The UT Department of Radio-Television-Film invites you to attend a Media Studies Colloquium with
Anthony P. McIntyre, Associate Lecturer, University College Dublin

"Politicized Emotional Precarity:
Lena Dunham and Russell Brand's Subversive Vulnerabilities"

Abstract: Taking a cue from recent developments in feminist philosophy, in this talk Anthony P.  McIntyre argues, through a detailed reading of the star texts of Girls creator and writer Lena Dunham and actor/comedian Russell Brand, that vulnerability is an affective register that holds increasing sway in the contemporary era, and one that can be leveraged by celebrities attempting to negotiate the heightened individualism of their public status with calls to social justice. Dunham and Brand serve as pertinent case studies into how staged vulnerability, particularly through the “intimate technologies” of social media, but also through screen media more widely, can be leveraged in order to circumvent the (often warranted) accusations of privilege and hypocrisy that invariably dog such celebrity interventions into the realm of polity.

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Anthony P. McIntyre recently gained his doctorate from University College Dublin with a thesis focusing on Millennial generation youth cultures and the affective registers that are common in the discursive construction of celebrities appealing to this cohort. He is developing this work into a monograph, Millennial Tensions. He has delivered papers at a number of international conferences including the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference (Seattle 2014), at which he organized a panel on “The Aesthetics and Ideologies of Cuteness”, the Biennial Celebrity Studies conference (London 2014) and the Modern Language Association annual conference (January 2016). He has also been an invited speaker at events in Arizona, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Anthony has published an article on cuteness in the star-text of actress and singer Zooey Deschanel in the journal Television and New Media. In addition, some of his forthcoming publications include: “Sarah Silverman: Cuteness as Subversion” in Hysterical! Women in American Comedy, Ed. Linda Mizejewski and Victoria Sturtevant. University of Texas Press, (in press); and “Millennials Protest: Hipsters, Privilege, and Homological Obstruction,” In New Uses of Bourdieu in Film and Media Studies, Ed. Guy Austin. Bergahn, (in press).  He is co-editing The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness (with Joshua Paul Dale, Joyce Goggin, Julia Leyda, and Diane Negra, Routledge, 2017) and is also in the early stages of developing a follow-up project in the field of cuteness studies to be co-written with his co-editor on The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness, Julia Leyda. Provisionally entitled Feeling Machines: Robo Sapiens in Late Capitalist Popular Culture, this research project will extend their research into the affective realm inhabited by cuteified robots across a variety of texts and media.

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The RTF Colloquium offers a platform for faculty across UT, advanced doctoral students, and visiting scholars to present their research. This lecture series is designed to expose students to the diversity of media studies scholarship, provide models for research presentations, and enable advanced graduate students to present work related to their dissertation projects. While the colloquium is required for media studies graduate students and faculty, others are welcome to attend. A Q&A session will follow each 40-minute presentation.