A&M-Texarkana professor speaks at pair of events
Dr. Drew Morton, assistant professor of mass communication at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, recently was the guest speaker at two academic events for media scholars.
He presented “Media Studies in Transition: Comics Studies and Videographic Criticism” on March 27 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Media Scholars Colloquium Series.
The presentation included a screening of a video based on his recent book, “Panel to the Screen: Style, American Film, and Comic Books during the Blockbuster Era,” and a discussion of videographic criticism and how it overlaps with alternate modes of film practice from essay films to documentary filmmaking.
“It was a bit of a surreal experience,” Morton stated in a press release. “I went to UW-Milwaukee as an undergraduate, and my former professors asked me back to give a talk about my book and current research following our annual conference in Chicago. So I had an audience that was 50 percent friends and family and 50 percent the people who taught me a lot of what I know now.”
Morton traveled to Texas Christian University on March 31 to participate in a panel discussion on media and education.
“The population of media studies academics in the Four States Area has grown exponentially since I got here in 2012, many of them friends and fellow transplants,” he said. “Part of that is because of the unique skill set we bring to journalism and communication departments and because of the ebb and flow of local productions, largely fueled by tax credits at the state levels.”
Morton is a co-founder and co-editor of [in]Transition, the first openly peer-reviewed academic journal of videographic film and moving image studies. The journal, a co-production of NYU Press’ MediaCommons and the Society of Cinema and Media Studies’ Cinema Journal, recently won an Award of Distinction in the 2015 SCMS Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Competition.
Morton will present a Program for Learning and Community Engagement SuperLecture at 11 a.m. Tuesday titled “#OscarsSoWhite: Racial Diversity and White Washing in Hollywood” in University Center 210 on the A&M-Texarkana campus at 7101 University Ave., Texarkana, Texas. The free lecture is open to the public.
For more information, contact Morton at Drew.Morton@tamut.edu or Dr. Kevin Ells at Kevin.Ells@tamut.edu.