Academia and Higher Learning in Popular Culture

Book excerpt: This edited volume focuses on the cultural production of knowledge in the academy as mediated or presented through film and television. This focus invites scrutiny of how the academy itself is viewed in popular culture from The Chair to Terry Pratchett's ‘Unseen University’ and Doctor Who's Time Lord Academy among others. Spanning a number of genres and key film and television series, the volume is also inherently interdisciplinary with perspectives from History, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, STEM, and more. This collection brings together leading experts in different disciplines and from different national backgrounds. It emphasises that even at a point of mass, global participation in higher education, the academy is still largely mediated by popular culture and understood through the tropes perpetuated via a multimedia landscape.