Events
Cosponsors
- Center for Comparative Media
- Department of Germanic Languages
- Department of Religion
- Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life
Organizer
- The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities
Contact
email address [email protected]
Notes
- Free and open to the public
- Registration required.
We live in anxious times where the unfolding powers of social media and AI have led to a surge of rumors, conspiracy, and disinformation. But this is not new. Media revolutions have frequently joined with populist ferment to create monsters. From Luther’s attack on the Pope to our current moment, this conference examines the media histories of rumors, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.
Conference organized by Stefan Andriopoulos, Matthew Engelke, and Brian Larkin
Program
time6:00pm EDT
Welcome and opening statement by Brian Larkin
time6:10pm - 8:00pm EDT
Public Roundtable with Sareeta Amrute, Rivka Galchen, and Zeve Sanderson
How do we account for our seemingly unprecedented crisis in which close to 40 percent of Americans believe that the 2020 election was stolen? Will the distinction between facts and falsehoods, already destabilized by social media, be completely undone by AI? This roundtable gathers experts to shed light on the confluence of technological, social, and political factors that are shaping our current precarious moment.
Sareeta Amrute
Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management
The New School for Social Research
Rivka Galchen
Staff writer at The New Yorker
Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University
Zeve Sanderson
Executive Director
NYU's Center for Social Media and Politics
Moderator
Matthew Engelke
Chair and Professor of Religion
Columbia University
time9:15am EDT
Opening remarks
time9:30am - 11:00am EDT
Panel One: Thinking Conspiracy, Thinking Media
Communicability and Labor in the Mechanization of Public Hate
Francis Cody
Associate Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies
University of Toronto
The Media Aesthetics of Conspiracy Theory: from the Feature Film to Social Media
Nico Baumbach
Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies
Columbia University
Atmospheres of Doubt
Lisa Wedeen
Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the College and Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory
University of Chicago
Chair
Brian Larkin
Professor of Anthropology
Barnard College
time11:30am - 1:00pm EDT
Panel Two: Media and the Dark Side of Collectives
The Pope Ass: Rumors, Pamphlets, and Propaganda
Stefan Andriopoulos
Professor of German
Columbia University
Sebastian Brant’s Political Divination: Providence, Print, and Prodigies
Eli Cumings
Society of Fellows
Columbia University
Vernacular Research Cultures in Conspiratorial Communities
Alice E. Marwick
Associate Professor of Communication
University of North Carolina
Chair
Matthew Engelke
Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion
Columbia University
time2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
Panel Three: AI, Propaganda, and Misinformation
Thin Fakes, AI, and the Rhythms of Political Rumor
Sahana Udupa
Professor of Media Anthropology
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Hallucinating Machines
Susan Lepselter
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Indiana University
Seeing Isn't Believing: AI Propaganda and Unreality on Demand
Will Oremus
Technology news analysis writer
The Washington Post
Chair
Dennis Tenen
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University
time4:00pm - 4:30pm EDT