How do mass-media and media practices represent war, terrorism and conflict? How do they condition our perception of war and conflict? How do they materialize war? What are the politics, aesthetics and ethics of media practices in relation to war? How are new media today the very sites of war? Media practices—be it print, painting, radio, film, photography, television, netlocalization or social networking—play a significant role in the coverage, representation, making, performance and reenactment of wars and conflicts. Media, War and Conflict is particularly interested in the ways in which these media practices about/around/of/on war have changed throughout history—content-wise, formally, structurally, materially and aesthetically. It also examines the ways in which media at war has (have) evolved into media of war, as made manifest in the development of cyberwarfare—an information warfare in which a nation-state hacks into an enemy nation’s computer systems to conduct sabotage and espionage.
Media, War and Conflict is also interested in the role of new-media practices in recent revolutionary movements of democratization. In “New Media and the Arab Spring” (2012), Michael Teague argues that the protests in the wake of the 2009 Iranian presidential elections were supported by a unique and innovative use of new (mainly Internet-based) social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and cellular phones: “Since then, debate about these new communications technologies has rightly had a ubiquitous presence in the overall discourse, especially with the more recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and so on.”* In these different uprisings, Internet activism and artistic interventions were successful, but only in a limited way: protesters used social networking sites to build online communities that served to mobilize the population, but social media did not introduce democracy in repressive regimes. Considering that these regimes were quick to use the Internet to track activists, shut down communications and spread their own propaganda, can it not be argued instead that Internet activism must be developed in conjunction with traditional grassroots activism and political structures? Media, War and Conflict considers these hypotheses but also wants to investigate how democracy is being rethought in such social processes.
THE MURDOCH AFFAIR AND THE LEVESON INQUIRY: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
Public lecture (15 October, 2012, 5:00 p.m., Leacock 232, 845 Sherbrooke West): Peter Oborne , Chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph and author of The Rise of Political Lying (2005) andThe Triumph of the Political Class (2008) will deliver a lecture entitled, The Murdoch Scandal: A Story of Collusion between British Politics and Media.
Panel (28 March, 2013, Leacock 232, 5:00 p.m.):
Sarah Ellison, journalist and author of War at the Wall Street Journal: Inside the Struggle to Control an American Business Empire (2010) and
Des Freedman, Reader, Communications and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, co-author of Misunderstanding the Internet (2012) and author of The Politics of Media Policy (2008). Listen to the audio recording.
MEDIA, WAR & CONFLICT
Symposium (2 November, 2012, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., McCord Museum, 690 Sherbrooke West):Conflict(ed) Reporting: War & Photojournalism in the Digital Age: Peter Maass, journalist and author of Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War (1997) and Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil (2009); Sharon Sliwinski, Assistant Professor, University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies, author of Human Rights in Camera (2011); Donald Matheson, Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, co-author ofDigital War Reporting (2009); Thierry Gervais, resident at the Ryerson Image Center, curator and editor of Études Photographiques; Susan L. Carruthers, Associate Professor, Department of History at Rutgers University in Newark, author of The Media at War (2011); Louie Palu, photojournalist, The New York Times, The New Yorker, TIME, Paris Match, Newsweek, The Atlantic, The Washington Past, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail. The event is part of the “Photojournalism: Then & Now,” two-day symposium co-sponsored by Media@McGill, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, and the McCord Museum on November 1 & 2.
Beaverbrook Annual Lecture (29 November, 2012, 6:00 p.m., Chancellor Day Hall, Faculty of Law, 3644 Peel): Peter W. Singer, Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (2008) and co-author of Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know (2013): “Wired for War: Everything you wanted to know about robots and war, but were afraid to ask”
Conference (6 February, 2013, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Leacock 232, 855 Sherbrooke West): The Role of Media in the Arab Spring and its Aftermath: The Special Case of Egypt: Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and of the Project on Middle East Political Science, author of The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, 2012; Sahar Mohamed Khamis, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Maryland, co-author of Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace, 2011; and Zeynep Tufekci, Assistant Professor, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, co-author of Inequity in the Technopolis: Race, Class, Gender, and the Digital Divide in Austin, 2012 .
Conference (10 and 11 March, 2013): Imaging War, Mediating Conflict: Recent Aesthetic Investigations:
Screening (March 10, 2013, 7:00 p.m., PHI Centre, 407 Saint-Pierre Street): Free public screenings of Let me Count the Ways (2004) by Leslie Thornton, as well as War Tourist (2004-08) and Mirages (2011) by Emanuel Licha, followed by a bilingual Q & A with the artist Emanuel Licha.
Media, War and the State in the Long Eighteenth Century, (March 11, 2013, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Bronfman 151, 1001 Sherbrooke West): Brian Cowan, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Early Modern British History, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, author ofThe Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse, 2005, editor of The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell, 2012; Douglas Fordham, Associate Professor, Department of Art, University of Virginia, author of British Art and the Seven Years' War: Allegiance and Autonomy, 2010; and Holger Hoock, J. Carroll Amundson Professor of British History, University of Pittsburgh, author of Empires of the Imagination:Politics, War, and the Arts in the British World, 1750-1850, 2010. Watch the videos.
Contemporary Art Interventions (March 11, 2013, 2:00-5:30 p.m. PHI Centre, 407, Saint-Pierre): Rosalyn Deutsche, Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, Adjunct Professor at Barnard College, and author of Hiroshima After Iraq: Three Studies in Art and War, 2010); T.J. Demos. Lecturer, Department of the History of Art, University College London, author of Return to the Postcolony: Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art, 2012 and The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary during Global Crisis, 2013; Emanuel Licha, Berlin and Paris-based artist; and Martha Rosler, Brooklyn-based artist. Watch the videos.
Public Lecture (April 4, 2013, 5:30 p.m., Schulich School of Music, C-201, 555 Sherbrooke West): Suzanne Cusick, Professor of Music, New York University, author of Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and the Circulation of Power: “Music Torture”. Watch the video.
Conference (April 12, 2013, 10:00 a.m.-4:00p.m., Arts 160, cosponsored with FQRSC and SSHRC): Soundings from the Painterly Pacific: Angela Vanhaelen, Jeffrey Moser and Cecily Hilsdale, Department of Art History, McGill University; and Chriscinda Henry, Oberlin College
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On Canal Savoir - The Role of Media in the Arab Spring and its Aftermath: The Special Case of Egypt
Friday, June 7, 2013 - 12:43
Raymond Klibansky et l'héritage warburgien des sciences de la culture
Friday, May 17, 2013 - 18:00
Raymond Klibansky and the Warburgian Legacy of the Cultural Sciences
Friday, May 17, 2013 - 18:00
Movement in Three Dimensions: Dance, Design, Dérive
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - 10:30
The Tangible: A One-Day Graduate Conference
Friday, April 26, 2013 - 09:00
Chriscinda Henry, Jeff Moser and Angela Vanhaelen
Friday, April 12, 2013 - 09:45
Eran Shor on “The Limits of Ethnic Coexistence: Palestinian Athletes in Israeli Media.”
Friday, April 5, 2013 - 15:00
Suzanne Cusick on Music and Torture in the War on Terror: Musicology, Media and Censorship Effects
Thursday, April 4, 2013 - 17:30
Suzanne G. Cusick sur la Musique et la torture dans la guerre contre la terreur : musicologie, médias et effets de censure
Thursday, April 4, 2013 - 17:30
The Murdoch Affair and the Leveson Inquiry: A Critical Assessment of the Hackgate Scandal
Thursday, March 28, 2013 - 17:30
L’Affaire Murdoch et la commission d’enquête Leveson: une évaluation critique du scandale « Hackgate »
Thursday, March 28, 2013 - 17:30
The Family of Man and the Politics of Attention in Cold War
Monday, March 18, 2013 - 17:30
La Guerre en images, la médiatisation des conflits : Études esthétiques récentes
Sunday, March 10, 2013 - 19:00
Imaging War, Mediating Conflict: Recent Aesthetic Investigations
Sunday, March 10, 2013 - 19:00
Le Rôle des médias pendant et après le printemps arabe: le cas spécial de l’Égypte
Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - 14:00
Contemporary Art between Time and History
Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 17:30
UPDATE: Beaverbrook Annual Lecture 2012 with P. W. Singer
Thursday, November 29, 2012 - 18:00
Whose Business is Risk?
Monday, November 12, 2012 - 14:00
Photojournalism: Then & Now
Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 14:00
Photojournalisme, Hier et aujourd'hui
Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 14:00
Le Scandale Murdoch : une histoire de collusion entre les médias et la politique britanniques
Monday, October 15, 2012 - 17:00
Le Scandale Murdoch : une histoire de collusion entre les médias et la politique britanniques
Monday, October 15, 2012 - 17:00
The Murdoch Scandal: A Story of Collusion between British Politics and Media
Monday, October 15, 2012 - 17:00
‘I’m Like Totally Saved’: Branding Religion and the Moral Limits of the Market - Sarah Banet-Weiser
Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 17:30
Thinking the Red Square – Celebrating recent scholarship on the Quebec Student Protests
Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - 17:00
Data, Stories & Co.: The Future of Data Journalism
Thursday, September 6, 2012 - 14:00