Max Dosser
Senior Lecturer
Max Dosser is a senior lecturer of communication studies at Vanderbilt University. Before that, he was a graduate teaching fellow and Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a Ph.D. in communication and rhetoric and Ph.D. certificates in film & media studies and in cultural studies. When he isn't teaching about or researching speculative fiction, fandoms, or reactionary rhetoric, he's writing about heroic blueberries, raven knights, and long voyages in outer space. He is the co-founder and co-editor of Flash Point Science Fiction.
Representative Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
- “When Puppies Start to Hate: The Revanchist Nostalgia of the Hugo Awards’ PuppyGate Controversy.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 20, no. 4 (2023): 453–70.
- “These Visual Delights Have Sonic Ends: Affective Attunement and Audiovisual Prolepsis in Westworld’s Title Sequence.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 17, no. 2 (Winter 2023): 87–110.
- “According to the Narrator, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Styles of Narration-as-Advocation in True-Crime Documentary Series.” Journal of Film and Video 75, no. 2 (Summer 2023): 45–62.
- “I’m Gonna Wreck It, Again: The False Dichotomy of ‘Healthy’ and ‘Toxic’ Masculinity in Ralph Breaks the Internet.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 39, no. 4 (2022): 333–46.
- “Streaming’s Skip Intro Function as a Contradictory Refuge for Television Title Sequences.” Velvet Light Trap 90 (Fall 2022): 38–50.
- “POP! Goes My Heart: The Sound of Specific and General Love in Romantic Comedies and Dramas.” Music and the Moving Image 14, no. 3 (2021): 46–60.
- “Throw in the Tune: Musical Characterizations of Disability in Wrestling Films.” Journal of American Culture 43, no. 4 (2020): 300–11.
Edited Collections
- Critical Media Studies: Student Essays on Deadwood. Winston-Salem: Library Partners Press, 2016.
Book Chapters
- “Returning to Mayberry amid the 2020 Social Crises: An Oral History.” In Exploring Utopia and Nostalgia in The Andy Griffith Show: A Contemporary Analysis of a Classic TV Show, edited by David Johnson and William Rampone. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, forthcoming.
- “What You Did is Not Okay: The Emotional Truth behind American Vandal’s Absurdity.” In Televising True Crime: The True Crime Genre in the Digital Age, edited by Anna Froula, Tanya Horeck, Melissa Lenos, and Erin Meyers. New York: Routledge, forthcoming.
- “Anger.” In Feminism and Feminist Movements in America: An Encyclopedia of Ideals and Activism, edited by Sarah Kornfield. New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming.
- “Hegemonic Masculinity.” In Feminism and Feminist Movements in America: An Encyclopedia of Ideals and Activism, edited by Sarah Kornfield. New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming.
- “Teaching and Imagining Decoloniality through Indigenous Speculative Fiction.” In Inclusive Learning Through Fantasy, edited by Camille D.G. Mustachio. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, forthcoming in 2024.
- “No Longer Lost in the Woods: Kristoff and a Non-Hegemonic Disney Prince Masculinity.” In The Frozen Phenomenon, edited by Maja Rudloff, Helen Haswell, and Brittany Eldridge. New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2024.
- “From Fan Blogs to Earth Rumble VI: Disability Discourse on Avatar: The Last Airbender.” In The Avatar Television Franchise: Storytelling, Identity, Trauma, and Fandom, edited by Francis M. Agnoli, 189–205. New York: Bloomsbury, 2023.
- “Who Lives, Who Dies, He Tells the Story: Hip-Hop, Antagonist-Narrators, and the Impact of Musical Genre on Storytelling.” In The Revolutionary Rhetoric of Hamilton, edited by Luke Winslow, Nancy J. Legge, and Jacob Justice, 169–83. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022.
- “Development Un-Arrested: Cancelled Sitcoms Meet Streaming Services.”In Critical Media Studies: Student Essays on Contemporary Sitcoms, edited by Mary Dalton, 5–22. Winston-Salem, NC: Library Partners Press, 2017.
Book Reviews
- “Real Life in Real Time: Live Streaming Culture, edited by Johanna Brewer, Bo Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen, and Christopher J. Persaud.” H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews, January 2024.
- “The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales, edited and translated by Cristina Mazzoni.” Journal of Folklore Research Reviews (February 2022).
- “Narration as Argument, edited by Paula Olmos.” Informal Logic 40, no. 3 (2020): 509–20.
- “Music in Comedy Television: Notes on Laughs, edited by Liz Giuffre and Philip Hayward.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 14, no. 1 (2020): 79–82.