Henry Jenkins's Neil Gaiman interview video

Andrew sez, "Thought you might like to hear that a DVD of Neil Gaiman's lecture/interview with Henry Jenkins is going on sale today and that some great clips are already posted on Henry's blog: http://henryjenkins.org/2008/12/from_neil_gaiman_to_j_michael.html. Definitely worth a gander."

Our first speaker, appropriately enough, was Neil Gaiman, whose work spans comics (The Sandman), fiction (American Gods), cinema (Mirrormask), television (Neverwhere), the blogosphere, and much much more. Gaiman gave a memorable opening lecture on the nature of genre and its influence on the creative process, which is best known for an extended rift on how pornography and musicals follow similar conventions. It was inspired by Linda William's Hardcore, but Gaiman took it in his own idiosyncratic directions. As the evening continued, we had a great conversation, which ranged across his career, talked about some of the key themes in his work, and especially dug deep into his ideas about myth, storytelling, and popular entertainment. Anyone whose ever heard Gaiman knows he's a charming and engaging speaker with lots of interesting insights into cultural history and media theory.

From Neil Gaiman to J. Michael Straczynski: News on the Julius Schwartz Lecture Series (Thanks, Andrew!)

[#1 posted by jillrenee , December 17, 2008 9:37 AM]

it's a wonderful talk; I highly recommend it. (saw it live :)

[#2 posted by ckoerner , December 17, 2008 11:35 AM]

I love the bit about Saint Louis University. So sad they passed up such a great opportunity.

[#3 posted by Bonnie , December 17, 2008 2:12 PM]

I love that Neil Gaiman is proud of his comic roots and prefers them. The fact that he thinks it's cool an college English dept. banned his graphic novels is downright endearing.

[#4 posted by Anonymous , December 17, 2008 5:12 PM]

I'm such a pop-culture geek that I'm just as excited to hear Henry Jenkins talk as I am to hear Neil Gaiman. Love them both.

[#5 posted by Anonymous , December 17, 2008 7:19 PM]

Too bad the jenkmeister bailed and they are shutting down his program at MIT... lame.

http://cms.mit.edu/news/2008/12/cms_masters_admissions_on_hold.php

[#6 posted by Anonymous , December 18, 2008 6:37 AM]

From what I heard around MIT, it was the admin that wanted to shut down his program. Doesn't make much sense, but Jenkins wanted to stay.

[#7 posted by Anonymous , December 18, 2008 12:04 PM]

The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up on Jenkins' departure. Looks like there's some stress between MIT and the program itself, at least from recent students' point of view:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3528/a-scholars-departure-sparks-debate-about-future-of-a-popular-humanities-program-at-mit