On Wednesday 7 June 2017, Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture and the Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology will be co-hosting a talk from Professor Louise Amoore on the subject of ‘Cloud Futures’. The event – details of which are pasted below – is free and open to all, but booking via … Continue Reading
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Screening of new documentary Secret City
Though I think I might regrettably not be able to attend, tomorrow there is a free, public screening of what looks like a very interesting new documentary film titled Secret City. The result of a collaboration between documentary filmmaker and academic Michael Chanan and journalism and media researcher Lee Salter, the film takes an inside … Continue Reading
The Politics of War Reporting: A Critical Symposium
In about a month’s time I will be chairing the below event, a sort of AAG-style ‘author-meets-critics’ type of twist on the book launch. The idea being, basically, a sort of ‘thou shall be subjected to criticisms and debate prior to any wine or celebration’. Tim, it so happens, was very receptive to this idea. … Continue Reading
This Space Available: screening and panel at the Open City Docs Fest
The UK premiere of This Space Available (Gwenaëlle Gobé / 2011 / USA / 90’) will be screening within the Open City Docs Fest on Sunday 24 June at 14:00 in the Darkroom (near UCL Torrington Place). Following the event, I will be chairing a panel involving the director Gwenaëlle Gobé alongside other panellists, including … Continue Reading
Harman’s politics of particularities?
I am a fairly regular reader of Graham Harman’s blog Object-Oriented Philosophy. Partly, of course, because his philosophy interests me, especially its implications for thinking about media, even though I certainly couldn’t claim to be doing object-oriented media research (there’s a lot of that, e.g. soon-to-be-former Birkbeck student Paul Caplan, and several of the contributions … Continue Reading
CFP on ‘the university to come’
UPDATE: The editors of TOPIA have been in touch (how very thorough of them!) and noted a correction – the number for this special issue is TOPIA 28. Original post: TOPIA, the Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies has released a call for papers seeking to tackle recent debates on the future of the university, from … Continue Reading
New video on the death of the university, English-style
One of the more valuable interventions vis-à-vis the Browne Review (alongside Stefan Collini’s excellent article in the London Review of Books) has been Nick Couldry and Angela McRobbie’s ‘The Death of the University, English Style’. I liked their paper because it is succinct and also has a helpful focus on the implications for media and … Continue Reading
Does ‘neoliberalism’ help us understand media?
Is ‘neoliberalism’ a concept that works for understanding media? As I left a workshop last Friday at University College London, on the subject of ‘postneoliberalism’, I asked myself this question. My initial, rather impulsive, answer at the beginning of the workshop was no. But I need to put that answer into context. The workshop was … Continue Reading
CCR Seminar: the mediated phenomenologies of urban life
Earlier this year I gave a seminar at the Centre for Cultural Research (CCR) at the University of Western Sydney, a video of which is now available in the ‘virtual seminars’ section of the CCR website. To access the video you’ll need to navigate through to the clips from 1 July 2010 (there are two … Continue Reading
Neo-neoliberalism and the politics of ‘The Big Society’
It is amazing how quickly the whole notion of ‘The Big Society’ has gone from Conservative Party platform, which was actually treated fairly sceptically during the recent UK elections, to catch-all label which can be ascribed to almost any of the coalition government’s policies. Generally, at least in my read of the situation, the label … Continue Reading