Recent
Jul. 11-15, 2011 | Association for Cultural Studies Summer Institute, University of Ghent, Belgium
Mar. 18, 2011 | American Cultures in the Digital Age Conference, Vanderbilt University
Mar. 25, 2010 | Cooper Lecture Series, Swarthmore College
Feb. 22, 2010 | Information Society Program, University of Illinois
Oct. 30, 2009 | Scholarly Communication Committee, Georgetown University
Oct. 22, 2009 | Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa
Oct. 11, 2009 | Honors Convocation, University of Illinois
Most of you reading this blog probably don’t know that I’m Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication and Culture here at Indiana University. What that means is that I’m knee-deep in graduate admissions files right now; what that also means is that I don’t have quite as much time for blogging as [...]
Last week I blogged about the proliferation of book rental programs, particularly those focused on college students and their textbooks. I raised questions about their promises of savings over traditional purchase and buyback, and asked whether most college students ever truly bought their textbooks, anyway. But there’s more at stake in book renting — beyond [...]
It’s been awfully quiet around here for the past six weeks or so. I’ve had a busy summer filled with travel, academic writing projects, and quality time with my young son. Blogging, regretfully, ended up falling by the wayside. I’m pleased to announce that The Late Age of Print is back after what amounted to [...]
Just before Christmas I blogged here about the closing of the Borders Bookstore here in my home community of Bloomington, Indiana. Friday, January 7, 2011 was the store’s final day of operation. I visited it for the last time on Wednesday, January 5th and snapped a few pictures. Even for those of you who may [...]
Three months ago I blogged here about the plight of the U.S.’s two major big-box bookstore chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders, both of which have been struggling due to the combined effect of the economic downturn and intensifying competition online. Of the two, Borders has been the hardest hit. Thebookseller.com reports that the chain [...]
“Well folks, it’s official: literature is dead,” announces Geekologie, in a post commenting on this photo, snapped at a Barnes & Noble bookstore: Evidently this is a real placard meant to direct shoppers to a new section of the store. It’s capitalizing on the extraordinary success of Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series and all of those [...]
After more than a decade of dominance fueled by aggressive expansion, the leading big-box bookstore chains in the United States are hurting. Borders is barely hanging on by a financial thread, with an almost $38 million loss near the end of 2009 sending the company into a tailspin. 2010 began with a round of layoffs, [...]
Sherman Alexie www.colbertnation.com I love it when something that you think will be good turns out to be even better than you’d hoped. Case in point: author Sherman Alexie’s visit to The Colbert Report last Tuesday night. I expected Alexie to chat up his latest book, War Dances. I didn’t expect to be treated to [...]
This week the blog In Medias Res, which is hosted by the Institute for the Future of the Book, has gathered together a bunch of great contributions around the theme, “Books as Screens.” Definitely, definitely check them out. On Monday Hollis Griffin of Northwestern University contributed a post called “Talking Heads: Books, Authors, and Television [...]
I spent the last week vacationing in Paris. The trip was excellent in itself, but a felicitous discovery along the way made it even better. A wrong turn while searching for the Pompidou Centre landed my travel companion and I at the Village Voice Bookshop, one of Paris’ best English-language bookstores. Here I am, standing [...]
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