January 2021
CARGC Colloquium: Aswin Punathambekar, “Media, Untimely Humor, and the Time of Elections”
This event will be held virtually. Please click HERE or visit http://asc.upenn.edu/cargc2021 to register. About the Talk This presentation explores how new visual cultures of media production and circulation shape political culture(s) during the ‘time of elections.’ In forging connections across news, popular culture, and unfolding political events, I argue that culturally resonant memes and satirical videos - especially those deemed untimely - link the time of elections to the continuous, daily time of politics. With a focus on contemporary India, I show how…
Find out more »February 2021
CARGC Colloquium: Jinsook Kim, “Sticky Activism: Online Misogyny and Feminist Anti-Hate Activism in South Korea”
This talk will be held virtually, check back here for registration details. About the Talk In this presentation, digital media are analyzed as a key battlefield in the intense cultural and political conflict between feminists and misogynists that has been playing out in South Korea since 2013. Drawing on textual, discursive, and institutional analyses of digital media platforms and interviews with feminist activists, I show how new modes of feminist activism on and offline have contested the pervasive misogyny in…
Find out more »March 2021
CARGC Colloquium: Rudo Mudiwa, “The Black Girl Dreams of Freedom in the City: Mobility and Moral Panic in Zimbabwe, 1980-1983”
This talk will be held virtually, check back here for registration details. About the Talk The early days of the Zimbabwean state were marked with celebratory depictions of the migration and visible presence of black women in cities. Using newspaper and magazine archives, I trace a moral panic about infanticide and abortion, collapsed under the term “baby-dumping,” that soon gripped Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. This panic, which was based on a flimsy number of cases and outright fabrications, positioned…
Find out more »April 2021
No Going Back: Global Communication and Post-Pandemic Politics
About On suddenly sparse streets, artists confront the grim reality of the moment. With a nod to the anti-globalization movement or the music notes seemingly playing off the guest that has overstayed its welcome, both messages diagnose the ailment and gesture toward a hope for and belief in change. In a moment shaped by closures – of borders, stores, schools, offices, jobs, and, for many, a dream of “going back to normal” – what openings are made possible? The second…
Find out more »CARGC Colloquium: Katy Pearce, “Socially Mediated Visibility in Socially and Politically Authoritarian Societies”
This talk will be held virtually, check back here for registration details. About the Talk Increased visibility is arguably the most significant affordance of social media and a large body of scholarly work has sought to understand how individuals deal with the effects increased visibility in terms of concern for privacy as well as the ability to broadcast to wide audiences. Much of this work explores how pre-social media norms are applied, for better or worse, to socially mediated spaces.…
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