Console-ing Passions Conference on television, audio, video, new media, and feminism

Console-ing Passions was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist media scholars and artists looking to create a space to present work and foster scholarship in issues of television, culture, and identity, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality. The original board included Julie D’Acci, Jane Feuer, Mary Beth Haralovich, Lauren Rabinowitz, and Lynn Spigel.

Since then, a series of conferences have brought together work from a wide scope of interests, retaining a focus on feminism but also encouraging research in race and ethnicity, post-colonialism, queer studies, globalization, national identity, and many other related topics. Television and electronic media provide the main locus of research, since film and print media are served by a variety of other organizations. Our focus on the relationships between media and gender/sexuality in particular has reflected both the historical development of media in separate spheres (public vs. domestic) and the concern among feminists to study the gender dynamics involved in the production and consumption of media.

The next conference co-sponsored by CITS will be held on 24-26 April 2008 at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Co-Chairs Anna Everett and Lisa Parks of the UCSB Film and Media Studies department. For additional information visit the conference website.