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On 13 April 2016, Catherine Grant and Jaap Kooijman held a conversation with film scholar Richard Dyer in front of a live audience. The conversation consists of three parts, each based on one particular theme that runs through Dyer’s work: pleasure, obvious, and queer. Each theme is introduced by a short video made particularly for this occasion, in which quotations taken from Dyer’s work are combined with fragments of case studies Dyer has done over the years. Part one addresses the significance of pleasure in entertainment as well in the way academic scholars select their objects of study. Part two addresses both the respecting and questioning of the obvious when studying culture, including the persistent need for textual analysis and the role of stereotypes. The third part addresses notions of queerness before and after the Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s. Moreover, the conversation questions to what extent these themes remain relevant in film and media studies today.

In June 1982, film scholar Richard Dyer published a two-page essay on African-American star Diana Ross in the journal Marxism Today. Part of Dyer’s essay focuses on the American conception of success and specifically on how Ross is one of the few black artists who has been "allowed" to be such a success. The first half of this audiovisual essay applies Dyer’s text not to the "real" Diana Ross but to the fictional character she portrays in the star vehicle Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975), thereby showing how the onscreen performance and the off-screen persona are intertwined. The second half of the audiovisual essay aims to raise the question (rather than providing a definite answer) whether or not, three decades later, Dyer’s text could be applicable to African-American superstar Beyoncé Knowles.

This chapter explores what celebrities may do for us when we are not especially aware of them, combining the work Dutch popular culture and everyday media use, using the prerogative of the long-term media researcher who aims to theorize from empirical material. The chapter first introduces and explores the place and meaning of the precelebrity media personality in everyday media use, and how this has changed, by comparing Mies Bouwman, the popular Dutch television media personality before the introduction of commercial television in 1989, to Linda de Mol and her fellow celebrity Marco Borsato. Then, it shows how Linda features prominently as a commentator on questions of national identity and multiculturalism in the Netherlands during the early 2000s, as expressed in the special "Dutch dream" issue of LINDA., a women's monthly glossy based on Linda's celebrity persona. Role models are not what celebrities are used for in everyday life.

When rock star Bono told Oprah Winfrey that America is an ideal that is supposed to be contagious, the talk show host was moved to tears. Such an imagined America, rather than the nation-state USA, is the topic of Fabricating the Absolute Fake. Pop and politics become intertwined, as Hollywood, television, and celebrities spread the American Dream around the world. Using concepts such as the absolute fake and karaoke Americanism, the book examines this global mediation as well as the way America is appropriated in pop culture produced outside of the USA, as demonstrated by such diverse cultural icons as the Elvis-inspired crooner Lee Towers and the Moroccan-Dutch rapper Ali B. This revised and extended edition includes a new chapter on Barack Obama and Michael Jackson as global celebrities and a new afterword on teaching American pop culture.

This chapter discusses how The Oprah Winfrey Show presented the aftermath of 9/11 and the pending war in Iraq in its episodes. It shows that in "The Oprahfication of 9/11," the show’s discourse on terrorism and war "transform[ed] possible feelings of fear, anger, anxiety, and grief into acts of American patriotism," turning "9/11 into a personal yet collective experience of the political."

Het project GeoLoketten wil geo-informatie in Nederland optimaal toegankelijk maken via webservices. In het kader van het innovatieprogramma Ruimte voor Geo-informatie worden daarvoor methoden en technieken ontwikkeld. Innoveren moet je leren, maar dit leertraject bleek bijzonder dynamisch. Al is de geosector nog zo snel, de ict-wereld achterhaalt haar wel

Since 9/11 and the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, the political debate in the Netherlands seems predominantly focused on how Dutch national identity is endangered by Muslim extremism and the issue of ethnic integration. The fear that the national identity could be undermined by the cultural imperialism of Americanization has conspicuously disappeared from the political agenda. Using the concept of karaoke Americanism, this article examines recent commercial rap songs that use African-American hip-hop to comment on Dutch current affairs, thereby not only showing how pop culture and politics have become intertwined, but also providing telling examples of Americanization as a form of active cultural appropriation.

Het project GeoLoketten wil geo-informatie in Nederland optimaal toegankelijk maken via webservices. In het kader van het innovatieprogramma Ruimte voor Geo-informatie worden daarvoor methoden en technieken ontwikkeld. Innoveren moet je leren, maar dit leertraject bleek bijzonder dynamisch. Al is de geosector nog zo snel, de ict-wereld achterhaalt haar wel

For almost a century and a half, mathematicians have been racking their brains about the bike. How can a rolling bicycle be so stable of its own accord? Delft researchers now say they have completed the model to end all models. Bicycle manufacturer Batavus intends to use it to make better bikes for the elderly and disabled.

One part of the Geographic Information infrastructure that did not receive much attention until recently is embedding dynamic geographic information from sensors. in this article the focus is on the open standards, their opportunities and the open questions of Sensor Weh Enablement (SWE). Meaning can be given to SWE to ensure the accessibility and direction of dynamic geographic information through the Web in the context of a GII. This enables the integration of dynamic geographic information acquired through sensors with static geographic information. The SWE standards have been embedded within the Framework of Standards for the Dutch GII. The integration of sensors and sensor-based information is enhanced as a new dimension of the GII in a way that should be underestimated. A lot of development and experience is still required before the new world of SWE can be fully appreciated.