Television and the Embodied Viewer

Book excerpt: Television and the Embodied Viewer appraises the medium’s capacity to evoke sensations and bodily feelings in the viewer. Presenting a fresh approach to television studies, the book examines the sensate force of onscreen bodies and illustrates how TV’s multisensory appeal builds viewer empathy and animates meaning. The book draws extensively upon interpretive viewpoints in the humanities to shed light on a range of provocative television works, notably The Americans, Mad Men, Little Women: LA, and Six Feet Under, with emphasis on the dramatization of gender, disability, sex, childbearing, and death. Advocating a biocultural approach that takes into account the mind sciences, Cassidy argues that interpretive meanings, shaped within today’s dynamic cultural matrix, are amplified by somatic experience. At a time when questions of embodiment and affect are crossing disciplines, this book will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of television, film, and media studies, both in the humanities and cognitive traditions.