Dr. Kevin Sandler headed up the first presentation after the break for lunch at the Convergence Culture Consortium's Collaboration 2.0 last Saturday here at MIT. Dr. Sandler, who is an Assistant Professor of Media Arts at the University of Arizona in Tucson, presented some of his work on an upcoming book project on cartoon icon Scooby Doo.
Sandler is an Affiliated Faculty member with the Convergence Culture Consortium and has worked with the consortium in various capacities for quite a while.
Sandler's other work includes his book published by Rutgers later this year called The Naked Truth: Why Hollywood Does Not Make NC-17 Films, focusing on the productive and prohibitive practices of the Classification and Ratings Administration. He has also done significant work in studying other phenomenally popular media properties such as the Looney Tunes cartoon franchise and the movie Titanic.
The upcoming Scooby Doo book, which will be published by Duke University Press, according to his C3 bio here, "explores the cartoon's uncanny ability to adapt to regulatory, technological, and industrial changes since its origination as a Saturday morning series in 1969 to its current status as a global brand phenomenon." It is set to be called Scooby Doo.
Sandler's work with the Convergence Culture Consortium has included his submission of several research pieces for our internal C3 Weekly Update newsletter based on his current research, in addition to his recent presentation at Collaboration 2.0.
Sandler's look at popular culture has led to some interesting courses at the University of Arizona. For instance, see his teaching of a Fall 2005 class focusing solely on the films of Steven Soderbergh and other media courses he offers.
His work on Scooby Doo follows the cartoon character through the past several decades and various incarnations, from the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? to the recent Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, the latest incarnation of the Scooby character, which runs on The CW's Kids' WB.
For more on our series of recent posts about Collaboration 2.0, look here.
