Michael Kackman

Director of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Teaching Professor, Television

Specialties

History, Theory, and Criticism

Research Interests

History and criticism of U.S. television, Cold War American culture, nationhood and political culture, and history and memory practices in everyday life.

Biography

Michael Kackman is a television historian, with a Ph.D. and M.A. in media and cultural studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.F.A. in filmmaking from Emerson College. His research centers on the history and historiography of American television, with particular attention to the shifting relationships between television and U.S. nationhood. Michael is also the co-host (with Christine Becker) of Aca-Media, the official podcast of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Representative Publications, Performances, and Creative Works

Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture. Minnesota, 2005.

Flow TV: Television in the Age of Media Convergence. Routledge, 2010 (co-editor).

The Craft of Criticism: Critical Media Studies in Practice. Routledge, 2018 (co-editor).

"Nothing on but Hoppy Badges: Hopalong Cassidy, William Boyd Enterprises, and Emergent Media Globalization." Cinema Journal, 47:4

"Television Before the Broadcast Era," A Companion to the History of American Broadcasting, ed. A. Bodroghkozy. Wiley, 2018.