Vancouver

Revolutionary Horizons? Debating the Democratic Potential of the Internet

A free public debate between Jodi Dean & Andrew Feenberg

7:00pm
Friday April 12 2013

The effect of the Internet and social media tools upon recent global uprisings has received much attention. Popular claims that such digital environments are revolutionary tools for social change have been countered by charges of ‘slacktivism’ and critiques that draw attention to the entanglement between the Internet and neoliberal capital. Critical theorists Jodi Dean and Andrew Feenberg have developing highly compelling but distinct perspectives on this question of the relationships between networked technology, political life, and social movements. This event will bring these two esteemed scholars together to debate how we can best understand the role of the internet in shaping the possibilities and limitations of collective action today.

Organized as a part of the CounterCulture Speaker Series run by the Media Democracy Project, School of Communication and the SFU Institute for the Humanities.

/// Event Details ///

What: Debate between Jodi Dean & Andrew Feenberg
Date: Friday, April 12th, 2013
Time: 7:00PM
Cost: Free Attendance

Venue: Fletcher Challenge Theatre (Room #1900), SFU Vancouver (515 W. Hastings St.)

Info: www.mediademocracydays.org
RSVP: http://revolutionaryhorizons.eventbrite.com/
Twitter: @MediaDemocDay

/// Programme ///

The Debate: Jodi Dean & Andrew Feenberg

Each debater will have 15 minutes to present their arguments. Each debater will then have 10 minutes to respond to their counterpart’s arguments. The moderator will then ask a few questions to both debaters (roughly 10 minutes). Finally, the audience will be invited to ask questions.

/// Speaker Bios ///

Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she teaches political theory, and Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University. Dr. Dean’s research and writing focus on the contemporary space and possibility of politics. Books include: Solidarity of Strangers (1996), Aliens in America (1998), Publicity's Secret (2002), Zizek's Politics (2006), Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies (2009), Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (2010) and most recently The Communist Horizon (2012). Dr. Dean has also edited several books including Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society (2006).

Andrew Feenberg is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab. Dr. Feenberg is the author of several books including Critical Theory of Technology (1991), Alternative Modernity (1995), and Questioning Technology (1999). Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History appeared in 2005 while Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity appeared in 2010. Dr. Feenberg has also co-edited several volumes including (Re)inventing the Internet (2012). In addition to his work on critical theory and philosophy of technology, Dr. Feenberg is also recognized as an early innovator in the field of online education, a field he helped to create in 1982.

// Moderator //

Moderated by Professor Samir Gandesha (SFU).

Samir Gandesha is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and the Director of the Institute for the Humanities at SFU. He specializes in modern European thought and culture and is editor (with Lars Rensmann) of Arendt and Adorno: Philosophical and Political Questions (Stanford, 2012). He is currently finishing a book entitled “Homeless Philosophy” and editing a volume (with Johan Hartle) on “Marx and the Aesthetic”. His work has been published in New German Critique, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Thesis Eleven, the European Journal of Social Theory, Political Theory, The Cambridge Companion to Adorno and several other edited collections.