The Democratic Surround: Media and the Dream of a Liberal Commons in Cold War America

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Abstract:

Today we find ourselves surrounded by screens – on our iPhones, our tablets, our desktop computers. Little do we know that we are living out the multimedia dreams of several dozen Cold War social scientists, a handful of Bauhaus artists, and the musician John Cage. This talk will track those dreams and the politics that drove them from World War II to the psychedelic sixties. It will lay bare the widely shared mid-century hope that multi-image, multi-sound media might create a new, more liberal public sphere. And in the process, it will provide a rich historical context for thinking about the design of more egalitarian digital environments today.

Formation d’un dispensateur reconnu aux fins de la formation continue obligatoire du Barreau du Québec pour une durée de 1 heure et 30 minutes. Une attestation de participation représentant 1 heure et 30 minutes de formation sera aussi transmise aux notaires.   


Speaker:

Fred Turner is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author of three books:  The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (University of Chicago Press, 2013);  From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (Anchor/Doubleday, 1996; 2nd ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2001). Before coming to Stanford, he taught Communication at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He also worked for ten years as a journalist. He has written for newspapers and magazines ranging from the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine to Nature.

Source: http://fredturner.stanford.edu/bio/


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This content has been updated on 2 March 2018 at 11 h 34 min.