Emily Nussbaum

Emily Nussbaum has written for The New Yorker since 2011. She is the winner of the 2014 ASME for Columns and Commentary and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Previously, she was the TV critic and editor of The Culture Pages for New York magazine, where she created the “Approval Matrix,” the playful culture charticle that to this day closes out each issue of New York. Nussbaum has previously written for The New York Times, Slate, and Lingua Franca. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Clive Thompson and their two children.

Website: emilynussbaum.com
Twitter: @emilynussbaum

Emily Nussbaum is the perfect critic – smart, engaging, funny, generous, insightful. All of these talents are on display in this marvelous anthology of her essays on television. They illuminate the shows shaping our culture and the power of this flourishing art form. — David Grann

FESTIVAL BOOK

I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution

In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Emily Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality-television president.

More than a collection of reviews, the book makes a case for toppling the status anxiety that has long haunted the “idiot box,” even as it transformed. It’s a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.