seminar in media and political theory
media & paranoia
2018-2019
Primary Focus
The Seminar on Media and Paranoia (2018-19), co-lead with Volkswagen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow Clemens Apprich, examines the paranoid potentialities of digital media technologies and the computational imagination. The reading group, lecture and screening series, and conference explore both canonical texts related to paranoia as well current research related to machine learning, attention economies, and political imaginaries. By highlighting new attentional forms, which correspond to the creative and productive side of paranoia, the seminar investigates strategies of coping and making do within an increasingly complex world. How might the productivity of paranoiac knowledge provide entry points for grappling with current crises in cognitive and imaginative forms, as well as larger technological, financial, or political flows? How can we contribute to or reframe debates about digital cultures and their politics by investigating the technological mechanisms at the heart of contemporary paranoia: from data-violence and algorithmic segregation to new attention economies and uncertain futures.
Media & Paranoia Working Group
2018-2019 Annual Initiatives & Working Groups
Organizers: Masha Salazkina & Joshua Neves
Alternative Knowledge Research and Workshop Series
Organizers: Ylenia Olibet & Lola Remy
Postsocialist Politics and the Ends of Revolution Seminar
Organizers: Masha Salazkina & Joshua Neves
The Politics of Alternative Media
Organizers: Sanaz Sohrabi, Giuseppe Fidotta & Sima Kokotovic
Organizers: Rebecca Holt & Nikola Stepić
Political Imaginary of Waiting Working Group & Screening Series
Organizers: Farah Atoui, Muhammad Khairy, Charissa Von Harringa & Viviane Saglier
»Out of the Shadow - Alternative Modes of Knowledge Production, Conservation and Distribution«
Organized by Clemens Apprich & Joshua Neves
The Afterlife of Militant Cinema
Organized by the CURC in Transnational Media Arts and Cultures, The GEM Lab and the Cinema in the Midst of Struggle Collective.
Works-In-Progress Working Group
Organizers: Patrick Brodie, Patrick Smith & Viviane Saglier
Workshops:
Techniques of Performative Inquiry: Technological Meditations
by Aaron Finbloom (Humanities)
SOLA: A Videogame on Gender-Based Violence
by Agustina Isidori (Design & Computational Arts)
by Razan Al-Salah (Communications)
by Stale Bread Collective (Film Studies)
by Jean Jacques Martinod (Film Production)
The Carousel Capital of the World
by Natalie Greenberg (Film Studies)
2018-2019 Sponsored Talks, Workshops and Events
Pasolini/Paradjanov: the Subversive and the Archaic
Workshop with Luca Caminati, Ara Mejian, Harsha Ram & Masha Salazkina
Format and Host: The Holy Ghost of Irish TV Lecture
Lecture by Anna McCarthy
Organized by Joshua Neves
The Archives of Anticolonialism Project
Organized by Sanaz Sohrabi, Giuseppe Fidotta & Sima Kokotović
Restoring Solidarity: Tokyo Palestine Film Reels
Workshop with Mohanad Yaqubi
Organized by Sanaz Sohrabi, Giuseppe Fidotta & Sima Kokotović
Abounaddara: The Right to the Image
A talk with Jason Fox
Organized by Luca Caminati & Egor Shmonin
Alternative Media Cultures Project
Curated by Giuseppe Fidotta, Sima Kokotovic & Sanaz Sohrabi.
Participants: Vicki Mayer (Tulane - Communication and Media), Kay Dickinson (Concordia - Film Studies),
Joshua Neves (CURC, Concordia - Film Studies) and Alessandra Renzi (Concordia - Communications.
VOX POPULI: The ABC of Revolution
A presentation by Lara Baladi
Tóta tánon Ohkwá:ri - A Kahnawà:ke Community-Driven Production
Presentation by Konwanénhon Marion Delaronde
Organized by Sanaz Sohrabi, Giuseppe Fidotta & Sima Kokotović in association with the Feminist Media Studio