Colloquia Fall 2017

 Prof.dr. Joost Raessens (NYU Game Center; Utrecht Center for Game Research, Utrecht University-The Netherlands)
Climate and energy policies and measures rank high on both the societal as well as political agenda. But at the same time, only a very small number of (Dutch) citizens consider climate change to be an important societal problem. Raising awareness, reinforcing ecological attitudes and behaviour and stimulating collaborative environmental decision making are core challenges of our time. In his presentation, Joost Raessens examines how ecological games seek to contribute to ecological thought and make people become ecological citizens.

 Andy Fisher asks how are we doing as a country in eliminating hunger? Who benefits from the $100 billion federal food program dollars spent every year? Fisher will discuss his new book, Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups, in which he demonstrates the existence of a hunger industrial complex & tight alliances between Big Food and anti-hunger groups.

 Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award- winning historian and widely read voice on the esoteric, discusses the challenges of documenting occult history—both within the mainstream media and inside the subcultures from which it springs. Mitch’s books include Occult America, and One Simple Idea, a history and analysis of positive thinking, which was recently censored in China.

 Sean Ansett is a Sustainability Executive with 20 years’ experience managing complexity, building multi- stakeholder partnerships, and spearheading change across the apparel, electronics and food sectors. Sean is a serial social entrepreneur including a founding team member and the former CSO of Fairphone. Fairphone believes that you shouldn’t have to choose between a great phone and a fairer supply chain. We aim to create positive social and environmental impact from the beginning to the end of a phone’s life cycle.

 Dr. Alexandra Juhasz teaches, makes and studies committed media practices that contribute to political change and individual community growth. She is the author of books including AIDS TV, Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Media, and F is for Phony. Her current work is about the feminist Internet including YouTube, pedagogy, affect and community.

 Jennifer Rittner investigates how designers can dismantle systems of injustice, not only to free those who are materially disenfranchised but also those who are imprisoned by privilege and bias. Teaching design students to be purposeful interrogators of self, systems, and society, she provokes students to interrogate systems in which they are entrenched.

 L.A. Kauffman has spent more than thirty years immersed in grassroots movements, as a journalist, historian, organizer, and strategist. She was the mobilizing coordinator for the antiwar protests of 2003-2004 and led a series of activist campaigns to save community gardens and public libraries from development. Kauffman is the author of Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism (2017).

 Prof. Julian Cornell’s areas of interest include American and Japanese science fiction and genre cinema, narratives of disaster, animation, documentary and the cinemas of Scandinavia. His recent research explores traditional and social media coverage of and reactions to mass shootings on school and college campuses and how such narratives limit political and cultural understanding of, and actions, regarding gun violence and gun legislation. He teaches Media Studies at Queens College.

 Jason Van Anden. builds apps to promote social justice including I’m Getting Arrested, enabling Occupy demonstrators to alert friends in the event they were arrested; Stop and Frisk Watch, a tool used to monitor the New York City Police Department’s controversial practice; and Mobile Justice, a police video taping app. He is also currently developing Workit, to offer networked support for 1.3 million non-unionized Walmart workers.

Graduating Masters Students will present their thesis projects to the community, followed by questions and comments from professors and peers. This session is open to the entire CUNY community, but questions and comments will be limited to members of the Media Studies program.