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Chris Turner: Award-winning cultural journalist
and author of Planet Simpson
Other Links
Books
 Planet Simpson | |
CHRIS
TURNER In an age of unprecedented transformation—in
everything from geopolitics to telecommunications to fundamental social
norms —The Simpsons alone has had the depth, intelligence,
and scope to chart the links between the new world order's scattered fragments.
The book Planet Simpson is the first detailed and critical map
of this universe and Chris Turner, its author, relates how this phenomenon
concurrently describes and defines our culture.
The Simpsons has found the last word on seemingly every facet
of our culture and every event of our time. Its wide cast of characters
are a catalogue of our culture's archetypes, its settings and plots
an encyclopedia of the shape of our age. Award-winning cultural journalist
Chris Turner, in his funny and incredibly educating talks on The
Simpsons, takes you beyond the surface like no other observer can
to the center of one of the defining institutions of our times.
His essay "The Simpsons Generation" (the genesis of the book) appeared in September 2002 to widespread acclaim, and was reprinted in newspapers across North America. His feature writing—mostly for the late, lamented Shift Magazine—has earned him nine Canadian National Magazine Awards, including the 2001 President's Medal for General Excellence (the highest honour in Canadian magazine writing) for an essay on the pressing need for a revolutionary shift to sustainable living. His writing and reporting on culture and technology have also appeared in Time Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Independent, and The Times (UK). Chris lives in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife, the photographer and writer Ashley Bristowe, and their daughter, Sloane. He is currently at work on a book about climate change and sustainability, to be published by Random House in 2007. What does Chris Turner talk about?
Planet Simpson
From the rise and fall of the Internet to the re-emergence of protest
politics, from Main Street, USA, to the South Pacific, The Simpsons
has found the last word on seemingly every facet of our culture and
every event of our time. Chris Turner uses The Simpson as a window
on popular culture at large. His presentations feature first-hand reportage
and analysis of the Internet boom, the alternative-rock explosion, the
triumph of ironic culture, the cultural origins of anti-globalization,
and the impact of globetrotting (by dotcommers as well as backpackers)
on the developing world. This is not a presentation about just a TV
show—ather, it's a presentation about how a TV show documented
and defined an entire era.
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