Chasing Dragons

Call for Papers: Popular Culture and World Politics v. 6

Popular Culture and World Politics Conference v. 6

Pirating the Popular

Stockholm University, September 13-14, 2013

Call for Papers

Abstracts should be submitted to 

abstractspcwp@statsvet.su.se.

Please indicate in the subject box in your email message

 "Abstract for PWPC". 

This will ensure proper handling of your abstract.

Keynote speeches by

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Family Professor 

University of Virginia

and

Elisa Kreisinger, well-known activist and artist 

Conference deadlines

• Suggestions for panels and performances – May 1, 2013
• Paper abstracts – June 1, 2013

Please note that there will be a modest conference fee. 

More information later.

The study of world politics and popular culture is now an 

established area of interest for many disciplines in the 

social sciences, humanities and the arts. Popular culture 

relates to contemporary politics in numerous ways: It can 

offer expression that soothes and humours the soul. It can 

satirize and play off cultural resonance to resist powerful or 

repressive forces. And it can stimulate political or 

community engagement, as demonstrated clearly in the role 

that music and performative satire played in the Arab 

Uprisings and  in the Occupy activities around the world.

This conference addresses the multiple ways in which popular 

culture engages with world affairs. It  takes as its starting 

point the observation that we live in an age of interregnum - 

a time where the old institutions and old rules no longer 

function sufficiently and new ones have not yet taken their 

place. 

Ours is an age where processes of globalisation are 

contributing to the ‘divorce’ of politics from power, 

resulting in what  Zygmunt Bauman identifies as a 

‘liquid modernity’ of endemic uncertainty.’ This 

uncertainty about authority and interpretation - 

compounded by ubiquitous connectivity and audio-visual media - 

gives rise to power struggles, problematizes the ability to 

judge relationships between cause and effect, provides new 

opportunities for political engagement and changes the 

foundations on which authority rests.

Hosting this conference in Stockholm seems particularly 

timely given Sweden’s various, if not contradictory, 

interventions in the ambiguous world of popular culture: 

from the foundation of The Pirate Bay to the Wikileaks case, 

from a culture of  ‘free viewing’ to Spotify’s corporate  

entrepreneurialism, from strongholds in Marxist media theory 

to Facebook’s Swedish server farms, and many more.

The general theme Pirating the Popular covers a broad range 

of practices concerning the complex, dubious and dynamic 

nature of popular culture in world politics. We welcome

 proposals for papers, panels, performances and screenings 

addressing the many different aspects of world politics and 

popular culture that are evoked by the metaphor of piracy.

Themes for papers and panels could include:

• The politics of consumerism and commercial exploitation
• Labour policies and regulation in popular culture industries
• The role of popular culture in protest movements and ‘non-movements’
• The militarization of popular culture (militainment)
• The role of popular culture in nation-branding
• Surveillance and the securitization of the digital landscape
• Popular culture and the politics of citizenship
• The role of popular culture in the MENA region before, during and after the Arab spring
• Cultural globalisation: mediated control and resistance
• Illegal trafficking or migrating media?
• Transnational media witnessing
• Transnational news and popular culture
• The politics of local and regional popular cultures
• Music and politics
• Visual culture and globalisation
• Methodological approaches to popular culture and world politics
• Popular culture and political scandals

Conference conveners:
Michele Micheletti (Lars Hierta Chair of Political Science) 

michele.micheletti@statsvet.su.se

Kristina Riegert (Professor of Media and Communication 

Studies), kristina.maj.riegert@ims.su.se

The official conference website can be found here

Photo credit: Adobe of Chaos

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 143

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Ball Games: The Great Escape (1963)' by Nicola Twilley at bldgblog

• 'Propoganda or Hoax? The Music Video that has Russia Talking' by Katya Kumkova at theatlantic.com

• 'The Hip Hop Family Tree' by Ed Piskor at boingboing.net

• 'History and How to Pose for a Picture' by Lisa Wade at sociologicalimages

• 'Theory Talks #47: Jean-Francois Bayart' at theory-talks.org

Have a good weekend!

Photo credit: sinor favela/ fotos voladoras

Telling a Different Story? 'Army of God' at Cartoon Movement

Recently I was made aware of Cartoon Movement, a site billed as 'the internet's #1 publishing platform for high quality political cartoons and comics journalism'. There's some really interesting stuff posted on it, including editorial work and longer format graphic novels.

One project that particularly grabbed my attention was Army of God, a non-fiction graphic novel that aims to document the horrific impact of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the Congo. The site reports that:

based on reporting by David Axe from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, the comic explores the history of the LRA with eyewitness accounts from captives and those working to stop the destructive militia. Each chapter will focus on a different character and their role in the saga, from diplomats to LRA soldiers to the women and children they capture. The first chapter recounts the Congo's long history of colonialism, corruption, and strife that have set the stage for the conflict of today. The artwork is by Tim Hamilton.

The documentary as a form of story-telling always raises interesting issues around the (im)possibility of verity. Perspective, and  interpretation--for both the story-teller and the audience--are central aspects of any documentary. Thus, what I began to wonder is how might these dynamics play out in a medium like the graphic novel?

Graphic novels potentially provide different modes of expression to traditional documentary reporting in print, film, or photography. Similarly, graphic novels may embody a very different aesthetic experience for the audience compared to more orthodox documentary media. Do these different modes of expression and aesthetic experiences provide the story-teller with unique challenges and opportunities? For example, do graphic novels as medium offer the possibility to discuss raw issues in a way that is less likely to alienate an audience? Or, from first principles, does the medium itself alienate in a way that more traditional documentary forms do not?

Another set of questions for me involve the specific kind of story-telling that can be presented through the medium. How can one best capture the myriad complexities of a conflict like the war in the Congo through a graphic novel? Are these challenges any different to say the difficulties of not resorting to cliche in photojournalism? Do audiences read documentary graphic novels more critically than they might read a documentary film or photograph, given the closer (and highly problematic) association that these media have with their ability to capture the 'real'?

I realise that documentary graphic novels are not new. Joe Sacco has been writing and illustrating them for years. Arguably, Art Spiegelman's Maus was one of the first documentary graphic novels to receive popular attention. But as my own work becomes increasingly interested in the power of cultural narratives and the mediums used to constitute and challenge their constitutive relations of power, I have become more sensitive to how stories of world politics are told and the forms that they take in popular culture.

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 131

This weekend in a reading roundup inspired by the scattered thoughts produced by too much travel in too little time:

• 'David Cameron: We Have a Few Questions for You' at guardian.co.uk  (British PM demonstrates just how big a merkin he is)

• 'Assassinating the Rule of Law' by Larry C. Goodman at inthesetimes.com

• 'Reading Peter Adey's Aerial LIfe' by Martin Coward at martincoward.net

• 'Comics and Graphic Storytelling: A Sample Syllabus' by Henry Jenkins at henryjenkins.org

• 'Pepper Spray: Even With Citizens in the Act, Issue Still a Pattern of Abuse by Police' by Michael Shaw at bagnewsnotes.com

A big thank you to all of those involved in hosting the 4th Annual Popular Culture and World Politics conference at the University of Lapland.It was a fantastic conference, the hospitality was biblical in proportions, and you brought a dynamic group of scholars together in a fabulous location! There will be more to say in the following days. But for now thanks again!

Photo credit: evoo73

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 129

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage' by  Willy Staley at theawl.com

• 'The Elusive Enemy: Looking Back at the War on Terror's Visual Culture' by David Campbell at david-campbell.org

• 'The War on Drugs and the Shameful Silence of Our Politicians' an editorial at guardian.co.uk

• '"The Conquest" and France's Political Film Renaissance' by Heather Horn at theatlantic.com

• 'Has American Popular Culture Become Too Dumb for Beavis and Butt-Head' by Rex W. Huppke at chicagotribune.com

• 'Frank Miller, Losing His Mind, Occupy Wall Street, and My Thoughts' by Brett at graphicpolicy.com

Have a good weekend!

Image credit: Verne Southern

Popular Culture and World Politics 4: Call for Papers

Please see the call for papers for the 4th (!) annual Popular Culture and World Politics Conference at the University of Lapland. Many thanks to Laura and Julian for organizing and hosting what will prove to be a great event!

Popular Culture and World Politics IV (PCWP 4): Call for Papers

23-25 November 2011 at University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland

We study popular culture to understand the representational practices through which power relations are constructed worldwide, and grasp the aesthetic practices through which the intolerability of power relations are given political expression, and out of which new political subjectivities and peoples are brought into being. Deconstructing the former is integral to the processes of struggle by which we can contribute to the composition of the latter.

The Department of Politics and International Relations (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland)  is pleased to invite you to continue this effort at the Popular Culture and World Politics Conference (PCWP 4) to be held in Rovaniemi, Finland, 23-25 November 2011. The conference is the fourth in a groundbreaking series of annual events that began in the University of Bristol in 2008. Since then the series has developed into an exciting annual event which attracts scholars, practitioners and artists from throughout the world and across the disciplines and fields to debate and discuss the world politics of popular culture.

This year, the conference will be held on the ultra-northern verges of Europe, in Lapland, which occupies liminal space in-between popular imaginaries of Western modernity and Arctic wilderness.

The three-day conference will attract papers and presentations from thinkers whose work is inspiring contemporary forays into the relations between politics and culture across the humanities, social sciences and the arts. Invited keynote speakers include Michael J. Shapiro (Hawai'i), Tiziana Terranova (Napoli, Italy), and Scott Wilson (Kingston, UK).

With this Call for Papers we invite participation in all possible forms. In addition to panels and individual papers, we welcome proposals for art exhibitions, screenings, performances or other modes of expression. In so doing we hope to build the event into a rich experience which involves not only talking about popular culture but also experiencing, sensing, feeling, producing and, in most cases, enjoying it.

Suggested themes for panels, papers and other presentations include (but are not limited to):

• Challenging the theory/practice divide
• Aesthetics and the constitution of new subjectivities
• Decolonizing methodologies
• Popular culture and climate change
• The politics of Santa Claus
• Representation and race
• Senses, sensibilities and the redistribution of the sensible order
• Art and political activism
• Popularization of indigenous cultures
• Imaginaries of hope in contemporary politics
• Aesthetics of security
• War and media
• The politics of cinema
• Digital aesthetics
• The biopolitics of popular culture

All other themes will be entertained too.

If you are interested in attending the conference please Click here to submit a brief abstract of your paper, panel proposal (including the names and titles of each presentation) or artistic contribution (max. 450 words). The deadline for abstract submissions is June 30th.

More information about practical issues and forms for advance registration will be added on this website by the end of May.

For any queries about the scientific contents of the conference, please contact:
Julian Reid (julian.reid(at)ulapland.fi) and Laura Junka-Aikio (laura.junka-aikio(at)ulapland.fi)

For any queries about practical issues, please contact:
Rovaniemi-Lapland Congresses
University of Lapland
PO Box 122
96101 Rovaniemi, Finland
Tel. +358 40 484 4462 and +358 40 721 8260
Fax +358 16 362 940
Email: congress@ulapland.fi

Original site can be found here.

Image credit: Eemil Karila and Julija Goyd

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 89

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Top Gear's Offensive Stereotyping Has Gone Too Far' by Steve Coogan at guardian.co.uk

• 'Batman: Plutocrat' by Steven Padnick at tor.com

• 'Minecraft and the Question of Luck' by Tadgh Kelly at gamasutra.com

• 'When Irish Eyes are Crying' by Michael Lewis at vanityfair.com

• 'Twenty Reasons Why it's Kicking Off Everywhere' by Paul Mason at idlescrawl

Have a good weekend.

Photo credit: Jon Cunlow

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 62

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'The Unwanted' a graphic novel by Joe Sacco at guardian.co.uk

• '40 Things You Need to Know About the Next 40 Years' at smithsonian.mag.com (I, for one, welcome the rule of our new jellyfish overlords...)-->thanks to openculture.com for the link!

• 'The Consultant was a Spy' by Shane Harris at washingtonian.com -->thanks to boingboing.net for the link!

• 'Humanitarian Design vs. Design Imperialism: Debate Summary' by the Editors at designobserver.com (a really good digest of the online debate about humanitarian design and whether it is a form of imperialism)

• And just in case you've ever wondered what the Earth might look like if it stopped rotating, you can find answers at popsci.com

Photo credit: Sunshine Junior

Newcastle University Launches World Politics and Popular Culture MA Degree

I am pleased to announce that Politics at Newcastle University will be launching a new MA degree in World Politics and Popular Culture for the 2010-11 academic year. Here is the course description:

• World Politics and Popular Culture is a distinctive interdisciplinary degree programme that examines the changing dynamics of contemporary international relations in the context of the politics of the various forces shaping and shaped by popular culture. The programme focuses on key theories, policies, and events in world politics in relation to both traditional and new media. You will learn not only how to think critically about how world politics is reflected or reproduced in popular culture, but also how the politics of popular culture shape the dynamics of world politics...

The programme entails three core modules in Politics (World Politics and Popular Culture, Theories and Approaches to the Study of Politics, and a Dissertation in World Politics and Popular Culture) with 4 optional modules that can be taken from politics, cultural studies, media studies, and film.

Admission requirements are an undergraduate degree from an accredited university with at least a 2.i result--the rough equivalent in North American systems would be a B average.

Please note that 'other qualifications or relevant professional experience may also satisfy the entrance requirements. Applicants whose first language is not English require IELTS 6.5, TOEFL 575 (paper-based) or 233 (computer-based), or equivalent.'

Information on how to apply can be found here. There is no formal deadline--apart from the start of classes at the end of September--but if you are applying from overseas, securing a student visa can take several weeks depending on your circumstances.

If you'd like to talk to someone to find out more about the World Politics and Popular Culture MA, you can contact  Matt Davies, whose tremendous efforts and vision saw this through from design to implementation.

I'm also happy to field any inquiries that you may have about the programme or pursuing a MA in politics in the UK.

Disclaimer: If there are any differences between information provided here and that contained on official Newcastle University web-pages, the latter should be viewed as the authoritative source.

Collage and photo credit: DerrickT (work displayed under a Creative Commons attribution license)

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 51

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Standing Up to Standing Up' by August J. Pollak at someguywithawebsite.com (one of the most sensible commentaries on the Danish cartoons/South Park controversies. Plus the accompanying comic is aces too)

• 'Calypso Magic' by Mukul Kesavan at thehindu (a treatise on West Indian cricket by an Indian supporter. Sports writing at its best).

• 'UK Media and the Election' from the mediablog.co.uk

• 'UK Media Bias: BBC and Channel 4 beat SKY and ITV for political balance' again from the mediablog.co.uk

• The Vigilante Journalist conducts an investigation into how a photojournalist managed to capture images of alleged Ugandan child sacrifice victims. The results raise a series of ethical considerations (here and here)

Have a good bank holiday weekend!

Photo credit: fdecomite