Series Editors' Introduction
Roopika Risam
Reanimate is delighted to share The Ghost Reader Digital Companion, which accompanies The Ghost Reader: Recovering Women's Contributions to Media Studies, 1930s-1950s Europe and North America, edited by Elena D. Hristova, Aimee-Marie Dorsten, and Carol A. Stabile (Goldsmiths University Press, 2024).
The digital companion shares materials that could not be encompassed in the print volume. It includes extended excerpts and additional writing by women of media studies who are included in the volume. We also provide bibliographies on their lives and work, as well as pedagogical essays that share ideas for how to teach with The Ghost Reader.
In the broader context of Reanimate, The Ghost Reader and digital companion are particularly special for us. Reanimate was born out of conversations between Carol Stabile and me about how to recover writing by little-known women in media history. While writing The Broadcast 41, Carol had found rich archival materials that she hoped to publish in a print volume. Unfortunately, the economics of publishing worked against this: there wasn't a market for the writing of women that most people didn't already know. But, if we can't publish their work, how could a market ever exist? My response was, "Let's just do it ourselves" — and, so, we did through Reanimate.
The fact that Carol, Elena, and Aimee-Marie were able to publish a print volume with writing about the unsung women of media history is a testament to the fact that by doing it ourselves — along with the many scholars who work on the women represented in The Ghost Reader — we can help change some of the circumstances that continue to marginalize the voices that have historically been silenced. We can demonstrate that there is interest and even a market. This is, for me, the power of digital humanities: to not only address the gaps and omissions that are reproduced and amplified in the digital cultural record but also to nudge the very structures of higher education and publishing to create space for new voices.
We are envisioning the digital companion as just a beginning. If you have done research on women who've gone ignored in media history, we would love to include their writing and bibliographies. If you have ideas for teaching with The Ghost Reader, we'd love to feature them too. The digital companion aims to be a platform for the ongoing work of changing the pale, male, and stale media histories that haunt classrooms today.
To contribute to The Ghost Reader Digital Companion, please reach out to me and to Carol.