Ted Striphas background

Ted Striphas is a towering intellectual in the area of communication and cultural studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is currently an Associate Professor, in the Department of Communication & Culture, as well as the Director of Graduate Studies. Striphas is also adjunct faculty in the Department of American Studies; Program in Cultural Studies.  

He has written several articles, books, book chapters and presented his research at conferences. Clearly, Striphas is a respected authority who is qualified and well able to speak on the subject of the future of print.  In the first chapter of his latest book, The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control, Striphas is seeking to chart “the conditions leading to the emergence of e-books in the late age of print and to investigate what’s at stake politically in current debates about their worth.” Striphas is being very careful not to sanction nor denounce e-books.  He is more concerned about how they are embedded in the “broader history of consumer capitalism and property relations.” He argues that e-books are evolving technologies that pose both problems as well as solutions surrounding the circulation and ownership of print books.

Striphas’ book received several positive reviews on Amazon.com. Kathleen Fitzpatrick also reviewed the book in the International Journal of Communication. While Fitzpatrick generally gave the book high marks, she thought the way Striphas handled the chapter on Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club was inconsistent and an “uneasy fit with the book’s overall argument about controlled consumption.