Rate My Professor Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray serves as the Hamel Family Distinguished Chair in Communication Arts and Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a position he has held since 2011, following his tenure as Associate Professor there from 2009 to 2011. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University (2005-2009) and Lecturer in Mass Communications at the University of California, Berkeley (2003-2005). Gray holds a Ph.D. in Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London (2003), an M.A. in Media and Communication Studies from Goldsmiths College (2000), an M.A. in Literature from Commonwealth Countries from the University of Leeds (1997), and a B.A. Honours in English from the University of British Columbia (1996).

His research focuses on contemporary television studies, qualitative audience studies, textual theory, criticism, and analysis; new media extensions and convergence with television and film; satire, comedy, parody, and political entertainment; and international media consumption. Gray is the author of key books such as Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste (NYU Press, 2021), Television Goes to the Movies (with Derek Johnson, Routledge, 2021), Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts (NYU Press, 2010), Television Entertainment (Routledge, 2008), and Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality (Routledge, 2006). He has co-edited influential collections including Keywords for Media Studies (NYU Press, 2017), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (NYU Press, 2017), and Television Studies (Polity, 2018). His scholarship explores paratexts, intertextuality, fandom, and anti-fandom. Gray has received the Kellett Mid-Career Faculty Fellowship (2022), International Communication Association Fellow status (2022), Vilas Mid-Career Investigator’s Award (2016), Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2015), and H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship (2011). He formerly served as Chief Editor of The International Journal of Cultural Studies for eight years, co-edited Popular Communication, and sat on the George Foster Peabody Awards Board of Jurors. Additionally, he co-edits NYU Press’s Critical Cultural Communication book series.