http://www.syndicatemizzou.org Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:42:14 GMT en-us 40 Center for eResearch Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/images/logo.png 384 80 http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver02.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver02.m4v Performative writing is a way of writing about performance that engages the reader as one would engage the audience when performing in theatre: “So instead of performing over _here_ and then writing about it over _there_, writing about the work as if the reader were not involved in any kind of audience relationship, performative writing takes the combination of audience, performer, and text and moves that into the writing of performance.” By involving those different levels, Carver suggests, writing “is more accessible to people.” 3 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:57:05 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West03.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West03.m4v West is currently finishing a book, _From Celluloid to Tabloid_, in collaboration with Penelope Pelizzon (University of Connecticut), on Hollywood crime films and tabloid journalism from the 1920s through the 1940s. Unlike the tabloids of today, which West decries as “pretty trashy scandal magazines and newspapers…often designed to expose and ruin people’s careers,” the tabloids of the earlier era contain much more liveliness and inventiveness. “Although the cliché is that the tabloids have always been pitched to the uneducated, these early ones from the 1920s are surprisingly literary, replete with metaphorical word play, allusions, wit, and irony.” Tabloid writers often went on to become celebrated novelists and screenwriters for Hollywood. Beyond their literary value, these tabloids also teach us about urban culture and modernity, especially about New York in the 1920s and 1930s. West and Pelizzon refer to these tabloids as “adaptation-ready sites,” because they know how to spin information so quickly from one source. 3 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:28:07 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West05.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West05.m4v With her continual interest in adaptation study, West has already visualized her next research project, which will reflect on what it means to adapt a novel to the screen, specifically in the case of _Masterpiece Theatre_. “_Masterpiece Theatre_ fascinates me because it’s an example of what’s called ‘good television.’” Released in the 1970s, it was “designed to appeal to more intellectual, educated viewers. It was designed for our parents,” reports West, and for years it thrived on that identity. “But if you watch _Masterpiece Theatre_ now, it’s totally different…. It’s clearly geared to a much younger audience. Instead of writing faithful adaptation, they radically re-write the plots, interject back-stories, introduce new characters, and use some of Hollywood’s hottest actors to play the roles. They are tailoring these films toward a twenty-first century audience—a younger one, a sexier one, one that is impatient with the idea of fidelity, one that wants a more experimental adaptation.” West plans to look at _Masterpiece Theatre’s_ last ten years so see what those experiments might reveal. “If nothing else,” she jokes, “it will allow me to watch a lot of old _Masterpiece Theatre_ episodes with my mother, who is a huge fan!” 3 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:29:32 GMT