• Home
  • MCW Seminars
  • Agenda 2012
  • Past Events
  • Research MA Media & Performance
  •  

    Announcements

    International Conference: Book Presence in a Digital Age

    Posted on: May 8th, 2012

    flyer1def

    INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE BOOK PRESENCE IN A DIGITAL AGE
    MAY 28-30, Janskerkhof (May 28: start 09.30),
    Drift 21 (May 29-30 start 09.00) Utrecht University
    Description
    This conference is devoted to books and paper as bodies of literature and self-writing in a digital age. If books have been marginalized by screens, pads, and other book imitators,what is happening to literature as a paper art? How have books and paper been re-imagined in the last decades in their creative contrast to electronic screens? How can we thus compare the interactions between “old” and “new” media in the present to media ecologies of the past?
    Central Concepts
    Analog; aura; authenticity; bookishness; hybriditiy; materiality; palimpsest; singularity; (love of) words
    Speakers
    John Hamilton (Harvard), Peter Lunenfeld (UCLA), Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard), Susan Bielstein (Chicago UP), Helen Tartar (Fordham UP), George Landow (Brown), Leah Price (Harvard), Garrett Stewart (Illinois), Lisa Gitelman (NYU), Jessica Pressman (Yale), Harald Hendrix (Utrecht), Rosemarie Buikema (Utrecht), Doug Beube (book artist), Kiene Brillenburg Wurth (Utrecht), Inge van de Ven (Utrecht), Sara Rosa Espi (Utrecht), Anna Poletti (Monash), Thomas Ledru (zine maker), Jacob Edmond (Otago), Yra van Dijk (Amsterdam), Martijn Brugman (zine maker), Wiljan van den Akker (Utrecht), Simon Morris (book artist), Brian Dettmer (book artist)

    Registration
    (seating availability is limited on Monday May 28)

    Sponsors:
    NWO VIDI project Back to the Book, Cultures and Identities: Changing Literacies Platform, OSL, Wintertuin

    More information about this event in attachment and onhttp://backbooks.wordpress.com/events/.
    All those interested are cordially invited to attend!


    PCI Conference ‘ Postcolonial Cinema Studies’ and’ Doing Gender Lecture’ by Ella Shohat/ Robert Stam

    Posted on: May 3rd, 2012
    Postcolonial Cinema Studies
    7 June, 2012
    Utrecht University
    Organised by Sandra Ponzanesi
    In collaboration with:
    Postcolonial Studies Initiative, Centre for the Humanities,
    Culture & Identities and the Gender Studies Programme


    What is, or what might constitute, ‘Postcolonial cinema studies?’ This one-day conference does not propose ‘postcolonial cinema’ as a genre or wish to essentialise it by fitting it into a taxonomy. It envisions instead ‘postcolonial cinema’ in relation to dynamic departures from colonial paradigms of knowledge and power. The participants in this conference focus on the elaboration and deployment of a postcolonial lens and on the nature of cinematic engagement with audiences through that lens. It explores ‘postcolonial cinema’ as constituted by and within a conceptual space in which making connection and drawing inferences, specifically those that are occluded by national and colonial frames, is encouraged. The conference is organized to celebrate the publication of Postcolonial Cinema Studies edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Waller (London and New York, Routledge, 2011).

    Postcolonial Cinema Studies is an essential book that orchestrates an enriching dialogue between postcolonial studies and cinema studies, in ways that mutually illuminate both fields. Interdisciplinary and transnational, the volume goes beyond the usual Anglo-phone boundaries. Not only does it stretch the corpus of films to be studied, it also productively counterpoints theories, methodologies, and regions.”Ella Shohat, New York University, USA and Robert Stam, Tisch School of the Arts, USA

    Programme- Morning: Drift 21 (Sweelinckzaal, room 0.05)
    9.00-9.30 Coffee
    9.30-9.40 Welcoming words
    Prof. Frank Kessler (Director Research Institute for History and Culture/ Prof. of Media History, Utrecht University)
    9.40-10.20 Introduction to Postcolonial Cinema Studies
    Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University) and Marguerite Waller (University of California, Riverside, USA)
    10.20-10.40 Response
    Ella Shohat (New York University, USA) and Robert Stam(Tisch School of the Arts, USA)
    10.40-11.20 Unpeople: postcolonial reflections on terror, torture and
    detention in Children of Men
    Shohini Chaudhuri (University of Essex, UK)
    11.20-12.00 Postcolonial relationalities in Philippe Faucon’s Dans la vie
    Mireille Rosello (University of Amsterdam)
    12.00-12.40 Spectral postcoloniality: lusophone postcolonial film and the
    imaginary of the nation.
    Paulo de Medeiros (Utrecht University)

    Lunch break

    Programme- Afternoon: U-Theater, Kromme Nieuwegracht 20
    14.00-14.40 The postcolonial circus: Maurizio Nichetti’s Luna e l’altra
    Marguerite Waller (University of California, Riverside, USA)
    14.40-15.20 Postcolonial adaptations: gained and lost in translation
    Sandra Ponzanesi
    15.20-15.50 Presentation of the Film: Forget Baghdad: Jews and Arabs – The Iraqi Connection (Dir. Samir, 2003)
    Ella Shohat (New York University, USA)
    15.50-17.45 Screening Forget Baghdad: Jews and Arabs – The Iraqi Connection
    17.45-18.00 Q&A
    18.00-19.00 Closing & Drinks
    Free of charge, for registration and information please mail:s.ponzanesi@uu.nl
    For more info see: www.postcolonialstudies.nl

    DOING GENDER Lecture Series ~ PCI PUBLIC LECTURE Spring 2012
    Friday June 8, 2012: Prof. dr. Ella Shohat and Prof. dr. Robert Stam: Race in Translation: Culture Wars around the postcolonial Atlantic
    Time: 14.00 hrs - 16.00 hrs
    Location: Utrecht, Drift 21: room 0.05

    Lecture: The lecture will be on the jointly written book by Stam/Shohat, which will come out in May 2012: Race in Translation: Culture Wars around the Postcolonial Atlantic. The book covers many debates in three different languages/nations/cultures–Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone. The book is at once a report from various fronts in the culture wars, a discussion of the relevant literature in three languages/spaces, and a polemic advancing our own views arguing with figures such as Bourdieu/Wacquant, Zizek, and many others attacking such fields of studies as multicultural/postcolonial studies and to a lesser extent feminist studies.

    Professor Ella Shohat teaches at the departments of Art & Public Policy and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies at New York University, and is also affiliated faculty with NYU Abu Dhabi. She has lectured and written extensively on issues such as Eurocentrism and Orientalism, as well as with Post/colonial and transnational approaches to Cultural studies. Her award-winning publications include: Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (2006), Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation (1989); Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age (1998); Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Perspectives (1997); and with Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism (1994);Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media (2003); Flagging Patriotism: Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism (2007); and Culture Wars in Translation (2011)
    Professor Robert Stam is University Professor at New York University. He has lectured and published widely on Literature, Film and Muliticulturalism. Among his many publications are Literature through Film: Realism, Magic, and the Art of Adaptation (2004);Film Theory: An Introduction (2000); Francois Truffaut and Friends (2006); Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997); and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1989).
    The Doing Gender Lecture Series take place in Utrecht and is free of charge.
    For more information: www.graduategenderstudies.nl
    Registration is not compulsory, but highly appreciated: nog@uu.nl or 030 - 253 6001

    Public Lecture & Masterclass by Nick Couldry (Goldsmith’s) - June 7/8

    Posted on: May 2nd, 2012
    Public Lecture and Masterclass by Nick Couldry (Goldsmiths, London)
    Utrecht University’s Centre for Television in Transition in collaboration with the
    Research Focus Cultures and Identities, Utrecht University
    announces a public lecture and invites to a master class by internationally renowned media scholar and cultural critic:

    NICK COULDRY, GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
    Public lecture
    Thursday, June 7, 5 – 7 p.m., Kanunnikenzaal, Academiegebouw, Utrecht University
    - entrance Faculty Club: Achter de dom 7
    - entrance Academiegebouw: Domplein 29
    DOING THINGS WITH MEDIA
    What practices, and families of practices, are emerging in and around what we do with and in relation to media? As the object ‘media’ changes, so too are the forms of life that involve media. But to grasp what we are doing means taking a distance from the hype about ‘new media’ and asking broader questions about the new and continuing action-possibilities associated with today’s mediated interfaces. In this lecture, Nick Couldry will draw on his forthcoming book Media Society World and build on his earlier work, particularly the 2004 article ‘Theorising Media as Practice’. Among the families of practice discussed (simple and complex) will be ’searching’, ’showing’, ‘presencing’, ‘archiving’, ‘commentary’, ‘keeping all channels open’ and ’screening out’.
    Nick Couldry is Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and Director of its Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy. He is the author or editor of ten books including most recently Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice(forthcoming Polity 2012) and Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism (Sage 2010). Couldry is one of the leading scholars in the field of Media and Cultural Studies and has become with Why Voice Matters one of the most brilliant critics of neo-liberalism and its assaults on almost every aspect of public live.
    Masterclass
    Friday, June 8, 2012, 9.30 - 12.30 a.m., Utrecht University, room t.b.a.
    THEORIZING MEDIA AS PRACTICE
    This master class explores the theoretical and methodological implications of a new paradigm of media research that Nick Couldry develops in his recent and current work. This paradigm understands media, not as texts or structures of production, but as practice. Drawing on recent moves towards a theory of practice in sociology, this paradigm aims to move beyond old debates about media effects and the relative importance of political economy and audience interpretation, at the same time as moving beyond a narrow concentration on audience practices, to study the whole range of practices that are oriented towards media and the role of media in ordering other practices in the social world. The master class discusses the key advantages of this paradigm in mapping the complexity of media-saturated cultures where the discreteness of audience practices can no longer be assumed.
    After an introductory talk by Professor Nick Couldry, three papers by doctoral candidates will be presented. A general discussion of the practice approach will follow.
    This master class is primarily directed to doctoral students in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies at Dutch Universities. Interested students of Research Master Programmes in the same area and interested colleagues are also welcome to register.
    Registration for masterclass:
    - Deadline for registration is May 30, 2012 (email to e.mueller@uu.nl).
    - Deadline for submission of a proposal for a short paper presentation (15 minutes) is May 15, 2012 (email to e.mueller@uu.nl). Paper proposals should not be longer than 500 words, plus literature, a short biographical statement en contact information.
    - Readings for the masterclass will be distributed in advance.
    - Participation in the masterclass is free of charge.
    - For further questions, please contact the organizer of the masterclass dr. Eggo Müller (e.mueller@uu.nl).

    Para-Industry, Shadow Academy. Public lecture by John Caldwell (UCLA) - 21 May

    Posted on: May 2nd, 2012
    Para-industry, shadow academy
    Date ¦ Monday, 21 May 2012
    Time ¦ 11-13.00
    Venue ¦ Utrecht, Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21, 0.05
    Open to ¦ all
    If you want to participate please register on the RMeS site (rmes.nl/public-lecture-para-industry-shadow-academy/).

    What does it mean to critically theorize a television industry that critically theorizes itself? How should scholars engage, describe, and research media industries in which reflexive forms of self-scrutiny, posed transparency, and meta-reflection have become dominant and widely circulated forms of commercial screen content and entertainment? In this lecture, Caldwell maps the outlines not of “paratexts” but of what he terms “Para-Industry.” This refers to the ubiquitous industrial and corporate fields that surround and complicate any access to what we traditionally regard as our primary objects of media research—messages, texts, forms, institutions, and even audiences. Complicating matters further still are the ways media industries today function as a “shadow academy,” by emulating, incorporating, or mirroring the very theoretical paradigms and oppositional modes that scholars have developed to maintain their objectivity.  The goal here is to more systematically describe something that is arguably foundational to either good social science-based communication studies or humanities-based cinema and media studies. In this account, media texts are per se collective, negotiated, industrial interactions, not the end-product of economic or collective negotiation sent or sold to viewers.
    About John T. Caldwell
    John Caldwell is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media at UCLA. Holding a PhD from Northwestern and an MFA from Cal Arts, Caldwell’s main areas of research and teaching focus on contemporary film and television and the technologies and cultural economy of creative labor.  He has authored and edited several books, including Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television  (Duke: Univ. Press 2008), Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Media Industries, (Routledge, 2009, co-edited), Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television, (Rutgers UP, 1995), Electronic Media and Technoculture (Rutgers UP, 2000), and New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, (Routledge, 2003, co-edited).

    New book by Eef Masson: Watch and Learn. Rhetorical Devices in Classroom Films after 1940

    Posted on: April 17th, 2012

    Eef Masson
    Watch and Learn
    Rhetorical Devices in Classroom Films after 1940
    Sinds de late jaren negentig is er een toenemende academische belangstelling voor zogenoemde ‘gebruiksfilms’: films die bedoeld zijn om te informeren, te trainen of onderwijzen, of te overtuigen van het nut van een service of product. Onderzoek richtte zich tot nu toe vooral op de productie- of distributiegeschiedenis van dergelijke films, of hun pedagogische effectiviteit. Minder aandacht is er voor hun tekstuele dimensie: de middelen die ze inzetten ter onderbouwing van hun informatieve, educatieve of commerciële argument. Intussen hebben gebruiksfilms echter nog steeds het imago van erg ‘formulaire’ genres. Eef Masson nuanceert dit beeld in haar boek, en stelt een methodologie voor die de aandacht vestigt op de retorische diversiteit van deze films.

    Eef Masson is universitair docent bij de afdeling Mediastudies van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.

    Recensies
    “Who knew the long neglected classroom film could yield such insights? Subtle and unexpectedly subversive…. In Eef Masson’s able hands, a critical reflection on the ‘purposive film’ transforms into a brilliant meditation on the nature of film taxonomies, institutions and audiences, and sheds new light on the rhetorical operations of the medium and its texts.”
    William Uricchio, Professor and Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies|”Far from contributing a mere footnote to film history Eef Masson’s exciting new book shows that Dutch educational cinema has to teach us more than just a lesson or two about cinema as a cultural practice. Focusing on film at the crossroads of pedagogy, science and aesthetics Masson engagingly demonstrates the growing importance of work on the margins of film history to our broader understanding of cinema culture.”
    Vinzenz Hediger (Professor of Film, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)


    New book by Imar de Vries: Tantalisingly Close. An Archaeology of Communication Desires in Discourses of Mobile Wireless Media

    Posted on: April 17th, 2012

    Imar de Vries
    Tantalisingly Close
    An Archaeology of Communication Desires in Discourses of Mobile Wireless Media
    Elk medium was ooit nieuw en gaf aanleiding tot de meest fantastische speculaties over de verbetering van communicatie. In de mediageschiedenis treffen we steeds opnieuw verhalen die vertellen dat afstanden verdwijnen, dat we elkaar beter gaan begrijpen en dat alle kennis nu eindelijk echt binnen handbereik is. Ook bij de hedendaagse mobiele draadloze communicatietechnologie zien we deze beelden weer naar boven komen.
    In Tantalisingly Close toont Imar de Vries nu eens niet de sociale factoren van communicatiemiddelen, waar dergelijke studies zich gewoonlijk op richten. Hij kiest een filosofische, historische en mediavergelijkende aanpak en laat zien wat de invloed van deze geïdealiseerde ideeën over communicatie is op de media-evolutie en ons wereldbeeld.

    Imar O. de Vries is assistant professor of New Media & Digital Culture at Utrecht University.

    Recensies
    ‘Tantalisingly Close shows how the mobile telephone is a device saturated with the dreams, hopes, and fears that make us human. De Vries demonstrates that mobile communication is a key to understanding the human condition in the early 21st century.’
    Prof. Dr. John Durham Peters, author of Speaking into the Air|‘De Vries provides us with an urbane and discerning tour of the imaginarium of mobile media. Equally adept at exploring ancient classical myths as contemporary media-driven ones, he sure-footedly guides us through this complex terrain. His analysis will not soon be superseded.’
    Prof. Dr. James E. Katz, co-editor of Perpetual Contact


    New book by Nanna Verhoeff: Mobile Screens. The Visual Regime of Navigation

    Posted on: April 17th, 2012

    Nanna Verhoeff
    Mobile Screens
    The Visual Regime of Navigation
    Deze studie geeft een terugblik op vormen van schermmedia; van het negentiende-­eeuwse panorama en het begin van de film, via snelwegpanorama’s, schermen op straat, naar touchscreen-kunstinstallaties, draagbare spelcomputers en smartphones van vandaag de dag. Hoe kunnen we deze nieuwe technologieen bestuderen, in het licht van de voorgangers die ze hebben? Mobile Screens biedt een methodologisch voorstel van aanpak. Met een historisch-­vergelijkend, theoretisch perspectief worden de intersecties tussen mobiliteit en visualiteit uitgewerkt aan de hand van een reeks case studies. Het boek vertelt ons hoe we omgaan met schermen en hoe deze als interfaces ruimtelijke, temporele en haptische ervaringen mogelijk maken: principes van navigatie vormen een visueel ‘format’ dat ons denken stuurt. Hoe sturen principes van navigatie onze ervaringen met hedendaagse schermmedia?

    Nanna Verhoeff is Universitair Hoofddocent bij het Departement voor Media en Cultuurwetenschappen aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Ze is auteur van The West in Early Cinema: After the Beginning (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)

    Recensies
    “Nana Verhoef’s new book is a a must for anybody interested in visual culture and media theory. It offers a rich and stimulating theoretical account of the central dimension of our contemporary existence - interfacing and navigating both data and physical world through a variety of screens (game consoles, mobile phones, car interfaces, GPS devices, etc.) In the process of exploring these new screen practices, Verhoeff offers fresh perspectives on many of the key questions in media and new media studies as well as a number of new original theoretical concepts. As the first theoretical manual for the society of mobile screens, this book will become an essential reference for all future investigations of our mobile screen condition.”
    Lev Manovich is a Professor in Visual Arts Department, University of California, and a Director of Software Studies Initiative (softwarestudies.com)

    “Mobile Screens charts a “navigational turn” in contemporary media culture and recasts screened images as “performative cartographies.” Fusing intermediale discussions of hand-held devices, gaming consoles, urban screens, and cinema, Verhoeff eloquently demonstrates the multi-sensorial nature of screened life while revealing how screens are reading life back to us in new ways. Lucidly written and cleverly theorized, Mobile Screens is vital for anyone interested in contemporary media culture.”
    Lisa Parks, Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara

    “Nanna Verhoeff has produced a fascinating examination of mobilities, screens and their many intersections in the digital age. Well worth reading.”
    John Urry, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University

    Andere uitgaven van deze auteur:

    The West in Early Cinema

    MIRACLE SEMINAR: What about semio-pragmatics?

    Posted on: November 27th, 2011

    On Friday, December 9th, MIRACLE organises a seminar/lecture on the French scholar Roger Odin and his semio-pragmatic approach to film and media. Odin’s work, including his latest book Les Espaces de communication, will be presented by Frank Kessler.

    The seminar/lecture will address the general principles on which the Odin builds his semio-pragmatics, the central concepts he introduces, as well as the questions he has addressed over the past 25 years.

    When: Friday, December 9th, 2011, 13.00-17.00.
    Where: Utrecht, Muntstraat 2a, room 1.11.

    The number of participants is limited. To register, please mail to Sarah Dellmann (S.Dellmann@uu.nl)


    Verrijkt Verleden. Nieuwe mogelijkheden in Audiovisueel Onderzoek

    Posted on: November 24th, 2011

    De Vereniging Geschiedenis, Beeld en Geluid organiseert, in samenwerking met Miracle:

    Verrijkt Verleden
    Nieuwe mogelijkheden in Audiovisueel Onderzoek
    Utrecht, woensdag 7 december. Aanvang 20.00u

    Historisch onderzoek heeft veel baat bij nieuwe technische ontwikkelingen. Steeds meer archieven worden gedigitaliseerd. Research and Development-afdelingen van erfgoedinstellingen ontwikkelen nieuwe manieren om dit erfgoed te ontsluiten. Materiaal dat eerder onvindbaar was wordt steeds beter ontsloten. Hoe werkt dit? En wat betekenen deze ontwikkelingen voor audiovisueel onderzoek?

    Sprekers

    • Jaap Blom, Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid,
    over technologieën voor het ontsluiten en doorzoekbaar maken van audiovisueel materiaal.

    • Arjan van Hessen, Human-Media-Interaction Groep, Universiteit Twente,
    over taal- en spraaktechnologie voor het ontsluiten van audiovisuele documenten

    • Martin Feijen, SURF foundation,
    over de ontwikkelingen in en mogelijkheden van verrijkte publicaties

    Zaal open: 19.30
    Gratis Entree
    Borrel na afloop.

    Locatie: Universiteitstheater Studio T | Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht.


    Changing Literacies Symposium: “Trust and Emerging Media”

    Posted on: April 20th, 2011
    On 16 June an interdisciplinary symposium on literacy will be held at Utrecht University, bringing together international scholars from various disciplines and backgrounds to discuss one of the major problems posed by the emergence of new media technologies: that of trust.

    Regarding the preconditions for trust in media as culturally determined and subject to change, the speakers will address questions like: What constitutes trust in media? How do discourses on trust and distrust in media change over time? What interests (socially, politically) do discourses on ‘trust’ and ‘distrust’ in media serve? How do media forms contribute to trust in media content? How do discourses on trust in media help new media come into being, or, on the contrary, stand in their way?

    The symposium is organised within the Changing Literacies research line of Utrecht University’s research focus area Cultures & Identities.

    Chair: Prof. Marco Mostert

    Registration: M.M.Roepke@uu.nl

    Start date and time: 16/6/2011 09:00
    End date and time: 16/6/2011 16:00
    Location: Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21, Utrecht