Please join us for a lecture by Dr. Thomas S. Frentz, Professor of Communication at the University of Arkansas on "Fighting for Manhood:  Oedipal Complexities in Fight Club" on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. in the C. Shaw Smith 900 Room in the Union on the Davidson College campus. 

Dr. Frentz uses Freud's psychoanalytic interpretation of the Oedipal myth to unscramble some non-obvious meaning of how to become a man in David Fincher's controversial film, Fight Club.  Focusing on symbolic mothers and fathers within the film, he shows how killing the fathers and having sex with the mothers emerges as the mythic pathway to manhood in postmodern American culture.  Dr. Frentz then worries just a bit about this particular avenue and advances a few less odious alternatives.

Co-sponsors along with Communication Studies include the Departments of Anthropology, English, German, Psychology and Sociology; the Gender Studies Concentration; the Public Lectures Committee, with endorsements from the Film and Media Studies concentration, the Department of Religion and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. 

Dr. Frentz is a nationally recognized rhetorical scholar of media, specializing in the mythic analysis of film.  He is the co-author of Projecting the Shadow:  The Cyborg Hero in American Film (University of Chicago Press, 1995), and of such essays as "'Mother's Not Herself Today':  Myth and Spectacle in The Matrix," "Singing Over the Bones:  James Cameron's Titanic," "Integrating Ideology and Archetype in Rhetorical Criticism:  A Case Study of Jaws, and more, all published in nationally recognized journals.  This lecture draws from a substantial body of research into the mythic dimensions of gender portrayals in a film that many of our students instantly recognize.  Dr. Frentz's research clearly demonstrates depth, breadth, and interdisciplinary scope. 

A presidential debate. A conversation between friends. An episode of CSI. An American negotiating Paris, or Madrid, or Dubai. All are examples of the process of communication, in which people create messages through which they seek to share meaning. Communication Studies at Davidson explores the basic concepts of communication in a variety of contexts, from people talking one on one to organizations creating messages for millions. From the classical wisdom of the ancient Greeks to the cutting-edge insights of contemporary scholars, Communication Studies explores the elements of the communication process, the options in assessing them, the significance of selections among those alternatives, and the ample opportunities for misunderstanding and disagreement.

Communication Studies focuses on three areas:

• interpersonal communication, including communication in relationships, in small groups, and in organizations, as well as intercultural communication;
• public communication, including rhetorical analysis and such intentional efforts to influence audiences as persuasion, social movements, and political communication; and
• mass communication, including the history of mass media, the critical analysis of media, and how media shape the communication process.