Cross-Media Research Seminar 2023-2024 ‘Writing Theory / Writing Media’ (Semester 2)
Dates: 23 February 2024, 5 April 2024, 17 May 2024, 7 June 2024
Time: 15:00-18:00
Location: University of Amsterdam (Room BG1 0.16)
Coordinators: Eugenie Brinkema, Sudeep Dasgupta, Abe Geil, and Markus Stauff
Contact & Registration: a.m.geil@uva.nl
Credits: 6 ECTS

This year’s meetings for the Cross-Media Research Seminar will alternate sessions, focusing on the twin terms in our title, Writing Theory/Writing Media. Every other session, the Cross Media Research Seminar meetings will discuss the challenges that different media forms bring to bear on the question of (academic) writing and explore the different ways in which media theory, philosophy, and artists have approached the question of how to write about media. From handwriting to typewriter to AI as tools of writing; from film to television to virtual realities as objects of writing: How to use media to write? How does the linearity of writing relate to media seriality and simultaneity? How does writing intersect with considerations of genre, medium, gesture, affect, form, and history? How do different media forms change the styles, modes, and epistemologies of scholarly, critical, and experimental writing?

In alternating sessions, ASCA research fellow Prof. Eugenie Brinkema will explore four controversies in the writing of theory (whether media, literary, or cultural): Interpretation (what it is and why one might be against it); Description (its promise and limitations); Auto-theory (the turn to the ‘I’); and Collaboration (the perils and pitfalls of collective writing).

Readings include works by: Barthes, Bellour, Berlant, Dyer, Edelman, Esme, Felski, Flusser, Hayot, Hartman, Moten, Nelson, Rankine, Sedgwick, Sontag, and others.

To sign up and receive readings please email Abe Geil:  a.m.geil@uva.nl

Credits

Requirements for obtaining 6 ECTS: Preparation, Attendance & Final Paper*

*Students who want to earn credits can either participate in all meetings of one semester or join at least four meetings across the academic year.