Books (not full text) by Julia Leyda
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American Mobilities investigates representations of mobility – social, economic, geographic – in ... more American Mobilities investigates representations of mobility – social, economic, geographic – in American film and literature during the Depression, WWII, and the early Cold War. With an emphasis on the dual meaning of "domestic," referring to both the family home and the nation, this study traces the important trope of mobility that runs through the "American" century. Juxtaposing canonical fiction with popular, and low-budget independent films with Classical Hollywood, I bring the analytic tools of American cultural and literary studies to bear on an eclectic array of primary texts as I build a case for the significance of mobility in the study of the United States.
This book is, in a way, my doctoral dissertation; however, in place of four of the original chapters, I have substituted (with permission) the four peer-reviewed journal articles that grew up out of them, along with the remaining two unpublished chapters, constituting a kind of greatest hits of my early career that ranges from text written as a doctoral student to the reworked and often hardly recognizable revisions produced under the rigors of an early career academic, and under the guidance of anonymous reviewers and generous colleagues. Thus American Mobilities is a published record of my doctoral research, completed at the University of Washington between 1995 and 1998, and then substantially revised over the subsequent years.
In the two decades bracketing the turn of the millennium, large-scale weather disasters have been... more In the two decades bracketing the turn of the millennium, large-scale weather disasters have been inevitably constructed as media events. As such, they challenge the meaning of concepts such as identity and citizenship for both locally affected populations and widespread spectator communities. This timely collection pinpoints the features of an often overlooked yet rapidly expanding category of global media and analyzes both its forms and functions. Specifically, contributors argue that the intense promotion and consumption of 'extreme weather' events takes up the slack for the public conversations society is not having about the environment, and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies the realization that anthropogenic climate change has now reached a point of no return. Incorporating a range of case studies of extreme weather mediation in India, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the US, and Japan, and exploring recent and ongoing disasters such as Superstorm Sandy, the Fukushima nuclear crisis, flooding in Germany, and heat waves in the UK, Extreme Weather and Global Media generates valuable inquiry into the representational and social characteristics of the new culture of extreme weather.
Introduction: Extreme Weather and Global Media Julia Leyda and Diane Negra
1. Televising Superstorm Sandy: New Configurations of Poverty and Neoliberalism in Extreme Weather Coverage / Jon Kraszewski
2. Eye of the Storm: CCTV, Surveillance and Media Representations of Extreme Weather / Justin Carville
3. Picturing High Water: The 2013 Floods in Southeastern Germany and Colorado / Susanne Leikam
4. "Blowtorch Britain:" Labor, Heat and Neo-Victorian Values in Contemporary UK Media / Paula Gilligan
5. Post-Political Crisis Management: Representations of Extreme Weather in Swedish Media / Annika Olsson
6. Disaster Data, Data Activism: Grassroots Responses to Representing Superstorm Sandy / Max Liboiron
7. Mangoes and Monsoons: South Asian Media Coverage of Environmental Spectacles / Sujata Moorti
8. Rain with a Chance of Radiation: Forecasting Local and Global Risk After Fukushima / Laura Beltz Imaoka
Journal Articles by Julia Leyda
Literary Geographies , 2019
This article considers films that portray negative mobility and domicide in the wake of the housi... more This article considers films that portray negative mobility and domicide in the wake of the housing crisis and recession on the one hand, and climate change on the other. It puts forward the thesis that these films register a pervasive reversal (not unprecedented, but newly urgent) of archetypal American notions about mobility, which render the process in optimistic terms-upward and outward. These give way to a dominant image of downward, aimless mobility in the context of impoverishment and homelessness, an imagery I condense in the concept of 'negative mobility.' The trope of domicide-the intentional destruction of home-provides a theoretical lens with which to examine the upheavals and growing inequalities in the contemporary US. These two concepts enable me to theorize the renewed significance of home and mobility in contemporary culture with the advent of the twin crises of the housing crash and climate change. Both crises play out across 'homes' located at multiple scales, from the individual and family to the national and beyond, bringing challenges to representation. Cinema is a prime location for articulating the kinds of affective scenarios that can make such complex issues graspable, interweaving emotional and visceral engagement with more considered intellectual responses and (sometimes) aesthetic pleasures. This will be exemplified with case studies of two films, 99 Homes (2014, director: Ramin Bahrani) and Snowpiercer (2017, director: Bong Joon Ho).
Journal of European Cultural Studies, 2020
The (often memetic) figure of the white female "Karen" has surged to prominence of late, moving f... more The (often memetic) figure of the white female "Karen" has surged to prominence of late, moving from social media vernacular into broader usage at exactly the moment when twin crises of public health and racial social justice have fomented momentous change and uncertainty in American life. The angry "Karen" is invoked to indicate her manipulation of her racial power, but she is equally significant, we suggest, for her positioning within a pre-existing antagonistic service economy.
Our editors' introduction, written by Susanne Leikam and me, for this extended forum on cli-fi, w... more Our editors' introduction, written by Susanne Leikam and me, for this extended forum on cli-fi, which includes contributions from Nassim Balestrini, Hannes Bergthaller, Pawel Frelik, and Alexa Weik von Mossner.
This co-authored article on women in contemporary television by Jorie Lagerwey, Julia Leyda, and ... more This co-authored article on women in contemporary television by Jorie Lagerwey, Julia Leyda, and Diane Negra appears in Spring 2016 in the first issue (1.1) of the relaunched journal Genders an online, open access publication.
Television and New Media, 2012
The character of Creighton Bernette on the HBO series Treme, in his excesses and abjection, embod... more The character of Creighton Bernette on the HBO series Treme, in his excesses and abjection, embodies post-Katrina New Orleans in crucial ways: physical and emotional excesses become ways to distance his character from viewers, in ways analogous to the othering of the city and its inhabitants in post-Katrina media and public discourses.
Japanese Journal of American Studies, 2008
Comparative American Studies, 2004
The Japanese Journal of American Studies, 2002
Focusing on representations of mobility, space, and national identity, this essay reads John Ford... more Focusing on representations of mobility, space, and national identity, this essay reads John Ford's movie The Searchers (1956) in terms of its deployment of American “domestic” space, meaning both “home-centered” and in opposition to “foreign.” I argue that The Searchers ...
Book Chapters by Julia Leyda
Class Divisions in Serial Television, 2016
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Books (not full text) by Julia Leyda
This book is, in a way, my doctoral dissertation; however, in place of four of the original chapters, I have substituted (with permission) the four peer-reviewed journal articles that grew up out of them, along with the remaining two unpublished chapters, constituting a kind of greatest hits of my early career that ranges from text written as a doctoral student to the reworked and often hardly recognizable revisions produced under the rigors of an early career academic, and under the guidance of anonymous reviewers and generous colleagues. Thus American Mobilities is a published record of my doctoral research, completed at the University of Washington between 1995 and 1998, and then substantially revised over the subsequent years.
Introduction: Extreme Weather and Global Media Julia Leyda and Diane Negra
1. Televising Superstorm Sandy: New Configurations of Poverty and Neoliberalism in Extreme Weather Coverage / Jon Kraszewski
2. Eye of the Storm: CCTV, Surveillance and Media Representations of Extreme Weather / Justin Carville
3. Picturing High Water: The 2013 Floods in Southeastern Germany and Colorado / Susanne Leikam
4. "Blowtorch Britain:" Labor, Heat and Neo-Victorian Values in Contemporary UK Media / Paula Gilligan
5. Post-Political Crisis Management: Representations of Extreme Weather in Swedish Media / Annika Olsson
6. Disaster Data, Data Activism: Grassroots Responses to Representing Superstorm Sandy / Max Liboiron
7. Mangoes and Monsoons: South Asian Media Coverage of Environmental Spectacles / Sujata Moorti
8. Rain with a Chance of Radiation: Forecasting Local and Global Risk After Fukushima / Laura Beltz Imaoka
Journal Articles by Julia Leyda
Book Chapters by Julia Leyda
This book is, in a way, my doctoral dissertation; however, in place of four of the original chapters, I have substituted (with permission) the four peer-reviewed journal articles that grew up out of them, along with the remaining two unpublished chapters, constituting a kind of greatest hits of my early career that ranges from text written as a doctoral student to the reworked and often hardly recognizable revisions produced under the rigors of an early career academic, and under the guidance of anonymous reviewers and generous colleagues. Thus American Mobilities is a published record of my doctoral research, completed at the University of Washington between 1995 and 1998, and then substantially revised over the subsequent years.
Introduction: Extreme Weather and Global Media Julia Leyda and Diane Negra
1. Televising Superstorm Sandy: New Configurations of Poverty and Neoliberalism in Extreme Weather Coverage / Jon Kraszewski
2. Eye of the Storm: CCTV, Surveillance and Media Representations of Extreme Weather / Justin Carville
3. Picturing High Water: The 2013 Floods in Southeastern Germany and Colorado / Susanne Leikam
4. "Blowtorch Britain:" Labor, Heat and Neo-Victorian Values in Contemporary UK Media / Paula Gilligan
5. Post-Political Crisis Management: Representations of Extreme Weather in Swedish Media / Annika Olsson
6. Disaster Data, Data Activism: Grassroots Responses to Representing Superstorm Sandy / Max Liboiron
7. Mangoes and Monsoons: South Asian Media Coverage of Environmental Spectacles / Sujata Moorti
8. Rain with a Chance of Radiation: Forecasting Local and Global Risk After Fukushima / Laura Beltz Imaoka
Karola Gramann is a film curator and author who has been working as a programmer in an international context since the early 1980s. She was director of Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (1985-89) and co-organiser of the Frankfurter Filmschau (1990-93). Together with Heide Schlüpmann she has written on Asta Nielsen, feminist cinema, and erotic cinema. Heide Schlüpmann is an author and retired professor of film studies at the University of Frankfurt am Main (1991-2008). She is the author of The Uncanny Gaze: The Drama of Early German Cinema (2010 [orig. in 1990]) and other books (in German) on feminism, film philosophy, Siegfried Kracauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Together they are the co-founders of the Kinothek Asta Nielsen in Frankfurt am Main, an association supporting and documenting the film work of women. They also co-founded the Remake: Frankfurter Frauen Film Tage (Frankfurt Women’s Film Days) and have been editors of the journal Frauen und Film. Both have received numerous awards for their continuous efforts in documenting and promoting cinema culture.