Teaching Celebrity: Editor's Introduction

In this special issue, Teaching Media Quarterly provides instructors with resources for teaching celebrity in the classroom. This introduction demonstrates the importance of doing so and briefly introduces the issue's lesson plans

Nonabelian 2D Gauge Theories for Determinantal Calabi-Yau Varieties

The two-dimensional supersymmetric gauged linear sigma model (GLSM) with abelian gauge groups and matter fields has provided many insights into string theory on Calabi--Yau manifolds of a certain type: complete intersections in toric varieties. In this paper, we consider two GLSM constructions with nonabelian gauge groups and charged matter whose infrared CFTs correspond to string propagation on determinantal Calabi-Yau varieties, furnishing another broad class of Calabi-Yau geometries in addition to complete intersections. We show that these two models -- which we refer to as the PAX and the PAXY model -- are dual descriptions of the same low-energy physics. Using GLSM techniques, we determine the quantum K\"ahler moduli space of these varieties and find no disagreement with existing results in the literature.Comment: v3: 46 pages, 1 figure. Corrected phase structure of general linear determinantal varieties. Typos correcte

Two-Sphere Partition Functions and Gromov-Witten Invariants

Many N=(2,2) two-dimensional nonlinear sigma models with Calabi-Yau target spaces admit ultraviolet descriptions as N=(2,2) gauge theories (gauged linear sigma models). We conjecture that the two-sphere partition function of such ultraviolet gauge theories -- recently computed via localization by Benini et al. and Doroud et al. -- yields the exact K\"ahler potential on the quantum K\"ahler moduli space for Calabi-Yau threefold target spaces. In particular, this allows one to compute the genus zero Gromov-Witten invariants for any such Calabi-Yau threefold without the use of mirror symmetry. More generally, when the infrared superconformal fixed point is used to compactify string theory, this provides a direct method to compute the spacetime K\"ahler potential of certain moduli (e.g., vector multiplet moduli in type IIA), exactly in {\alpha}'. We compute these quantities for the quintic and for R{\o}dland's Pfaffian Calabi-Yau threefold and find agreement with existing results in the literature. We then apply our methods to a codimension four determinantal Calabi-Yau threefold in P^7, recently given a nonabelian gauge theory description by the present authors, for which no mirror Calabi-Yau is currently known. We derive predictions for its Gromov-Witten invariants and verify that our predictions satisfy nontrivial geometric checks.Comment: 25 pages + 2 appendices; v2 corrects a divisor in K\"ahler moduli space and includes a new calculation that confirms a geometric prediction; v3 contains minor update of Gromov-Witten invariant extraction procedur

Editors' Notes

This issue of Teaching Media Quarterly presents four lesson plans that explore relevant topics in media studies today: political humor and perception of politics, participatory culture and misinformation, news literacy, and critical analysis of post-production color technologies

Pre- and Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Resident Motivations for and Experiences of Establishing a Home in a Low-Carbon Development

There is some understanding of how an individual’s daily practices consume resources in the home, but the home as a space itself and peoples’ relationships to it remain an interesting research area. In this paper, residents of an Australian low-carbon development (LCD) are studied in order to discover the expectations and motivations driving them to move to their new home, the emotional landscape of the home, and their subsequent experiences living in an LCD. This exploration through mixed methods and a post-occupancy evaluation enables a longitudinal empirical study of the motivations, perceptions, expectations and experiences of an LCD residence. This study aims to further conceptualize the social understanding of a home and what people consider when moving into an LCD, along with the post-occupancy experiences that are important for establishing LCDs in the future. The results show that a home is associated with being a place of community, sustainability, safety and comfort, as well as a place that incorporates aesthetically pleasing features. The motivation for residents moving into an LCD is to have housing stability, live the life they want (including performing sustainable practices) and enjoy the attractive design of the LCD. The user experiences of living in an LCD include unexpected design influences on daily practices and an appreciation of the community atmosphere created. The strong sense of community and the self-reported thermally comfortable homes met residents’ expectations post-occupancy. This research is of interest to academics in the low-carbon and social science sectors, real-estate agents and property developers, as it provides insight into motivations and expectations of low-carbon dwelling residents

Reveling in Uselessness: Queer and Trans Media, Consumptive Labour, and Cultural Capital

Reveling in Uselessness: Queer and Trans Media, Consumptive Labour, and Cultural Capital posits and defends a theory of media consumption as sites for the creation and maintenance of queer and trans cultural capital. This occurs around the nexus of uselessness of two varieties, explained in the introduction: media genres, styles, aesthetics, or objects considered useless due to their mass (re)producibility, banality, or niche specificity, and the people who consume them that, due to their marginalized identities, are made to feel “useless” under contemporary capitalism. Following the introduction is a chapter laying out the theoretical framework of this project, particularly resituating Marx and Bourdieu’s theories of (cultural) capital and value within queer and trans theories. Chapter 2, the first of three case studies, examines the late-90s pop mega-phenomenon the Spice Girls as postmodern kitsch commodities, updating kitsch theory to account for changes in media commodity mass production and consumption in postmodern culture. Here, economic uselessness resides in the kitsch media commodity, while kitsch consumers are seen as structurally useless beyond their buying power. In Chapter 3, the history and formation of gay bear culture through an examination of how bears, a group of gay men who felt useless and ostracized from both mass culture and gay club cultures, contributed to and consumed pornography from BEAR magazine and discussed how they can use media to build a community that makes them feel useful and valued via the early Internet listserv The Bear Mailing List. My final case study examines the camp exploitation film Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives to explore how it is repurposing camp to centre on the experiences of trans women and promote communal healing and reconciliation with the traumas regularly inflicted on queer and trans bodies under capitalism. Reveling’s conclusion returns to the broader questions of use/lessness and value explored in the introduction, framed through memory and the affective power of media to encourage and foster difference. Reveling in Uselessness insists upon consumption as an essential site for exploring the simultaneous social, political, and affective impacts of media commodities, an important additive to current discussions of media reception and political economy, by offering a framework for exploring the affective and material impacts media have on identity, community formation, and queer & trans world building beyond questions of representation. This dissertation demonstrates how it is in the “useless” places, genres, and aesthetic styles where people who feel socially, economically, or politically “useless” reside and build new, exciting, queer realities based in creative excesses of style and self.PHDFilm, Television, & Media PhDUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149786/1/jtmgrizz_2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149786/2/jtmgrizz_1.pd