We have an exciting roster of events upcoming at the MHRC!
Mark your calendars for our autumn speaker series:

Jennifer Holt | Cloud Policy: Anatomy of a Regulatory Crisis 

Jennifer Holt will examine the legal and cultural crises surrounding the regulation of data in ‘the cloud’. The challenges of distributing and protecting data in a policy landscape that is simultaneously local, national and global has created a set of problems that defy legal paradigms, national boundaries and traditional geographies of control. Jennifer will examine these challenges with emphasis on a history of obscene phone calls, wiretapping of organized crime, the Patriot Act, Facebook and battles over net neutrality.

October 30 | 5 PM
GEM Lab, FB 630.15
Sir George William Campus
Concordia University
1250 Guy St.  

Benjamin Loveluck | The Internet as Ideology and Practice: A Genealogical Perspective

Examining the conceptual and practical affinities between liberalism and the idea of “free flow of information” on the Internet. Benjamin Loveluck presents a framework for understanding the political dimensions of the Internet, as well as shedding light on the transformations of contemporary liberalism, and showing how the two issues are closely related.

November 1 | 4 PM
CJ 5.219 Loyola Campus
Concordia University
7141 Sherbrooke Street  

Robyn Maynard | Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to Present 

Laying bare the violent realities behind Canada’s veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces four hundred years of state-sanctioned surveillance, criminalization and punishment of Black life in Canada. Through an unapologetically intersectional, feminist and abolitionist lens, this talk looks at how slavery’s legacy has been carried forward by the state, exposing the social and historical forces behind carding/street checks, the war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, welfare “fraud” and child welfare enforcement, deportation, and the disproportionate incarceration of Black folks in Canada’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention centres.

November 9 | 4:30 PM
Milieux Institute EV 11.705
Concordia University
1515 St. Catherine St. W 

For more information, email fenwick.mckelvey@concordia.ca
Follow @MHRCCONCORDIA and #MHRCTALKS.

Poleconomy night is the first in an upcoming game night series hosted by the MHRC.

Play through a game that reflects the way government, finance and industry collide when private enterprise operates under parliamentary democracy. Tycoons and politicians face face inflation, taxation and commercial disaster in a bid for political and financial power. Renowned in Canada for helping the Fraser institute survive a deep recession, Poleconomy is a wacky and stylized gamification of the ways in which our economy and government interact.

October 26 | 7 PM
MLab, Milieux EV 11.455
Sir George William Campus
Concordia University
1515 rue St. Catherine W. 

For more information, email fenwick.mckelvey@concordia.ca
Follow @MHRCCONCORDIA and #MHRCTALKS.

Darren Wershler returns with the ENGL 603: Media Archeology. The 5-day (Tuesday 23 May – Saturday 27 May), 3 credit spring course attempts to answer “What is media archaeology?”

As Jussi Parikka describes, it is a subfield of media history that scrutinizes contemporary media culture through investigations of past media technologies and creative media practices. Media archaeology takes a special interest in recondite and forgotten apparatuses, practices and inventions. At an historical moment when our own media technologies become obsolete with increasing rapidity, the study of residual forms and practices provides valuable context for analysis, and perhaps the possibility for the emergence of something new.

This course deals with the theory, current practice, and possible trajectories of media archaeology as a discipline. Our object of study will be the research collection of the new Residual Media Depot of the Media History Research Centre at the Milieux Institute. Work will consist of a mix of writing, thinking, talking, and hands-on encounters with materials from the collection, according to student skills and interests.