UC African Studies MRG

Brian Larkin (Columbia) will be at UCSB Thursday April 9 as part of Media Fields 2. The program can be found below. 

MEDIA FIELDS 2: INFRASTRUCTURES
UCSB, April 9-10, 2009
McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020) and Mosher Alumni House

Media Fields 2: Infrastructures is an interdisciplinary conference on
media and infrastructure hosted by graduate students in Film and Media
Studies, Communication, and Comparative Literature at UCSB. Media
Fields 2 aims to open a dialogue between different disciplinary
approaches to the study of media infrastructure, provide a forum to
discuss the neglected material aspects of current media systems, and
ask questions about how the term “infrastructure” could help link the
study of media across the humanities and social sciences.

Keynote Speaker:
Brian Larkin, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College,
Columbia University; author of Signal and Noise: Media,
Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke University Press,
2008); co-editor of Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain
(University of California Press, 2002).

All events are free and open to the public. See full schedule below.
For more information, please visit http://mediafields.wordpress.com/

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Center for
Information Technology and Society, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film,
Television, and New Media, Consortium for Literature, Theory, and
Culture, and Department of Film and Media Studies

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Conference Schedule:

THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2009
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020

4:00 PM - Opening Roundtable
Joshua Neves, Katy Pearce, David Platzer, Daniel Reynolds, Jeff
Scheible (University of California, Santa Barbara)

5:30 PM - Keynote Address
Brian Larkin (Barnard College, Columbia University)
“The Political Aesthetics of Infrastructure”

FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2009
Mosher Alumni House

9:00 AM - Panel 1: Circulations

Eric Hoyt (University of Southern California)
   ”Studio Libraries”
Steven Witkowski (University of California, Santa Barbara)
   ”Porn in the Valley: Mom-and-Pops Video Store Distribution of
Adult-Materials in Reseda, Winnetka and Canoga Park”
Meredith Wright (University of Texas at Austin)
   ”Ciné Woulé, Ciné en Progrès: The Cultural Infrastructure of
French Caribbean Cinema”
Zeynep Gürsel (University of Michigan)
   ”What Is the Dominant? Rewiring the World Picture”
Charles Wolfe (University of California, Santa Barbara), moderator

11:00 AM - Panel 2: Aesthetics

Tom Henthorne and Lee Transue (Pace University)
   ”String Theory, French Horns, and the Infrastructure of ‘Cyberspace’”
Chris Vasantkumar (Hamilton College)
   ”In-forming Aesthetic Infrastructures: Remediating Money and Theory”
Clint Froehlich (University of Chicago)
   ”Digital Liquidity: Blu-Ray Menu Screens and Porous Media”
Moderator TBA

12:30 PM  Lunch Break

1:30 PM - Panel 3: Publics

Ryan Bowles (University of California, Santa Barbara)
   ”Ambient XXX: The Porn Screen as Infrastructure of Looking,
Sexuality and Power in Public Space”
Mehita Iqani (London School of Economics and Political Science)
   ”Point of Sale: The Magazine Newsstand as Socio-semiotic Infrastructure”
Ateya Khorakiwala (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
   ”Intersections of Infrastructure and Security: The Case of the
Border Roads Organisation”
Clayton Rosati (Bowling Green State University)
   ”The Ecstasy of Alienation: Infrastructures of Feeling and the
Spatial Struggles of Cultural Production”
Bishnupriya Ghosh (University of California, Santa Barbara), moderator

3:30 PM - Panel 4: Mobilities

Scott Ruston (University of California, Los Angeles)
   ”Mobile Media: Combining Infrastructures of Database and
Connectivity? and Narrative?”
Ajay Gehlawat (Sonoma State University)
   ”Bollywood Infrastructure in an Era of Digital Transnationalism”
Athena Tan (University of California, Santa Barbara)
   ”Mediating Mobilities at the Call Center”
Cristina Venegas (University of California, Santa Barbara), moderator

5:30 PM - Closing Roundtable
Brian Larkin (Barnard College, Columbia University); Jennifer Earl,
Lisa Parks (University of California, Santa Barbara)