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The media aesthetics project examines and engages the saturation of ordinary life by varieties of constant mediation, while also examining the diverse array of mediated experiences and modernities worldwide. Here we have in mind听new forms of digital technology from smartphones, ubiquitous wireless networks, social media, and streaming platforms. Art forms such as literature, cinema, music, and visual art remain important here. But now, with the durationally encompassing nature of contemporary mediation, we look to aesthetic experience broadly for its power to navigate the everyday.

Focusing on the aesthetic nature of mediated experience offers an opportunity to put aside the overwhelmingly negative ways in which media users are interpellated in most discourses (as neurologically addicted, as lacking attention, as victims of Silicon Valley, etc.) in favor of accounting for the real texture of people's ordinary lives. Here we are thinking of aesthetics not just in the sense of art or discourses on art but also in the Greek sense championed by Walter Benjamin in his artwork essay, namely aesthetics as听aisthesis听or a sensibility rooted in perception and sensation. Aesthetics in our view offers a crucial arena of investigation in its attention to sensory experience, textual form, and collective world building. Our project asks: what does it mean to regard contemporary experience by privileging the aesthetic? This conference addresses this question by pursuing the promises and possibilities of an aesthetic education specific to ordinary life in the twenty-first century. What critical language and techniques can best respond to this moment in pedagogy and scholarship? How can we mobilize crosscurrents in humanistic disciplines to navigate, endure, survive, and find pleasures in this increasingly technological historical present?

Participants

• Fatima Aziz (Communication, Media, and Culture, The American University of Paris)
• (Digital Sociology, Universit茅 Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle)
• (Rhetoric, Media, and Publics, Northwestern University)
• (English, University of California, Santa Barbara)
• Jayson Harsin (Communication, Media, and Culture, The American University of Paris)
• (Asian Languages and Cultures, Northwestern University)
• (Cinema, Concordia University)
• (Asian Languages and Cultures, Northwestern University)
• No茅mie Oxley (Communication, Media, and Culture, The American University of Paris)
• Robert Payne (Communication, Media, and Culture, The American University of Paris)
• (Film and Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara)
• (French and Italian, Northwestern University)

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Schedule

Thursday, May 2:听听

9:30- 10 am: Introductory Remarks: Dilip Gaonkar and Jayson Harsin

Session 1: 10am -12,00 noon: Lecture Panel:听Media Aesthetics Now

• Domietta Torlasco (Northwestern University): 鈥淎esthetics Now鈥�
• Bishnupriya Ghosh (University f California, Santa Barbara): 鈥淢edia Now鈥�
• Bhaskar Sarkar (University of California, Santa Barbara): 鈥淢edia Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetic Media鈥�

Lunch

Session 2: 1:00-2:30pm:听Media Theory and Media Aesthetics

• Moderator, Chlo茅 Galibert-lain茅, AUP
• Joshua Neves (Concordia University): 鈥淢etabolic Mediations鈥�
• Robert Payne (The American University of Paris), 鈥淢aterialities of Desire鈥�

Coffee Break

Session 3: Lecture Panel: 3:00-5.00pm:听What is Media Aesthetic Education?

• Domietta Torlasco (Northwestern University): 鈥淥n Play as Liberatory Practice鈥�
• No茅mie Oxley and Fatima Aziz (The American University of Paris): "Engaging with the War on TikTok: New Imaginaries of Contemporary Conflicts"
• Cl茅ment Bert-Erboul (Universit茅 Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle): "Watch Yourself
• Work by Watching Me Work: Exploring the Aesthetics of "Study with Me" YouTube Videos"

Friday, May 3:听听

Session 4: 10.00am-12.00 noon:听How to Teach Media Aesthetics?听Workshop on Syllabi; Pedagogical methods for Media Aesthetic Education Project

• Patrick Noonan (Northwestern University): 鈥淐ultures of Information:听Neoliberalism, Affect, Media鈥�
• Domietta Torlasco (Northwestern University): 鈥淥n Non-method: Teaching After Roland Barthes and bell hooks鈥�

Lunch

Session 5: 1.00-2.30pm:听Global Media Cultures: Platforms, Mediums, Aesthetics

• Moderator, Eric Maigret (l鈥橴niversit茅 de la Sorbonne Nouvelle)
• Dahye Kim (Northwestern University): 鈥淭he Age of Speculative Spectacle: Stock Market Gamblers and the Aesthetics of Self鈥�.听听
• Bhaskar Sarkar (University of California, Santa Barbara): 鈥淏ollywood鈥檚 Global Gesture鈥�

Coffee Break

Session 6: 3.00-4.30pm:听Aesthetic Education of Citizen: Information, Misinformation, and Democracy Under Duress

• Moderator, Zed Gao (American University of Paris)
• Jayson Harsin (The American University of Paris): "Not About (Dis)Information:
• Performative Truth-Bearers and Popular Politics鈥�
• Dilip Gaonkar (Northwestern University): 鈥淢edia Aesthetics and Political Judgment鈥�

Saturday, May 4

Session 7: 10am to 12noon:听Workshop on Key Word/Key Themes for Media Aesthetics Project

• Conveners: Bishnupriya Ghosh (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joshua Neves (Concordia University) and Patrick Noonan (Northwestern University)