The inaugural Occupied Spaces Symposium will begin Friday and run through Saturday at the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. The symposium will feature research from scholars as far away as Arizona, Michigan, and Illinois; performances from cellist Hank Roberts and a world premiere from DJ/VJ Art Jones; and two days of lively debate and discussion about occupied spaces in all their many forms, from geographic to gaming, post-9/11 in the United States and across the globe.
Occupied Spaces schedule:
Friday, April 8 Park 220 (unless otherwise noted)
9:45-10:15 a.m. Inauguration of the Occupied Spaces Research Initiative and Symposium
Welcome: Dianne Lynch, Dean, Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College
Keynote Address: Peter Bardaglio, Provost, Ithaca College, "Occupied Spaces and Sustainable Communication"
10:15-11:45 a.m. Session I
Occupations in a Post 9/11 World: Representations, Mediations, Constructions
Moderator: Tanya Saunders, Assistant Provost and Dean, Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies, Ithaca College
Presenters:
- Asma Barlas (Ithaca College, Politics) "Media Reflections: Ignorance of a Hegemonic Imagination"
- Chris Campbell (Ithaca College, Journalism), "Commodifying 9/11: Occupation, Hegemony and the U.S. Media."
- Tammy Shapiro (Ithaca College, OCLD), "Ignoring REALITY from the Roof of the Palestine Hotel: Journalistic Responsibility and TRUTH"
- Art Jones (SUNY-Purchase, New Media) "How to Dismantle the Empire of Mediation"
1:30-3:00 p.m. Session II
Want to Play a Game: War and (Computer/Video) Gaming
Moderator: Gordon Rowland (Ithaca College, OCLD)
Presenters:
- Karen Hall (Ithaca College, English) "Playing for the Nation: Commodities, Consumption, and Combat Spectacle"
- Dennis Charsky, (Ithaca College, OCLD) "War Reflected in Video Games: What Can We Learn From Them?"
- Simon Tarr (Ithaca College, Cinema and Photography) "The Bit is the Bomb"
- Ulises Mejias (Columbia University) "Telepistemology, Combat Robots, and Human Pacman"
3:15-4:45 p.m. Session III
(Rap/Hip Hop) Music as Cultural Export: Occupying and Recolonizing Bodies, Race(s), Gender(s), and Histories
Moderator: Larry Shinagawa, Director, Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, Ithaca College
Presenters:
- Zachary Williams (Ithaca College, Center for the Study of Culture, Race & Ethnicity) "Speaking My Truth To Power: Hip Hop Culture and the Black Vernacular Intellectual"
- TaKeshia Brooks (University of Michigan) "We Have a Hottentot History to Consider: The Quandaries of Black Women's Representations in the Entertainment Industry"
- Derek C. Murray (Cornell University) "Street Dreams and Black Villains: Imaging Race and Masculinity in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture"
- Changhee Chun (Ithaca College, Cinema and Photography) "Interactive Montage: Korean Music Videos"
5:00-6:00 p.m. Reception/cocktails/wine for participants in Park Lobby
Installations featuring the Korean music videos of Changhee Chun (Ithaca College, Cinema and Photography)
Sponsored by the Department of Television/Radio and the Office of Multicultural Affairs
6:45-7:45 p.m. "Music from Occupied Lands" (Park 220)
Hank Roberts, avant-garde cellist, presents a program of solo chamber music from occupied lands
Sponsored by the Department of Organizational Communication, Learning and Design and the School of Music
8:00 p.m. Performance: "Dismantling Empire: Live!" (Park Auditorium)
Art Jones, Distinguished Feature Artist
A live audio/visual performance and DJ/VJ battle incorporating multiple video streams and music performed in real-time with multiple computers. The performance appropriates and remixes audio and visual elements from mainstream news, commercial, entertainment, and alternative media to critique how images validate and promote the idea of a benign 'new American empire." 'Hi-tech' combat, embedded war journalism, prisoner torture, and post 9-11 security and surveillance form the source material for the live remix. A world premiere and special commission from the Occupied Spaces Research Initiative (OSRI) in collaboration with Cinema on the Edge (COTE). Also featuring Simon Tarr and Changhee Chun
Sponsored by Cinema on the Edge, the School of Music, and the Experimental Television Center
Saturday, April 9, Park 220 (unless otherwise noted)
9:00-10:30 a.m. Session IV
Space and the Occupation of National Identities
Moderator: Steve Tropiano (Ithaca College, Los Angeles Program)
Presenters:
- Naeem Inayatullah, (Ithaca College, Politics) "A Medium of Others: The Politics of West African Musical Forms."
- Eric Durham (Howard University) "Analysis of Traditional and Contemporary Discursive Practices in the 'Spaces' of American Colonialism/Globalism"
- Diem-My Bui (University of Illinois) "Production and Representation of Vietnamese Women in the US National Imaginary"
- Matt Fee, (Ithaca College, Park Scholar Program) "The Fantastic Locations of Irishness"
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Session V
Performing Against Occupation
Moderator: Marie Garland (Ithaca College, OCLD)
Presenters:
- Baruch Whitehead, (Ithaca College, Music) "Rhythm of Resistance: A look at South Africans and African Americans Freedom Songs during the South African Apartheid years and the American Civil Rights Years"
- Elvinet S. Wilson (Arizona State University) "The 'Occupation' of an Indigenous Stance"
- Hyon Joo Murphree (Syracuse University), "Toward an 'Accented' Critique of Culture: Postcolonial East Asia and Moribund Masculinity"
- Kara Keeling (University of North Carolina) "Digital Media and Social Movements"
1:15-2 p.m. Wrap-up Roundtable Discussion (Clark Lounge)
- Sandra L. Herndon (Ithaca College, OCLD and chair, Graduate Program in Communication)
- John Hochheimer (Ithaca College, TV-R/Journalism)
- Sharon R. Mazzarella (Ithaca College, Television-Radio)
- Patricia R. Zimmermann (Ithaca College, Cinema and Photography and Culture and Communication, Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies)
2-2:30 p.m. Park School Walkabout
This symposium is part of the Occupied Spaces Research Initiative, an on-going interdisciplinary faculty research and outreach project in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.
Major funding for the Occupied Spaces Symposium is generously provided by the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity, the Roy H. Park School of Communications, the Office of the Provost and Cinema on the Edge. Additional funding is provided by the Department of Television/Radio, Department of Organizational Communication, Learning, and Design, the graduate program in communications, the Office of Alumni Relations, the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies, School of Music, Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Experimental Television Center. The Experimental Television Center's Presentation Funds Program is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency.
