…[Read more]

In this short article I argue that the UK government’s decision not to update the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) is more than a missed opportunity. It weaponises the GRA, now an effective instrument of assimilation and containment. The failure to reform the GRA seems like a maintenance of the status quo, but given that the circumstances have s…[Read more]

Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy creates a subtle apologia for the “middling sort” by challenging the socially constructed predicates of aristocratic privilege. A scrivener’s son, Kyd undertsood oeconomia, or household management, as both the means for material advancement among the “middling sort” and a potential threat to aristocratic insular…[Read more]

Examines Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and the epistemological challenges of differentiating twins in light of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, specifically his theories of substance and individuation.

Considerando a política da autoria associada à história da luta anticolonial e às suas relações com o cinema francês, este artigo aborda o filme anticolonialista Afrique 50 (1950). Distinguindo entre o filme como produto e como processo, discuto o problema das autorias rasuradas no documentário associado à assinatura autoral de René Vautier.…[Read more]

Satire, Humor, and Environmental Crises explores how satire and humor can be employed to address and mitigate ecological crises at individual and collective levels.

Besides scientific and technological endeavors, solutions to ecological crises must entail social and communicative reform to persuade citizens, corporations, organizations, and…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]

In the 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented a technical standard—known as Academy Mono, or the Academy Curve—that dramatically impaired the sound quality of motion pictures. This article accounts for why the major studios agreed to this restrictive standard. I argue that they adopted Academy Mono to curtail the pow…[Read more]

In the 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented a technical standard—known as Academy Mono, or the Academy Curve—that dramatically impaired the sound quality of motion pictures. This article accounts for why the major studios agreed to this restrictive standard. I argue that they adopted Academy Mono to curtail the pow…[Read more]