Francis Cody (University of Toronto)
2023-09-08 4:00-6:00 pm
Concordia University 1400 Maisonneuve Blvd W | 4th Space and Virtual
Journalists have long been aware of the fact that representations of violence in the news can be construed as offensive acts and can even lead to more violence. This awareness accounts for many kinds of public secrecy around questions of casteist violence in the press. But the emergence of mass forensics in news reporting, both in mainstream media and in the world of YouTube commentary, has short circuited some of the ethical and aesthetic norms of this public secrecy. Citizens have been interpellated to join collective analyses of violent crimes in mass forensic events, where the rhetoric of science conflicts with the logics of spectacle propelling the circulation of the event. The performativity of mediatized violence has been reconfigured in this process.
Francis Cody is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Asian Institute, as well as acting as the Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. His research has focused on politics, language, and media in southern India. Cody’s newest book, The News Event: Popular Sovereignty in the Age of Deep Mediatization (Chicago 2023) explores questions of law, technology, and violence in the context of journalism and populist politics.
Event co-sponsored by the Department of Religions and Cultures and RAAH Lab (Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
