UC Press Blog

Somewhere between the virtuosic parodies of Frank Zappa and the screwball wit of Monty Python, the Firesign Theatre reinvented the comedy album in the 1960s and ’70s. Jeremy Braddock explores their legacy.

The story of Ludwig van Beethoven’s confronting his growing deafness as he continued to compose and conduct has always provided special inspiration for me that transcends his music. Whenever I listen to his compositions, I hear more than notes exquisitely written and performed. I hear the voice of a fellow human being who is overcoming trauma, adversity and fear through his art, whispering to me not to despair, but like him, to make the most of what I have while I can in my own way.

For decades, our own Patricia Aufderheide—who founded this organization’s precursor, the Center for Social Media—has chronicled, studied, and impacted the global community of documentary storytellers who seek to speak truth to power and uphold democracy. In her new book, Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy (University of California Press), she brings readers into the six-decade history and living story of the longest-running independent documentary production organization in the United States, Kartemquin Films.

“What do we, as feminists, need right now—from cinema, from archives, from our communities? How can filmmaking, film festivals, and social movements of the past inspire or befuddle us today? And what is at stake in selecting and presenting archival works by women to create new forms of community?”

In celebration of Women's History Month, we've removed the paywall from the guest editors’ introductions from the past nine Spring issues of Feminist Media Histories (FMH). As we anticipate the journal's tenth anniversary issue (forthcoming in April 2024), we invite you to read this selection of con

By Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd, author of Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital AgeFor my sanity, I’ve mostly avoided politics this 2024 season. Yet somehow, I found myself glued to the television for the recent State of the Union address — the “superbowl” for politi

By Francesca Sobande, author of Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital CultureLife can be loud. Many expressions point to different perceptions of online noise and the sounds of social media spaces, but a particularly popular concept that captures this is “moving in si

By Daniel Herbert, author of Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American FilmMost members of the public probably don’t know anything about New Line Cinema, the movie studio and subject of my recent book Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American F

By Jennifer S. Clark, author of Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women's LiberationWhen I started writing a book about the women’s movement and television, I imagined that it would explore how feminism changed what Americans saw on their TV screens. But as the project developed,

From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these formats really do when they revisit familiar stories