Etheric Ghosts and Virtual Doubles: John Hinckley’s Attempt on the Life of Ronald Reagan Considered From the Viewpoint of Media Studies By John David Ebert  The whole drama of Reagan, John Hinckley, Jr., and Jodie Foster is symptomatic of a culture in which history is being replaced by virtual images manufactured in silicon circuits and […]

Elvis Presley’s Televisual Clone By John David Ebert The crucial year in the generation of Elvis Presley’s first electric clone was 1956, the year in which his agent Colonel Tom Parker helped him make the switch from the tiny independent Sun label to the stellar RCA corporation through which he proceeded to mass produce his […]

Walt Disney’s Shrunken Ancestors By John David Ebert The various optical tricks and spatial distortions which Walt Disney utilized in the making of his theme park often conceal ideas and philosophical views about the world. Take, for instance, the spatial distortions of Main Street, USA. “Main Street was a function of clever foreshortening,” Neal Gabler […]

Marilyn Monroe, or Venus Redux   By John David Ebert It could be said that Walter Benjamin’s analysis of the non-reproducibility of an actor’s aura misses a certain point, since it was by means of the very technological process of filming and then projecting upon a gigantic screen the images of actors like James Dean, […]

  Posted by John Lobell   As the liberal arts in universities comes to be dominated by critical and visual studies, the ability of mainstream academia to respond to movies, particularly visionary movie, is diminished.   Critical and visual studies, while providing insights into some cultural issues, fails to penetrate deeply into the individual narrative […]

 Heroes, Gods, and Myths: The Myths That We Create and How They Create Us Published in Working Papers – a graduate publication of the UPenn Department of Romance Languages  Welcome to the third Working Papers roundtable discussion. In this issue, devoted to myths, gods, and heroes, our contributing authors analyze the rewriting of religious myths, […]