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

‘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

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  

Writer, journalist, and cultural critic Zha Jianying will present and discuss her five-part essay, China’s Heart of Darkness: Prince Han Fei and Chairman Xi Jinping, a study of the legacy of Chinese Legalist philosophy and its influence on the rule of Xi Jinping. This essay was published in China Heritage, July 14-22, 2020. Discussants Loubna El