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.
September 29, 2016 Thursday
6:00pm EDT
Sharon Marcus
Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University
6:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
“Missile Mail: A History Compared With Itself“
Jane Gaines
Professor of Film
Columbia University
Jonathan Sterne
Professor, James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology
McGill University
September 30, 2016 Friday
10:00am - 12:30pm EDT
“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)
Stefan Andriopoulos
Professor of Germanic Languages
Columbia University
Tom Gunning
Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Art History, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, and the College, Director of Graduate Studies
The University of Chicago
Tadeu Capistrano
Professor of Art History
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (EBA / UFRJ)
Rosalind Morris
Professor of Anthropology
Columbia University
1:30pm - 5:00pm EDT
“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)
Reinhold Martin
Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Columbia University
Peter Geimer
Professor of Art History
Freie Universität, Berlin
Kajri Jain
Associate Professor of Indian Visual Culture and Contemporary Art
University of Toronto, Mississauga
Mara Mills
Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication
New York University, Steinhardt
Ying Qian
Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Columbia University
5:30pm - 7:30pm EDT
Ravi Sundaram
Professor
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
October 1, 2016 Saturday
10:00am - 12:30pm EDT
“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)
Ana Maria Ochoa
Professor of Music
Columbia University
Gavin Steingo
Assistant Professor of Music
Princeton University
Weihong Bao
Associate Professor
University of California, Berkeley
Noam Elcott
Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Media
Columbia University
1:30pm - 4:00pm EDT
“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)
Debashree Mukherjee
Assistant Professor
Columbia University
Zeynep Alexander
Assistant Professor, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto
Miyako Inoue
Associate Professor
Stanford University
Dennis Tenen
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University