In this introduction for the special section on “Exclusions in the History of Media Studies,” we begin by calling attention to the constituting role that exclusion has played in the historiography of media studies. Exclusions linked to gender, race, language, colonialism, geopolitical location, and institutionally sanctioned privilege play sub…[Read more]

This short essay suggests that John Durham Peters’ Speaking into the Air (1999) re-capitulates its arguments through form. In its written medium, with its hermeneutic mode, and by its promiscuous prose, the book exemplifies its own moral case for dissemination over (in Peters’ chilling phrase) ‘interpersonal mimesis’. The essay positions the boo…[Read more]

It took forty years for East Germany’s state-run studios, DEFA, to produce a feature film about homosexuality: “Coming Out.” The film’s story seems in some ways radically ordinary: a young teacher, Philipp, is gay but cannot accept the truth about his sexuality. He starts a relationship with a fellow teacher, Tanja, but falls in love with a young…[Read more]