Back from the Flow Conference, in Austin, where I had a terrific time. Every roundtable I attended was thought provoking, but three roundtables stood out for me as highlight experiences (although this could also have been impacted by my personal intake of caffiene at any given moment…): the opening panel on the relationship between online and offline fan communities (although I did feel that in some cases we were talking about very different definitions of media fandom); the panel so engagingly entitled “Bitches Get Things Done,” where we discussed topics that I don’t recall being often covered at conferences–female comedians in sitcoms and hour long tv comedies; and finally, my own roundtable on The Wire, where we had heated conversations over whether The Wire can be considered a melodrama, has a social impact, and could have an impact on TV studies.
A very brief review, I know, but if it sparks your interest, I encourage you to check out the provocations from each of the panels, linked above. Once the podcasts are available, I’ll link to those as well.