Archives Collection

 

LEWIS, LISA A.                                                                    94-086

PAPERS                                                                     07-020

 

Physical description:

1.2 l.f.

 

Dates:

1984 - 1991.

 

Provenance:

These papers were donated to the Center in March 1994 by Lisa Lewis. Folders were donated in March 2008 by Lisa A. Lewis to be added to the collection.

 

Biographical sketch:

Lisa Ann Lewis was born in Evansville Indiana 27 July 1956. She graduated from Antioch College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1978, was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Northwestern University in 1981 and received her doctorate from University of Texas at Austin in 1987.

While a student at Antioch College she worked as a high school teacher in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, a writer for Mountain Life and Work, a staff worker for the United Farm Workers Union; and in other positions.  She taught television criticism and production for two years at Western Illinois University in Macomb Illinois and was employed as an assistant instructor in the Department of Radio, Television and Film while a student at the University of Texas at Austin.

In 1990 Temple University Press published her book Gender Politics and MTV, which was based in part on her dissertation "Female Address in Music Videos."  The following year she edited the collection The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media.  Both before and after the appearance of these volumes she published a number of articles on women and popular culture and presented papers on the same subject at a variety of academic symposia and conferences.

She currently lives in Los Angles California.

 

   --  based on a vita bound into a copy of her dissertation now located in Special Collections

 

Scope and content:

This group consists primarily of papers, presentations and publications generated by Lewis's research on women in music videos, her own research notes and materials, which she collected during her investigations.  Included also are several folders of correspondence and related materials documenting the publication of her book by Temple University Press. These papers are arranged in five series.

 

Series descriptions:

 

Series I: Graduate papers

This series includes seminar papers and research proposals developed by Lewis during her graduate career at the University of Texas.  Many papers have comments by faculty on or attached to the draft. The papers are arranged chronologically followed by a folder of undated projects, a folder of advisor comments which could not be linked to a particular project, several transcripts of a Lewis interview with Pat Benatar.

Preliminary and final copies of her dissertation which were filed with this series were transferred to Special Collections.

 

Series II: Research resources

These files, which include clippings from popular magazines, most identified by source; Lewis's notes from other sources; her analysis of numerous music videos; and database searchers and other bibliographies have been maintained in categories organized by Lewis.  They are filed in the order listed: Adolescence, MTV, Music Videos, Women in Rock, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Tina Turner, research articles from scholarly journals and miscellaneous.

  Entire issues of popular magazines owned by the Center and\or the main MTSU Library, which contained articles on topics of interest to Lewis were not retained; a list of these publications follows this inventory.

 

Series III: Publishers Correspondence

This series consists almost entirely of communications between Lewis and individuals at Temple University Press related to submission, review, acceptance and marketing of the manuscript "Gender Politics and MTV" and selection of and clearances for photographs used in the volume, arranged in the order listed.  There follows slight scattered correspondence with the University of North Carolina Press which also considered the volume.

 

Series IV: Other research and publications

Included in this series are correspondence about and copies of Lewis's presentations at scholarly conferences, including requests for copies of her papers, and correspondence with editors of scholarly journals in which Lewis published articles, organized by the title of the article or name of the conference at which a presentation were made.   There follow page proofs of The Adoring Audience, a collection edited by Lewis and published by Routledge in 1992.

 

Series V: Pat Benatar research materials

            This series was received in 2008 and contains notes, interview transcripts, photographs and photographic release forms Lewis created while researching Pat Benatar for the book, Gender Politics and MTV: Voicing the Difference. Lewis considered her fieldwork with Pat Benatar among the most important work for the book. One black and white photograph of Lewis and Pat Benatar and a cassette tape of an interview with Benatar on 10/18/1988 are among the papers. Also included are slides of the first appearance of television screens showing music videos in junior wear clothing departments (circa 1988), which contributed to the formation of Lewis’ ideas about the connection of MTV and consumer girl culture.

 

Location: 

This group is filed by accession number with other manuscript groups.  The photographs described in Series II and V are filed under "Lisa A. Lewis Papers" (MAN-PR-00024) in the Iconographic collection and searchable in the InMagic Iconographic database.

 

Related materials:

Fan biographies and tour books used as research sources by Lewis were transferred to the general collection; a list of these titles follows.  Preliminary and final copies of Lewis's dissertation, which were received with the papers were transferred to Special Collections.

 

Separated Materials:

The following issues of popular periodicals held by the Center and/or MTSU Library were weeded from this group:

 

 

Title                                        Date                                                    Subject

 

Bazaar                                     May 1988                                            Madonna

 

Cosmopolitan                          July 1987                                             Madonna

 

Creem                                     April 1987                                            Cyndi Lauper

 

Entertainment                         14 Dec. 1987                                       Madonna

17 May 1991                                       Madonna

28 Aug. 1992                                       Madonna

 

Esquire                                    March 1986                                         Madonna

 

Forbes                                     21 Sept. 1987                                      Madonna

 

Life                                          Aug. 1985                                            Tina Turner

Dec. 1986                                            Madonna

 

New York Times Mag.             18 Sept. 1988                                      Cyndi Lauper

 

Newsweek                               30 Dec. 1985                                       MTV

 

People                                     17 Sept. 1984                                      Cyndi Lauper

13 May 1985                                       Madonna

14 Dec. 1987                                       Madonna

 

Rolling Stone                           24 May 1984                                       Cyndi Lauper

15 July 1985                                        Tina Turner

16 Sept. 1985                                      Madonna

                                                2 July 1990                                          Madonna

27 Feb 1986                                        Tina Turner

23 Oct 1986                                        Tina Turner

10 Sept. 1987                                      Madonna

                                                23 March 1989                                    Madonna

21 Sept. 1989                                      Madonna

 

Spin                                         Sept. 1985                                           Pat Benatar

Jan. 1987                                             Janet Jackson

April 1987                                            Madonna

April 1989                                            Madonna         

 

TV Guide                                 3 Aug 1991                                          Madonna

23 Nov 1991                                       Madonna

 

Time                                        27 May 1985                                       Madonna                     

 

Us                                            7 Sept 1977                                         Madonna

 8 Sept 1986                                        Tina Turner

12 June 1989                                       Madonna

13 June 1991                                       Madonna

Vanity Fair                              April 1990                                            Madonna

Dec. 1986                                            Madonna

July 1987                                             Madonna

 

Vogue                                      May  1989                                           Madonna

April 1991                                            Madonna

 

Working Woman                     Dec. 1991                                            Madonna

 

 

Written by EGB, updated by LPC May 2008.