Events

The Comparative Media Initiative seeks to broaden our understanding of media by critically examining how the same technologies work in radically different ways across the globe, juxtaposing media practices in Africa, Latin America, and Asia as well as in Western centers.  At the same time, we do not study one medium in isolation but focus on the interaction between emerging, dominant, and residual media which always exist side by side.  Both modes of comparison aim to decenter dominant modes of media historiography by highlighting the reciprocal exchange between aesthetic forms and technological innovations as they take place in specific contexts that range from state socialism to advanced commodity cultures to Islamic theocracies.  

In order to pursue this comparative approach to the theory and history of media the conference assembles scholars from literary studies, art history, anthropology, architecture, film, music, and other related fields.

• Schedule for September 28, 2016

  • 6:00pm

    Welcome

    • Welcoming Remarks: Sharon Marcus, Columbia University

    • Opening Remarks

  • 6:30pm 8:30pm

    Keynote

    “Missile Mail: A History Compared With Itself“

    • Introduction: Jane Gaines, Columbia University

    • Keynote: Jonathan Sterne, McGill University

• Schedule for September 29, 2016

  • 10:00am 12:30pm

    Animism and Media

    “The Medium is the Movement:  Species, Animation and Projection from Perspectiva to the Magic Lantern”
    Tom Gunning (Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago)

    “The Frequencies of Animism in Brazil: Media, Mediums, and Dr. Fritz”
    Tadeu Capistrano (Media, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

    • Chair: Stefan Andriopoulos, Columbia University

    • Speaker: Tom Gunning, The University of Chicago

    • Speaker: Tadeu Capistrano, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (EBA / UFRJ)

    • Respondent: Rosalind Morris, Columbia University

  • 1:30pm 5:00pm

    Intermediality and the Nature of the Medium

    “The Incomparable. Comparative Media and Medium Specificity”
    Peter Geimer (Art History, Free University of Berlin)

    “Untouchability in the Extended Field”
    Kajri Jain (Art History, University of Toronto)

    “Impairment” Across Bodies and Signals
     Mara Mills (Media, Culture and Communication, NYU)

    • Chair: Reinhold Martin, Columbia University

    • Speaker: Peter Geimer, Freie Universität, Berlin

    • Speaker: Kajri Jain, University of Toronto, Mississauga

    • Speaker: Mara Mills, New York University, Steinhardt

    • Respondent: Ying Qian, Columbia University

  • 5:30pm 7:30pm

    Keynote

    • Introduction

    • Keynote: Ravi Sundaram, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

• Schedule for October 1, 2016

  • 10:00am 12:30pm

    Circulation, Transfer, Stasis

    “Soft Material”
    Gavin Steingo (Music, Princeton University)

    “What is an Environment? Set Design Thinking in Chinese Film and Theater.”
    Weihong Bao (Film and Media, UC Berkeley)

    • Chair: Ana Maria Ochoa, Columbia University

    • Speaker: Gavin Steingo, Princeton University

    • Speaker: Weihong Bao, University of California, Berkeley

    • Respondent: Noam Elcott, Columbia University

  • 1:30pm 4:00pm

    Paperwork, Filing Systems, Inscription

    “Larkin's Architectural Technologies of Trust”
    ​Zeynep Celik Alexander (Architecture University of Toronto)

    “Paper Democracy:  Introducing the Filing System in the Post-War Japanese Public Prosecutor’s Office”
    Miyako Inoue (Anthropology Stanford University)

    • Chair: Debashree Mukherjee, Columbia University

    • Speaker: Zeynep Çelik Alexander, University of Toronto

    • Speaker: Miyako Inoue, Stanford University

    • Respondent: Dennis Tenen, Columbia University

This event is cosponsored by the Dean of Humanities, Arts and Sciences; Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. It was organized by Professor Stefan Andriopolous and Professor Brian Larkin.

(Source: Heyman Center)