Lest we forget: censorship, secrecy and memory in the age of total recall
Lest we forget: censorship, secrecy and memory in the age of total recall
A talk by Dr David Boothroyd, University of Kent
Date: Tuesday 1 February 2011
Time: 17.00 - 18.30
Venue: Helmore 251, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge
Censorship and secrecy are widely regarded as antithetical to the open society and the public sphere. In the digital age the decentered communicative network of the internet facilitates the proliferation of data, data-storage capacity and the generalised intensification of surveillance as well as the apparent weakening of censorious control over informati...on and the security of secrets all kinds. The 'Wikileaks scenario' not only exposes the easily 'switchable' nature of secrecy/disclosure in the context of digital communications culture, it raises issues pertaining to the technicisation of memory and the memorialisation of events.
This paper approached the interconnections between censorship, secrecy and memory in relation to contemporary techno-culture with a view to identifying the significance of this nexus for the cultural formation of ethical subjectivity (as Levinas, in particular, writes about this), the speaker not so much concerned with normative ethical questions related to the technicisation of the censorship, secrecy and memory 'nexus' (interesting, even urgent as these often are) but more with how the ethical Subject is produced in this context.
Dave Boothroyd is the Director of Cultural Studies within the School of Social Policy Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. He's the author of 'Culture on Drugs: Narco-cultural studies of high modernity' (Manchester University Press, 2006) and is currently writing a monograph for Edinburgh University Press, 'Ethical Subjects in Contemporary Culture'. He is also a founding Co-Editor of the on-line journal 'Culture Machine'.
This talk was co-organized by CoDE and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.
A talk by Dr David Boothroyd, University of Kent
Date: Tuesday 1 February 2011
Time: 17.00 - 18.30
Venue: Helmore 251, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge
Censorship and secrecy are widely regarded as antithetical to the open society and the public sphere. In the digital age the decentered communicative network of the internet facilitates the proliferation of data, data-storage capacity and the generalised intensification of surveillance as well as the apparent weakening of censorious control over informati...on and the security of secrets all kinds. The 'Wikileaks scenario' not only exposes the easily 'switchable' nature of secrecy/disclosure in the context of digital communications culture, it raises issues pertaining to the technicisation of memory and the memorialisation of events.
This paper approached the interconnections between censorship, secrecy and memory in relation to contemporary techno-culture with a view to identifying the significance of this nexus for the cultural formation of ethical subjectivity (as Levinas, in particular, writes about this), the speaker not so much concerned with normative ethical questions related to the technicisation of the censorship, secrecy and memory 'nexus' (interesting, even urgent as these often are) but more with how the ethical Subject is produced in this context.
Dave Boothroyd is the Director of Cultural Studies within the School of Social Policy Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. He's the author of 'Culture on Drugs: Narco-cultural studies of high modernity' (Manchester University Press, 2006) and is currently writing a monograph for Edinburgh University Press, 'Ethical Subjects in Contemporary Culture'. He is also a founding Co-Editor of the on-line journal 'Culture Machine'.
This talk was co-organized by CoDE and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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