J. D. Connor is an associate professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Hollywood Math and Aftermath: The Economic Image and the Digital Recession (2018) and The Studios After the Studios (2015).

J. D. Connor

Universal Solvent: Experiencing Mario

"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers

Film

The Algorithmic Hustle: Surplus Comedy and Hollywood Specwork

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television." —Woody Allen

Television

Going Klear: A Glass Onion Franchise in the Wild

The Funnel and the Horn: On Reinventing James Cameron’s “Avatar”

Economics and Finance

Put Some “Mank” on It

Finish Him

Florence Dore is professor of American Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she has been on the faculty since 2010. She has just completed&nbsp;Novel Sounds: Southern Ballad Fiction in the Age of Rock and Roll&nbsp;(2018), and she is working on a sequel,&nbsp;Novel&nbsp;Sounds II:&nbsp;The Rock Novel in Contemporary American Fiction. In 2016 and 2017, Dore convened “Novel Sounds,” a public conference and concert series at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. She was co-editor of the Post45 Book Series at Stanford University Press from 2009 to 2014, and she remains&nbsp;a member of Post45’s Steering Committee.

Florence Dore

Dan Sinykin is an assistant professor of English at Emory University. His book, The Conglomerate Era: US Fiction since 1960, is forthcoming with Columbia University Press in 2023.

Dan Sinykin

Rebel Yale: Reading and Feeling “Hillbilly Elegy”

Education

"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." — Molly Ivins

Politics

"The older one grows, the more one likes indecency." — Virginia Woolf

Memoir &amp; Essay

Variety Show

The Warrior Class

Anna Shechtman is the film editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. A PhD Candidate in English Literature and Film &amp; Media Studies at Yale University, she also writes crossword puzzles for The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Anna Shechtman

Gil Robertson is one of the United States’s foremost authorities on African-American pop culture. He is a journalist, author, lecturer, media consultant, and the president and co-founder of the African American Film Critics Association, the leading body of Black American film critics.

Gil Robertson

Best Picture Academy Award® winning producer, Cathy Schulman began her career in the movie industry in 1987 and has been a producer and film executive ever since. Most recently, she served as the head of production for STX Entertainment, Hollywood’s newest global media company. Prior to STX, Schulman was president of Mandalay Pictures. Since 2011, she has been the President of Women In Film, the leading organizing supporting women in the film industry, advocating to create 50-50 gender parity in Hollywood across all platforms, all opportunities, and all content.

Cathy Schulman

Justin Chang is a film critic for the Los Angeles Times and a regular contributor to NPR’s Fresh Air Weekend and FilmWeek. Before joining The Times, he was chief film critic at Variety. He is the author of the book FilmCraft: Editing and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Justin Chang

FILM NOW: A Roundtable on the Films of 2016

Making Things Right: “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens”

J. D. Connor is an associate professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Hollywood Math and Aftermath: The Economic Image and the Digital Recession (2018) and The Studios After the Studios (2015).