The Center for Global Culture and Communication (CGCC) was founded in 2002 as an interdepartmental forum for bringing together School of Communication faculty and students to address the emerging importance of globalization in communication studies. No theme better captures the intellectual challenges of the new century than globalization, especially as mediated by cultural flows and communication technology; and no academic unit of Northwestern University is better positioned to address those challenges than the School of Communication. Although established in the School of Communication, the CGCC offers the opportunity for interdisciplinary scholarly exchanges to members of all Northwestern academic units.
‘Postcolonial Bergson’
A talk by Souleymane Bachir Diagne
‘Postcolonial Bergson‘ traces the influence of Bergson’s thought through the work of two major figures in the postcolonial struggle, Muhammad Iqbal and Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Discussants
Naveeda Khan (Anthropology, The Johns Hopkins University)
Charles Taylor (Philosophy, Professor emeritus, McGill University)
Gary Wilder (Anthropology/French, Graduate Center, CUNY)
On Zoom June 3, 2021 10 A.M. to 12 P.M. C.T.
Register: https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvce2opjspEt0DyT2Dt8kUcXGuv1haIvLq
‘The Politics of Nonviolence’
‘The Politics of Nonviolence’
Karuna Mantena
Discussants
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, NU)
José Maria Medina (Philosophy, NU)
On Zoom, Thursday, May 20, 2021, 11 A.M.- 1 P.M. C.S.T
Gandhi and King insisted that nonviolent action was both morally and practically superior to the use of force in waging political conflict, overcoming oppression, and advancing social change. And yet the political or practical logic of nonviolence remains obscure and/or controversial, despite the continued global prevalence of nonviolent protest.
I explore the theoretical underpinnings of the politics of nonviolence to better understand how and why nonviolent protest (1) uses tactics of disruption on a mass scale, (2) dramatizes injustice and dissent through forms that display and perform discipline, (3) tries to persuade and provoke crises through direct action.
Please email ViduraBahadur2023@u.northwestern.edu for the readings
To Register: https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpcO6srj0qE9NelgD-yoTvIYh-WLumk-Ic
A presentation and dialogue on two recent books on digital culture and aesthetics
A presentation and dialogue on two recent books on digital culture and aesthetics: Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification by Patrick Jagoda (University of Chicago) and The Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance by Anna Watkins Fisher (University of Michigan).
The Play in the System explores what artistic resistance looks like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems.
Experimental Games draws on the history of economics, affect theory, media theory, and game studies to explore video games as cultural counterparts of neoliberalism and as experimental forms that can complicate this paradigm from the inside out.
On Zoom, Friday, May 7, 2021 at 12 p.m. C.S.T
Register https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrcOurqDspHNR3gRInwAuCQLCFLhVp2P-K
‘Theory of the Gimmick– Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form’ by Sianne Ngai (English, University of Chicago)
‘Theory of the Gimmick– Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form’ by Sianne Ngai (English, University of Chicago)
Discussants
Mark Greif (English, Stanford University)
Joseph Jonghyun Jeon (University of California, Irvine)
Leigh Claire LaBerge (The City University of New York)
Repulsive and yet strangely attractive, the gimmick is a form that can be found virtually everywhere in capitalism. It comes in many guises: a musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas. Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and as working too hard (a strained effort to get our attention).
On Zoom, April 29, 2021 at 10 a.m C.S.T.
Register https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIvcOisrj8qGNwQeQ9wQcBpDWpCdY4DwxZ8
A Talk by Partha Chatterjee, I AM THE PEOPLE, Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today
I AM
THE PEOPLE
Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today
by Partha Chatterjee
On ZOOM Thursday, April 8, 2021, at 10 a.m. CST
In I Am the People, Partha Chatterjee reconsiders the concept of popular sovereignty in order to explain today’s dramatic outburst of movements claiming to speak for “the people.”
To register: https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJItceGrrzIuHNASqImjGa6WqAYuO6TKTFbd