{"id":515,"date":"2026-04-02T22:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/?p=515"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:18:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:18:30","slug":"author-conversations-henry-jenkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/2026\/04\/02\/author-conversations-henry-jenkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Conversations: Henry Jenkins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Henry Jenkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry Jenkins is the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He arrived at USC in Fall 2009 after spending more than a decade as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and\/or editor of twenty books on various aspects of media and popular culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published with NYU Press, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination<\/a> represents a call for greater clarity about what we\u2019re fighting for\u2015not just what we\u2019re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes \u201ccivic imagination\u201d as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture\u2015from Beyonc\u00e9 to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR\u2015for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Host: Dr. Swapnil Rai<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-Host: Kristi Rhead<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Producer: Amber Hardiman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor: Edwin Osorio<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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