Joli Jensen’s teaching interests are in media, culture and society.  At the University of Tulsa, she supervises the Senior Projects course, and teaches courses on Mass Communication and Society, Media and Popular Culture, Popular Feminisms, and Advocacy Journalism.  She directed the University Honors Program from 2005-2007.

 

Dr. Jensen’s research interests are in American cultural and social thought.  Her first book, Redeeming Modernity: Contradictions in Media Criticism, (Sage 1990) analyzes how the media are blamed for the perceived ills of modern life.  Her second book, The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music (Vanderbilt 1998) explores how and why cultural genre change, in relation to concerns about culture and commerce. Is Art Good for Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life (Rowman & Littlefield 2002) questions our taken-for-granted assumptions about the transformational power of high culture.  She draws on work by Tocqueville, Whitman, Dewey, and a variety of 20^th century social critics to explore how the arts are good, even if they don’t do good.

 

She has also written essays on media criticism, communication technologies, communication theories, the social history of the typewriter, and fans and fandom.  A recent public lecture explaining Picasso’s fame is available at http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=3970

 

Concern about widespread use of prescription medication for anxiety and depression has led to essays on undergraduates and mood medication (“Let’s Not Medicate Away Student Angst” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 15, 2003, B5) and on making wiser personal decisions (“Emotional Choices,” Reason magazine, v. 35, no. 11, April 2004, p. 28-35).  She has also written about religious identity (“On Being ‘Really Jewish’,” Being Jewish magazine, Passover 2007/5767) and several essays commemorating her dissertation advisor, James W. Carey.  Her advice on dealing with writer's block and related issues is available at "How To Complete Big Long Projects."

 

Dr. Jensen received her PhD in 1985 from Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois.  She has been a faculty member at the University of Virginia (1984-1986) and at the University of Texas-Austin (1986-1991) and has been at the University of Tulsa since 1991.