Broadcasting in the 1930s:
New Media in a Time of Crisis
A Symposium
Part of "On, Archives!" – a conference on
media, theater and history
Celebrating 50 Years of the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research
July 6 - 9, 2010
Madison, Wisconsin
Conference Abstracts
Read all conference abstracts in PDF or
download the Word
Document (.doc)
Symposium Abstracts
Read all symposium abstracts in PDF or
download the Word
Document (.doc)
Tuesday, July 6th
- Registration desk opens at 8:30am (front lobby, Pyle Center)
- Coffee/tea/juice served in the 3rd floor reception area (outside
rooms 325/236)
Session A — 9:30am–11:30am, room 325/326
Chair: Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Keynote Address: Professor Emeritus Tino Balio, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"A Child of the 60s: The Founding and Early Years of the Wisconsin
Center for Theater Research"
Session B — 1:00pm–3:00pm
B1 — Symposium: Music, popular culture and taste (room
309)
Chair: Jason Loviglio, University of Maryland-Baltimore County
- Christina
Baade, McMaster University
"Performing Cultural Exchange: the BBC Jam Sessions from New
York, 1938/39"
- Len
Kuffert, University of Manitoba
"Going Begging: Building Tasteful Programming in Canada During
and After the Bigger Downturn"
- Tim
Wall, Birmingham City University
"Radio Remotes and the Nightlife of the Big City"
B2 — The Borders of History (room 325/326)
Chair: Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Andreas
Fickers, Maastricht University
"Conservative Revolutions? Historicising Processes of Remediation"
- Mary
Beth Haralovich, University of Arizona
"Film History with Television History: Weaving Together the
Strands & Listening to the Pauses"
- Marc Vernet, Universite de Paris VII & Andrea Comiskey, University
of Wisconsin-Madison
"Questions Raised and Perspectives Opened by the Comparison
Between the Harry and Roy Aitken Papers (Madison) and the John E. Allen — Triangle
Papers (Paris)"
B3 — Difficult Debuts: Three Plays and the Productions
that Determined Their Fate (room 225)
Chair: Tino Balio, University of Wisconsin-Madison, emeritus
- Mary
McAvoy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Experiments in Democracy: Abe Lincoln, Dollar-Top Tickets,
and the Recruitment of Young Audiences in Professional Theatre after
the Federal Theatre Project"
- Shannon
Blake Skelton, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Entertaining Mr. Taubman: Alan Schneider, Joe Orton and the
Entertaining Mr. Sloane Controversy"
- Bethany Wood, University
of Wisconsin-Madison
"Ol' (Wo)Man River?: Broadway's Gendering of Edna Ferber's
Show Boat"
B4 — Exploring Film Sound (room 226)
Chair: Jeff Smith, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Katherine
Spring, Wilfrid Laurier University
"'To sustain illusion is all that is necessary': Voice-Doubling
in Early Sound Cinema"
- Benjamin
Morton, University of Iowa
"How Does it Sound in the Theater? Killing Sound for Sound
Film Exhibition"
- Maike
Helmers, Bournemouth University
"Film Sound During the Late Weimar Republic"
Session C — 3:30pm–5:30pm, room 325/326
Chair: Hugh Chignell, Bournemouth University
- Symposium Keynote Address: Dr. Kate Lacey, University of Sussex
"Paradoxes and Paradigms: Broadcasting and its Publics in
the 1930s"
Conference Welcome Reception — 5:30pm–7:30pm, Alumni
Lounge
Wednesday, July 7th
Session D — 9:30am–11:30am
D5 — Symposium: The Early Years of Television (room
325/326)
Chair: Christine Ehrick, University of Louisville
- Anne-Katrin
Weber, University of Lausanne–New York University
"See Television at its Best on Stand No. 19: Display of technology
and construction of symbolic meaning on German and British Radio Fairs"
- Judith
Keilbach, Utrecht University
"Simple Concept, Complex Nature: German Television in the
1930s"
- Jamie
Medhurst, Aberystwyth University
"'Delivering a fatal blow to British industry': the BBC and
television in the 1930s"
- Andreas
Fickers, University of Maastricht
"Broadcasting as Critical Infrastructure: a story of European
fine-tuning and techno-political interferences"
D6 — Workshop:
An Insider's View of the NEH Grant Process (room 225)
- David Weinstein, National Endowment for the Humanities
D7 — Community/Alternative Histories (room
309)
Chair: Bill Kirkpatrick, Denison University
- Nick
Rubin, University of Virginia
"College radio as 'alternative media'"
- Brian
Fauteux, Concordia University, Montreal
"From Closed-Circuit to the Internet: The Development of Campus
Radio Broadcasting in Canada"
- Dean
Graber, University of Texas-Austin
"The Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island and its 40-year
Arc of Media Activism: 1969 and 2009"
D8 — Archives and the Internet (room 226)
Chair: Susan Ohmer, University of Notre Dame
- Ken
Garner, Glasgow Caledonian University
"Ripping the Pith from the Peel: Institutional versus internet
cultures of archiving popular music radio - The case of BBC Radio 1's
John Peel Show"
- Mark
Hain, Indiana University
"Resurrecting the Vamp: Cinema's Loss and New Media's Finding
of Theda Bara"
- Josh
Jackson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"YouTube and the User-Generated Online Archive"
Session E — 1:00pm–3:00pm, room 325/326
Chair: Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Keynote: Matthew Bernstein, Emory University
"From Fiction to Fact, and Points In Between: Research Adventures
in the Wisconsin Archives"
E9 — Symposium: Radio Listeners and Critics (room
309)
Chair: Tim Wall, Birmingham City University
- Anne
F. MacLennan, York University
"Learning to Listen: Developing the Canadian Radio Audience
in the 1930s"
- Jason
Loviglio, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
"Domestic Disturbances and Economic Crisis: Modern Families
on the Air in the 1930s and Today"
- Sian
Nicholas, Aberystwyth University
"The BBC and its critics: the 'radio column' in the British
press in the 1930s"
Session F — 3:30pm–5:30pm
F10 — Symposium: BBC Talks and Education (room
325/326)
Chair: Sian Nicholas, Aberystwyth University
- Allan
Jones, Open University
"Science, the 1930s and the BBC: Competition and Collaboration"
- Todd
Avery, University of Massachusetts- Lowell
"The Trumpets of Autocracies and the Still, Small Voices of
Civilisation: Hilda Matheson, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Ethics of Broadcasting
in a Time of Crisis"
- Hugh
Chignell, Bournemouth University
"Unintended Consequences: BBC Talks Policy in the 1930s"
F11 — Conflict and Coordination in the Network
Radio Era (room 225)
Chair: Mary Vipond, Concordia University, CA, emerita
- Bill
Kirkpatrick, Denison University
"Getting the Local Under Control: National-Local Tensions
in U.S. Network Radio of the 1930s"
- Cynthia
Meyers, College of Mount Saint Vincent
"Dramatizing a Bar of Soap: Admen as the Showmen of Radio"
- Jennifer
Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Some Science and 'Je Ne Sais Quoi': Showmanship and the Early
Days of Radio, 1927–1934"
F12 — Politics and the Archive (room 309)
Chair: Vance Kepley, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Sarah
Nilsen, University of Vermont
"The Visual Jazz of Shirley Clarke and D.A. Pennebaker: Avant-Garde
Cinema and the Department of State"
- Aniko
Bodroghkozy, University of Virginia
"The "Black Weekend" and Television Viewers: What
the Archive Reveals about Public Response to the Kennedy Assassination"
- David
Haven Blake, College of New Jersey
"Understanding Ike Day: From the Archives of Politics and
Celebrity"
F13 — Selling Culture (room 226)
Chair: Katherine Spring, Wilfrid Laurier University
- Avi
Santo, Old Dominion University
"Imagining Value: William Donahey's The Teenie Weenies and
Struggles to Extend Character Brands in 1910s America"
- Kyle
Barnett, Bellarmine University
"'I'm All Broke Out With the Blues:' Production Culture and
Genre Formation at Wisconsin's Paramount Records"
- Derek
Johnson, University of North Texas
"Labors of Love": Experimentations with Licensed Creativity
in the Classic Network Era"
Cinematheque: Point of Order! — 7:00pm, 4070
Vilas Hall
- Restored 2009 by UCLA Archives and WCFTR
- Produced by: Emile de Antonio and Dan Talbot, 1964
- Introduced by: Professor Vance Kepley, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Thursday, July 8th
Session G — 9:30am–11:30am
G14 — Symposium: Radio, Communism and the Left (room
309)
Chair: Anne MacLennan, York University, CA
- David
Deacon, Loughborough Communication Research Centre
"'A Quietening Effect'?: The BBC and the Spanish Civil War
(1936–1939)"
- Ben
Harker, University of Salford
"Communists on the BBC, 1935–39"
- David
Weinstein, National Endowment for the Humanities
"Eddie Cantor Fights the Nazis"
G15 — Workshop:
Broadcast History: Assessing Where We Stand (room 325/326)
Chair: Christopher Sterling, George Washington University
- Louise M. Benjamin, Kansas State Univeristy
"Truth Will Out: Questioning Historical Myths"
- Noah Arceneaux, San Diego State University
"Players and Policies Before 1927"
- Craig Allen, Arizona State University
"Old Events, New History"
- Susan Brinson, Auburn University
"Historical Trends in a Leading Journal"
- Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Researching Television, Nationally and Transnationally"
- Christopher Sterling, George Washington University
"What's Still Missing?"
- Mike Adams, San Jose State University
"Researching a Radio Pioneer's Work in Film"
G16 — Interrogating Texts and Authorship (room
225)
Chair: Mike Chopra-Gant, London Metropolitan University
- Brad
Schauer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Blood Sport: Rollerball and Violence in 1970s Hollywood"
- Andrew
Spicer and Antony McKenna, University of the West of England
"The Creative Producer: Michael Klinger"
- Derek
Long, Emory University
"A Great Guy with Something to Sing About: James Cagney, Star
Authorship, and Grand National Pictures"
G17 — Trouble in the Archive (room 226)
Chair: Steven Vaughn, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Susan
Ohmer, University of Notre Dame
"The Archive in the Age of eBay"
- Leo
Enticknap, University of Leeds
"Film Restoration: The Implications of Film Scholars' Misunderstanding
of the Science"
Session H — 1:00pm–3:00pm, room 325/326
Chair: Kelley Conway, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Keynote: Professor Marc Vernet, Universite de Paris VII–Diderot
"The Imaginary Signifier and the Opacity of Film Archives:
from Theory to History"
H18 — Symposium: Symposium: Radio, Gender, Nation (room
309)
Chair: Jamie Medhurst, University of Aberystwyth
- Christine
Ehrick, University of Louisville
"Radio and the (Trans)gendered Soundscape in 1930s Argentina"
- Nelson
Ribeiro, the Catholic University of Portugal
"The War of the Airwaves in Portugal during the 1930s"
- Michael
J. Socolow, University of Maine
"'These Four Men:' NBC's Alternative Propaganda Model"
- Mary
Vipond, Concordia University, Montreal
"Transnational Radio and Public Broadcasting in Canada in
the Early 1930s"
Session I — 3:30pm–5:30pm
I19 — Symposium: Radio and Convergence in the
1930s (room 325/326)
Chair: Kate Lacey, University of Sussex
- Kathy
Fuller-Seeley, Georgia State University
"Jack Benny's Intermedia Juggling Act: Integrating Radio and
Film in the 1930s"
- Matthew
A. Killmeier, University of Southern Maine
"Betwixt Hollywood and Pulp Horror: A Cultural History of
The Witch's Tale"
I20 — Archives and Institutions (room 225)
Chair: Christopher H. Sterling, George Washington University
- Tim
Wall, Birmingham City University
"Public Service broadcasting, archives, and cultural television"
- Christopher
Cwynar, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"NFB.ca: The Digital Archive as National Place in the Virtual
World"
- Jennifer
Porst, University of California-Los Angeles
"The U.S. v. Twentieth Century-Fox, et al.: How the Forced
Disclosure of Documents in Legal Cases Provides an Invaluable Resource
for Researchers"
I21 — Transnational Intersections (room 309)
Chair: Andreas Fickers, Maastricht University
- Mary
Trotter, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The Irish Orson Welles"
- Darrell
Newton, Salisbury University
"Quantifying race: NBC, BBC and Race Relations in the Early
1950s"
- Billy
Budd Vermillion, University of Illinois–Champaign-Urbana
"'A Real Threat to the Supremacy of American Pictures': United
Artists Responds to the Argentine Film Industry, 1933-1942"
I22 — Workshop: Film Preservation at the Academy
Film Archive (room 226)
Cinematheque — 7:00pm, 4070 Vilas Hall
- Special Collections from the Academy Film Archive: Newly Preserved
WWII Homefront and Silent Rarities
- Introduced by: Joe Lindner and Heather Linville, Academy
Film Archive
Friday, July 9th
Session J — 9:30am–11:30am
J23 — Symposium: Radio, Culture and Nation (room
325/326)
Chair: Mary Vipond, Concordia University, CA, emerita
- Avi
Santo, Old Dominion University
"The Lone Ranger: Building the National Market One Icon at a Time"
- Hans-Ulrich
Wagner, the Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research and the
University of Hamburg
"The promotion of "Volk", "Heimat", and "Nation" in
the Literary Programme Offer by the "Norag" and the "Reichssender
Hamburg" in the 1930s"
- Magda
Konieczna, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Out of Our Pocket: Canadians debate the merits of public
broadcasting, 1928–1932"
- Darrell
Newton, Salisbury University
"Recruitment, race and transnational resistance: pre-war developments
and BBC radio"
J24 — Documenting the Documentary: Postwar Public
Affairs Programming (room 309)
Chair: Shawn VanCour, University of South Carolina
- Paul
Long, Birmingham City University
"Inscribing the work of Philip Donnellan into documentary
and other histories"
- Robert
E. Hunter, Guggenheim Postdoctoral Fellow, National Air and Space
Museum, Smithsonian
"The Quick and the Dead"
- Matthew
C. Ehrlich, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
"Radio Utopia: Postwar Audio Documentary in the Public Interest"
J25 — Early Days: Media Culture in the 1920s (room
225)
Chair: Kathy Fuller-Seeley, Georgia State University
- Michael
Slowik, University of Iowa
"Film Exhibition in Vaudeville: What We Learn From Keith-Albee
Managers' Reports"
- Anne
MacLennan, York University
"Interrogating the Archive: Everyday Early Canadian Radio"
- Ross
Melnick, University of California – Los Angeles
"Dropped Call: AT&T and WEAF's Ill-Advised Censorship
of Roxy and His Gang"
J26 — High, Low, and In-Between: US Media Culture
in the 1940s (room 226)
- Mike
Chopra-Gant, London Metropolitan University
"Dirty movies, or: why film scholars should stop worrying
about Citizen Kane and learn to love bad films"
- John-Stuart
Fauquet, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The Genre Dilemma: Marc Blitzstein's Regina and the History
of American Musical Performance"
- Cynthia
Meyers, College of Mount Saint Vincent
"BBDO and US Steel on Radio and Television, 1948-52: The Problems
of Sponsorship, New Media, and the Communist Threat"
Session K — 1:00pm–3:00pm
K27 — Workshop: The National Recording Preservation
Board, the National Film Preservation Board, and their Work (room
225)
K28 — Transitions (room 309)
Chair: Mary Beth Haralovich, University of Arizona
- Elana
Levine, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
"Seeing the Light: Transitioning daytime serials from radio
to television"
- Josh
Shepperd, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Understanding (Educational) Media: Marshall McLuhan at the
NAEB, 1958–1960"
- Andy
Uhrich, New York University
"The Role of Wrestling in Early Broadcast Television: Preserving
the Syndicated TV Films of Russ Davis"
K29 — Visual Style in Film and Television (room
226)
Chair: Leo Enticknap, Leeds University
- Patrick
Keating, Trinity University
"James Wong Howe at Warner Bros."
- Jonah
Horwitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The Aesthetics of Live Anthology Drama, 1948–58"
- Courtney
White, University of Southern California
"Now You Haven't Got a Woman to Look At": MGM's Glamorous
Gallant Bess"
Special Tour of the Archives — 3:30pm
and 4:30pm (1 hour each)
Meet in the lobby of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Library
Mall
- Sign up at the registration desk for guided tours of the WCFTR and
WHS archives, by our own archvists.
Cinematheque: The African Queen — 7:00pm, 4070
Vilas Hall
- Newly restored by Paramount Pictures, with help from the WCFTR
- Directed by: John Huston
- Starring: Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart
- Introduced by: Andrea Kalas, VP Archives, Paramount Pictures
