Urban Media Studies| Practicing Urban Media Studies: An Interview With Will Straw

Abstract

In this interview, Simone Tosoni and Seija Ridell discuss with Will Straw, professor of urban media studies at McGill University, Canada, his views of this subject area. Professorships that would explicitly focus on the intersection of media studies and urban studies are rare internationally, Straw’s position being one of them. The interview sheds light on how urban media studies came about and were institutionalized at McGill University, how Straw practices urban media studies in his own teaching, and how he sees the future of this “interdiscipline.” The second part of the interview addresses two of Straw’s main research topics and their relation to urban media studies: his studies on scenes and the night.

Will Straw is James McGill Professor of Urban Media Studies in the Department of Art History and Communications Studies at McGill University. He is the author of Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in ’50s America (Andrew Roth Gallery, 2006) and coeditor of several volumes including Circulation and the City: Essays on Urban Culture (with Alexandra Boutros), Formes Urbaines (with Anouk Bélanger and Annie Gérin), and The Oxford Handbook to Canadian Cinema (with Janine Marchessault). He has published widely on popular culture of all kinds and is the author of more than 150 articles on music, cinema, and urban culture.