Programme
Please note that the programme is subject to change.
Pre-Conference - Tuesday 21 April
13:00-14:30 | Roundtable on the Media Image of Africa - a free event held at the University of Leeds, Clothworkers' Building North LT G.17 - all welcome. Click here for details.
17:00–19:00 | Social for PhD students and early career researchers - Clothworkers North Building 1.17
Day 1 – Wednesday 22 April
08:45–09:15 | Coffee and pastries LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
09:15–09:30 | Welcome and introduction
09:30–10:30 | Keynote LUBS G02
From Watching Race to Making Race: Notes on the Journey of an Idea
Herman Gray (UC Santa Cruz)
10:30–12:00 | Parallel Session 1
Panel 1A – Commodification of Race in Popular Culture LUBS G02
- ‘Almost Racistly White’: Decolonising Humour in Man Like Mobeen
Sarah Ilott (Manchester Metropolitan University) - The Cultural Politics of Afrosurrealism: Race, Media and (Commercial) Cultural Production
Wooshy Koroye (University of Leeds) - Cringe Aesthetics, Gender, and Emotion Work in Ramy
Sarah Lahm (University of Leeds) - Chair: Isabel Molina
Panel 1B – Islamophobia and Media LUBS 1.05
- Death of a Platform for Mediated Activism? Contesting Islamophobia on Twitter/X
Elizabeth Poole (Keele University) - Suspicion, Emotion, and Resistance: Mediatising Muslim Mothers in the War on Terror
Amani Braa (University of Montreal) - Racialised Emotions in French Media Coverage of the ‘Oppressed Muslim Woman’ early bestsellers
Elena Tadros (Université libre de Bruxelles) - Diasporic Muslim Women and the Oppositional Gaze: Transnational Audiences on Muslim Women’s Representations in Western Europe
Salma Mediavilla Aboulaoula (University of Ghent) - Chair: Maitraye Basu
Panel 1C – New Directions in Critical Race Studies and Intellectual Property LUBS 1.06
- Taking Indigenous Knowledge Seriously: The Role of Popular Media
Graham Dutfield (University of Leeds) - Purple Blerd in Cyberspace: Negotiating (Un)fair Competition While Black Through Technologies of Music
Anjali Vats (University of Pittsburgh) - Are Black Athletes for Sale? Digital Doppelgangers and Entrepreneurial Capitalism
Joseph Coppola (UC Berkeley) - Generative AI and Blacksound
Matthew Morrison (Stanford University) - Chair: David Hesmondhalgh
Panel 1D –Race and Promotional Culture LUBS 1.09
- Martial Arts Aesthetics as a Form of Racialised Construction in Historical British Advertising
Sally Chan (University of Leeds) - Technocustom Racism in AI-Personalised Advertising
Nessa Keddo (King’s College London) - Race, Political Branding and Rishi Sunak
Ruth Garland (Goldsmiths, University of London) - From Advertising to Children, to the Advertising of Children
Suzanne Harris (University of East Anglia) & Isabelle Higgins (University of Cambridge) - What Colour Is Influencer Marketing? Exploring Racialised Digital Labour
Jed Senthi & Nandhini Bala Krishnan (Nanyang Technological University) - Chair: Kristina Kolbe
12:00–13:00 | Lunch LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
13:00–14:30 | Parallel Session 2
Panel 2A – The Cultural Politics of Race and Gender LUBS G02
- Popular intersectionality and the racial, gendered, and classed politics of inclusion on Instagram
Katrin Schindel (Kings College London) - Whiteness, feminism, and moral failings: the translation of intersectionality in digital culture
Akane Kanai (University of Warwick) - The Comforts of Race
Natasha Zeng (Kings College London) - Racial Regimes in Rupture: Persistence and Contestation in the Cultural and Creative Industries
Roaa Ali (University of Manchester) - #ContradictoryConservatism: Black Women, Purity, and Religious Authority in the Age of Digital Religion
Taylor Smith (University of Pennsylvania) - Chair: Kat Higgins
Panel 2B – Race, Cultural Production and Urban Multiculture LUBS 1.05
- ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’: Mediating Musical Multiculture at a Time of Crisis
Richard ‘Gummo’ Clare (University of Leeds) - Bites or Bytes? How Digital Foodways Nourish an Urban Diaspora
Stephanie Guo (London School of Economics) - Negotiating Identity and Emotion Through Musicking
Rafael Mendes-Browne (University of Leeds) - Grenfell, Race and Institutional Neglect in Music Video
Joe Jackson (London College of Communication) - Cultural Collectives
Yasmine Kherfi & Kristina Kolbe (Erasmus University Rotterdam) - Chair: Helen Kim
Panel 2C – Border Infrastructure and Colonialism LUBS 1.06
- Remote Control: Living Waste Management at the Border
Eszter Zimanyi (University of Pennsylvania) - Nonreciprocal Listening as a Foundation for Peace Through Media
Yuval Katz (Loughborough University) - Is Journalism and Communication Education in Puerto Rico Perpetuating Colonialism?
Federico Subervi (University of Wisconsin-Madison) & Maximiliano Dueñas (University of
Puerto Rico-Humacao) - Seeing beyond borders: European Migrant Cinema Through a Decolonial Lens
Hera Lorandos (Kings College London) - Chair: Israel Campos
Panel 2D – Race and Algorithmic Culture LUBS 1.09
- ‘We Doh Watch Face’: Notting Hill Carnival, the Biometric Gaze and the Expansion of Mass Surveillance
Hanna Klien-Thomas (Oxford Brookes University) - Generative AI and the Reproduction of Racial Inequality
Dhiraj Murthy (University of Texas at Austin) - Generative AI and the Re-Making of Race
Sanjay Sharma (University of Warwick) - Does ChatGPT Know You’re Black? Afro-Scepticism Among Black Users of ChatGPT
Thomonique Moore (University of Pennsylvania) - Chair: Anjali Vats
14:30–15:00 | Coffee break LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
15:00–16:30 | Parallel Session 3
Panel 3A – Race-Making in Media Industries LUBS G02
- Why Women? Notes on Editing, Archival Absence and Gendering of Production Cultures in Indian Media Industries
Priyam Sinha (Humboldt University of Berlin) - The Hospital Floor: AI-Generated Representations of Filipina Care Labour
Marianne Nacanaynay (University of Wisconsin–Madison) - Racial Capitalism, Neoliberalism and News Production in Postcolonial Jamaica
Vashan Brown (London School of Economics) - Inclusionary Discovery and the ‘Hungry Listening’ of Music Streaming Platforms
Raquel Campos Valverde (University of Leeds) - Creative Disappointments Beyond Datafication: Orientalist Production Logics in Turkey’s Global Drama Industry
Ergin Bulut (Goldsmiths, University of London) - Chair Nessa Keddo
Panel 3B - Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music - 30 years on: A Roundtable LUBS 1.05
- Tariq Jazeel (UCL)
- Sonia Mehta (Paul Hamlyn Foundation)
- Isuru Perera (Artist)
- Paul Rekret (University of Westminister)
- Naaz Rashid (independent researcher)
- Ashwani Sharma (darkmatter Journal)
- Nabeel Zuberi (University of Auckland)
- Chair: Anamik Saha (University of Leeds)
Panel 3C – Consuming Race and Gender LUBS 1.06
- “You’re an Argumentative Woman”: A Content Analysis of Controlling Images of Black Women in the Black Manosphere on YouTube
Briana Edwards (University of North Carolina) - In Search of Southeast Asian Women in UK Media: Consolidating, Reimagining, Keep Looking
Chanapang Pongpiboonkiat (University of Leeds) - The Effects of Exposure to Gendered Stereotypes in Media Frames on Emotions and Attitudes Toward Refugees
Yossi David (The Lab for Social BIAS Research) - Racial Flow in IShowSpeed's China Tour: : Appropriating and Performing Racial Interpellations in the Transnational Attention Economy
Jiaying Tu (University of Amsterdam) - Chair: Ludmila Lupinacci
Panel 3D Technically Speaking: Uncut Communication Scholarship on the funk of Race in/and/as Media LUBS 1.09
- Calls from Inside The House: Deepening Digital Hush Harbors in A Data-Driven Society
James Epps (University of California Los Angeles) and LaRisa Anderson-Horne (University of Utah) - The Afterlives of Black Tech: A Rethinking of Techno-Next
Raven Lloyd (Washington University in St. Louis) - Black Mediums and Messages: The Racializing Grammars of Comics and Cinema
Meshell Sturgis (University of New Mexico) - Respondent – Kim Fox (The American University in Cairo)
16:30–17:45 | Plenary panel: What is the Point of Race and Media Studies? Theory and Praxis in Authoritarian Times LUBS G02
- Rohit Dasgupta (London School of Economics)
- Sarah J Jackson (University of Pennsylvania)
- Srivi Ramasubramanian (Syracuse University)
- Gavan Titley (Maynooth University)
- Rianna Walcott (University of Maryland College Park)
- Chair: Cindy Ma (University of Leeds)
17:45–19:00 | Wine reception LUBS 1.32 and 1.33.
Day 2 – Thursday 23 April
9:00–9:30 | Coffee and pastries LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
09:30–11:00 | Parallel Session 4
Panel 4A – Theories of Race and Media LUBS G02
- Centering Genre as a Core Analytic for Race and (Western) Media
Liz Hallgren (University of Pennsylvania) - The Making of Racialised Publics: A Historical and Transnational Approach
Wendy Willems (London School of Economics) - Recent Debates About Racism as Ideology: Emphasising Practices Rather Than Beliefs
David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds) - Racialism Without the Racism: A Way of Making Race That Contributes to Its Undoing
Anamik Saha (University of Leeds) - Black/Latinidad: The Failure of Race, Ethnicity in the Media
Isabel Molina (University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign) - Chair: Sarah Jackson
Panel 4B – Asian American Racialisation and Diasporic Consumption LUBS 1.05
- ‘Asians are Cool’: Giant Robot and the Aesthetics of Asian American Racialisation
Caroline Hsu (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) - Marketing Asian Americana: Aesthetics of a Diaspora
Christine Phan (University of Pennsylvania) - Should K-Pop Just Be Called Pop?
Joey Song (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) - Chair: Cindy Ma (University of Leeds)
Panel 4C – Performing Racial Identities in the Attention Economy LUBS 1.06
- Digital Ethnographic Deep-Dive into the Intricacies of Racial Performance
Lauren Michelle Harvey (Duke University) - Vitamin B: How Brahmin Content Creators Perform Caste Supremacist Identity on Instagram
Tejas Harad & Natasha Williams (University of Pennsylvania - Performing Peripheral Whiteness on Instagram: ‘Slavic’, ‘Eastern European’, and ‘Soviet’ as Online Identities
Marta Wójtowicz (University of Leeds) - Disciplined by the Algorithm: Social Media, Religion, Caste, and Queer and Trans Women in India
Tanvi Kanchan (SOAS) - (Re)imagining Black Creole Mauritian Femininity in and Through Online Self-Representation
Joe Ann Chavry (London School of Economics) - Chair: Sophie Bishop
Panel 4D – Racism, News and Politics LUBS 1.09
- From Courtroom to Newspaper: Recontextualising Race in US Coverage of the Chauvin Trial
Natalie Jones (University of Leeds) - ‘This Is the Kind of Racism One Should Worry About’: Affective-Discursive Practices Constructing Racism and ‘Not Racism’ in Finland
Aino Nevalainen (University of Helsinki) - The Post-Mortem Mea Culpa: Trouillot’s Abortive Ritual and Journalism’s “Racial Reckoning”
Anjali DasSarma (University of Pennsylvania) - Mediating White Victimcould: Hypothetical Injuries, Imaginary Futures, and the ‘Criminalisation’ of Donald Trump
Kathryn Claire Higgins (Goldsmiths, University of London) - Framing Racism in Contemporary Germany: Discursive Shifts and Activist Media Strategies
Thomas Zacharias (Goldsmiths, University of London) - Chair: Omega Douglas
11:00–11:30 | Coffee break LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
11:30–13:00 | Parallel Session 5
Panel 5A – Anti-Racist Media LUBS G02
- Creating Fugitive Media: New Tactics for Discussing Liberatory Politics Through Popular and Mass Media
Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin (University of Michigan) - Reparations and Theorising Media Harm: Extraction, Distortion, and Exclusion
Khadijah White (Rutgers University) & AJ Christian (Northwestern University) - What Blackness Can Teach Us About Religion and Media: On the Pursuit of Liberation
LaRisa Anderson-Horne (University of Utah) - ‘We Were a Danger to the System’: People’s Community Radio Link and Entangled Listening in Birmingham, 1985–1989
Jacob Saheb (University of Nottingham) - Chair: Gavan Titley
Panel 5B – Politics of Diversity LUBS 1.05
- Starting from Zero (2021): Representational Justice and Twitter Users’ Responses to an Italian Netflix Series
Alessio Baldini (University of Leeds) - Measuring Representation in the Audiovisual Media: A Racial Technology? The Case of French Television Channels
Celine Charrier (Paris 8 University) - Google ‘Diversity’: An Intersectional Feminist Political Economy
Tanner Mirrlees (Ontario Tech University) - Too Polarising to Even Acknowledge: Aspirants’ Thoughts and Reflections on Contemporary Representations – The Rise of Absence
Jay Dunstan (University of East London) - Chair: Roaa Ali
Panel 5C – Intersections of Racism, Sexism and Misogyny LUBS 1.06
- Affects of Racialisation: Misogynistic Incels’ Affective Constructions of Race and Ethnicity
Kate Babin (University of Coventry) - Ticket to Success?: The Reproductive Utility of Black Women on Love Island (UK and USA)
AE Stevenson (University of Chicago) - ‘Save Our Girls?’ Racialised Gender Politics, Womanhood and European Ethnonationalism
Christy Kulz (TU Berlin) & Naaz Rashid (Independent Researcher) - ‘[She’s] Playing with a Bit of Anger’: Misogynoir and Mediated (Re)Constructions of Women Footballers in Matchday Commentary
Paul Ian Campbell & Allison Thompson (University of Leicester) - Misogynoir’s Use-Value: The Cultural Commodification of Misogynoir Online
Areyana Proctor (University of Wisconsin – Madison) - Chair: Bethany Klein
Panel 5D – Digital Becoming: AI, Race and the Re-mediation of Identity in Contemporary Visual Archives LUBS 1.09
- ‘Death Is Seeking You at the Bingo Table’: Black Fungibility in AI-Slop
Rianna Walcott (University of Maryland College Park) & Nessa Keddo (King’s College London) - Brown non-sovereignties as Queer Digital Diasporic Performance in Contemporary Visual Cultures
Maitrayee Basu (University of Leeds) - #WhyReturn: Cyberfeminist Investigations in Producing Othered Selves Across Platforms
Radhika Gajjala (Bowling Green State University) - New (Re)Mediations in Colonial Archives: Art Practice as Decolonial Memory Work in Southeast Asia
Darshana Mini (University of Wisconsin–Madison) - Chair: Radhika Gajjala
13:00–14:00 | Lunch LUBS 1.31/1.32/1.33
14:00–15:30 | Parallel Session 6
Panel 6A – Exploring the politics of race/racism through creative practice LUBS G02
- Sounding Solidarities: Sonic Collaboration and Digital Media Activism for Palestine in Super-Diverse Birmingham
Ali Shair, University of Sussex - Cicatrizes: Art and Migration - A map of Border-Crossing life
Arú Rosa, Linköping University - Practice-Led Podcasting as Decolonial Method: Reflections from “Ehky Ya Masr (Tell Your Story Egypt)” and “Birdland Refracted”
Kim Fox, American University in Cairo - Chair: Sarah Lahm
Panel 6B – Statues, Race, and Empire: Cultural Symbols of Racial Capitalism LUBS 1.05
- Statues and Symbols, Redux
Rahul Rao (University of St Andrews) - From Robert E. Lee to Trump: Confederate Statues and the Construction of White Supremacy in the United States
Milly Williamson (Goldsmiths, University of London) - Militarist Realism, from Colston to Musk
Dan Hicks (University of Oxford) - Chair: Anamik Saha
Panel 6C – Social Media Activism LUBS 1.06
- ‘An African in India’: Reckonings with Racism and Colorism in the Work of African Social Media Creators in India
Anirban Baishya (University of Wisconsin–Madison) - MeToo India: Believability, Consent, and the Racialised Politics of Digital Feminism
Ruhi Khan (LSE) - Digital Feminist Activism Against Rape Culture in Universities: #MeToo in India and #RUReferenceList in South Africa
Adrija Dey & Gavaza Maluleke (University of Westminster) - Politicising Instagram: Connective Witnessing in Visual Social Media
Yena Kang (UMass Amherst) - Chair: Srivi Ramasubramanian
Panel 6D – Racialised Inequalities: Interrogating Race, Gender, and Peripheral Labour in Global Creator Economies LUBS 1.09
- ‘Vanilla Content’: How Platform Economies Shape Creative Expression
Daniela Jaramillo-Dent (University of Zurich) - The Double Burden: Female Interracial Relationship Content Creators’ Encounter with Racism in China
Qian Huang (University of Groningen) - Hopeful Mobilities in Irish Creator Cultures
Tugce Bidav (King’s College London) - Aspiration Under Fire: Racialised and Feminised Peripheral Creative Labour in Genocide Zones
Jess Rauchberg & Tom Divon (Seton Hall University) - Chair: Tom Divon