This conference intends to bring together scholars and students working across a range of disciplines to consider the relationships between global humanitarianism and media culture from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. As Keith Tester has argued, modern humanitarianism and the institutions and technologies of media culture are inextricably entwined. In recent decades various scholars have analysed the relationship between media representations and moral sentiments, from the emergence of “humanitarian narratives” in the eighteenth century (Thomas Laqueur) to the “humanitarian optics” of today (Eyal Weizman). This conference seeks to contribute to our understanding of the histories and futures of global humanitarianism by focusing attention on diverse intersections between media technologies and what Didier Fassin has called “the politics of precarious lives.”
We welcome proposals for twenty-minute scholarly or practice presentations that consider global humanitarianism’s media cultures, including but not limited to print media, film, photography, television, video and digital media.
Please send abstracts (250 words) plus short bio to ghmc.conference@sussex.ac.uk
Conference to be held at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 6-8 February 2015
Supported by the School of Media, Film and Music and the Sussex Centre for the Visual
Organised by Michael Lawrence and Rachel Tavernor