Department of English
ENNC 831: Victorian Intellectual Prose
Q: Where did you get your degree?
A: Harvard -- I was an undergraduate and graduate student there.
Q: How did you get interested in the media?
A: Well, I've always liked television. I was born in 1945 so I'm almost the same age as television. I grew up with television, and I like talking about it. It's something I've always kind of intellectualized about, and then at one point, I decided to give a lecture about it. It happened to be at Hampden Sydney College. I think they liked it, and I gave a few more. People were really interested in it, so I eventually decided to write a book on it.
Q: What is your book about?
A: The book is called "Gilligan Unbound": "Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization" and it treats four television series: "Gilligan's Island," "Star Trek," "The Simpsons," "X-Files" and it tries to show the differences between the two shows in the 60s and the two shows in the 90s. Basically, it tries to show the impact of globalization on American life.
Q: What are your favorite T.V. shows?
A: "The Simpsons" and the "X-Files" actually are, and most of my book is about them. I've also had favorite shows that lead nowhere -- like Chris Elliot's show "Get a Life" or most recently, "The Tick" which I just loved, but it lasted I think about nine episodes. I think "The Simpsons" and the "X-Files" are the most successful shows that I've really loved.
Q: What do you do in your free time?
A: Well, I love classical music. I have a very large collection of classical music. I love to go to concerts -- both here in Charlottesville and elsewhere. In fact, quite typically, I'll have a television show on, watching it while I listen to classical music, trying to take in both at the same time.
Q: What is your favorite time period?
A: If I could live in any time period, Greece in the 5th century BC provided that I wasn't a slave, the Italian Renaissance, and realistically, 18th century England.
Q: What did you think about T.V. in its early stages?
A: Well, I was 5 years old, so I wasn't a professor yet. I remember the thing that I most loved at first was comedy and particularly Sid Caesar. I was gravitating towards the higher end of television even back then, but I also liked comedy.
Q: What T.V. do you not like at all?
A: Well, first of all, it's not my business to say what shouldn't be on television. One of the things I love about television is that it is a broad based medium, and people can gravitate towards what they like. I, for example, do not like these reality shows. I find them boring. I'm not a big fan of soap operas either. I generally like comedy, and I tend to like shows that have some type of fantasy or fantastic element to them. In general, I like things that offer alternatives to our ordinary world -- not simply mirror images of it. I have enough of the ordinary world in my ordinary life.
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