DESCRIPTION. This course is focused on the notion of “elemental media” or media as milieu – i.e., water, air, gas, oil, or radiation – which takes us away from the object-hood of a medium to discover the elemental media regimes where media reveal themselves as relations and processes. By exploring the connections between imperialism, colonialism, militarism, Black and Indigenous resistance, knowledge practices, digital media developments, and climate change, we will investigate how social, cultural, political and economic processes are inevitably caught up with media technologies and ecologies – not only when media entanglements make the lived environments we share, but even more so, when they are weaponized for war.
This interdisciplinary course will engage in discussions at the intersection of multiple fields, including media and communication theory, political economy of media, environmental philosophy, studies of technology and science (STS), infrastructure studies, and social theory.
CONTENT. We will rethink environments as media and as processes that mediate and facilitate the production of accidental, and very non-accidental, territories of injustice – from border regimes and exclusion zones to slums, toxic sacrifice zones, occupied territories and other terror environments. Our goal is to study the existing conceptual tools for recognising the forms, vectors, temporalities, and dynamics of these subtle-yet-deadly hazards; and more importantly, to shake our imagination for envisioning, together, the infrastructures of care and co-existence, within our hopefully remediated landscapes or whatever remains of them.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES. Every session will consist of three parts. First: after a short introduction of the weekly topic, the (guest) lecturer will give a presentation of their work engaged with the weekly theme and readings. Second: students will engage with the (guest) lecturer in a Q&A conversation to unpack the core theoretical notions and statements and contextualize them with the help of the assigned literature. Third: the initial discussion will be followed by a concluding part dedicated to close reading of the assigned literature according to the guidelines and questions provided by the course director ahead of time. During the course, students will work individually, in groups during the mentoring sessions, and in class. An asynchronous mode is available for students whose conditions make it impossible to participate synchronically. Active participation and thorough preparation will be important for building a shared environment where critical questions can emerge, and tensions between power, environment, and resistance can be unpacked.
In this course, there are three types of readings: Required Readings I, understanding of which is necessary as a basic take-away from the course, and Required Readings II, which are given for a more advanced engagement with weekly topics; Contextual Readings are provided as an orientation for those students who intent to engage with the topic in their projects
PREPARATION. For every class, you must read Required Readings I; reading Required Readings II is highly recommended.
All readings for our first session are here by this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1E3QEmuX0Kc89WmnkjZTzc-wzxhl6tDCP?usp=sharing
This interdisciplinary course will engage in discussions at the intersection of multiple fields, including media and communication theory, political economy of media, environmental philosophy, studies of technology and science (STS), infrastructure studies, and social theory.
CONTENT. We will rethink environments as media and as processes that mediate and facilitate the production of accidental, and very non-accidental, territories of injustice – from border regimes and exclusion zones to slums, toxic sacrifice zones, occupied territories and other terror environments. Our goal is to study the existing conceptual tools for recognising the forms, vectors, temporalities, and dynamics of these subtle-yet-deadly hazards; and more importantly, to shake our imagination for envisioning, together, the infrastructures of care and co-existence, within our hopefully remediated landscapes or whatever remains of them.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES. Every session will consist of three parts. First: after a short introduction of the weekly topic, the (guest) lecturer will give a presentation of their work engaged with the weekly theme and readings. Second: students will engage with the (guest) lecturer in a Q&A conversation to unpack the core theoretical notions and statements and contextualize them with the help of the assigned literature. Third: the initial discussion will be followed by a concluding part dedicated to close reading of the assigned literature according to the guidelines and questions provided by the course director ahead of time. During the course, students will work individually, in groups during the mentoring sessions, and in class. An asynchronous mode is available for students whose conditions make it impossible to participate synchronically. Active participation and thorough preparation will be important for building a shared environment where critical questions can emerge, and tensions between power, environment, and resistance can be unpacked.
In this course, there are three types of readings: Required Readings I, understanding of which is necessary as a basic take-away from the course, and Required Readings II, which are given for a more advanced engagement with weekly topics; Contextual Readings are provided as an orientation for those students who intent to engage with the topic in their projects
PREPARATION. For every class, you must read Required Readings I; reading Required Readings II is highly recommended.
All readings for our first session are here by this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1E3QEmuX0Kc89WmnkjZTzc-wzxhl6tDCP?usp=sharing
- Instructor: Valerie Karpan