BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.6.1//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news315@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20230905T105328 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20231101T161500 SUMMARY:Surveillance Societies in a Once-Bipolar World (virtual talk) DESCRIPTION:This is a virtual talk. Please contact Sandra Burri (s.burri@un ibas.ch) for the zoom link.\\r\\n\\r\\nAbstract\\r\\nWith the end of Commu nist-Party-led regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1 991\, scholars entered an open field for comparative studies of surveill ance.  A few of them produced work along these lines (e.g.\, Timothy Gar ton Ash\, for Poland\; Andreas Glaeser\,for East Germany\; Katherine Ver dery\, for Romania).  The kind of surveillance we had experienced was ver y specific to communist societies and is perhaps the prototype of what the word means to English-speakers\, if not others as well.  For people in t he US\, the image of this kind probably originates in Cold War representat ions of the Soviet Union   It invokes shadowy figures intercepting our ph one calls and correspondence or listening in on our conversations\, as in this painting by Magritte.  \\r\\nThat is now too limited an understandin g of it\, however\, as we know not only from more recent research on commu nist surveillance mentioned above but also from growing attention to surve illance in modern capitalist countries.  A leading example of the latter is Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.  She argues that although ordinary citizens acquired personal computers to us a s a vehicle for more efficient correspondence\, in the hands of capitalist firms it became a vehicle for ever-expanding surveillance as a means of c ommerce\, drawing people into advertising they might otherwise manage to e lude and\, thence\, into purchasing commodities.  Any attempt to use emai l for correspondence is by now a vanishingly small percentage of its use i n e-commerce.  Our email is now jammed with things we get from having lo oked\, even inadvertently\, at a website somewhere.  Having become almost useless as an instrument of communication among friends and family\, emai l—and the personal computer more generally--have become an instrument of surveillance.  Surveillance and capitalism\, possibly building on survei llance in communism\, have pioneered the rise of capitalist commerce.  Th is conjuncture would appear to be an excellent instance of a “crossroad. ”  It encourages the unexpected possibility of seeing this millennial m oment as a convergence between the preferred instruments of a once-antagon istic relationship.  The lecture will explore these once-unthinkable conn ections. X-ALT-DESC:

This is a virtual talk. Please contact Sandra Burri (s.burri@ unibas.ch) for the zoom link.

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Abstract

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With the end of Communist-Party-led regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991\, scholars \;entered \;an open field for comparative studies of surveillance.  \;A few of them produced work al ong these lines (e.g.\, Timothy \;Garton Ash\, for Poland\; \;Andr eas Glaeser\,for East Germany\; Katherine \;Verdery\, for Romania). &n bsp\;The kind of surveillance we had experienced was very specific to comm unist societies and is perhaps the prototype of what the word means to Eng lish-speakers\, if not others as well.  \;For people in the US\, the i mage of this kind probably originates in Cold War representations of the S oviet Union  \; It invokes shadowy figures intercepting our phone call s and correspondence or listening in on our conversations\, as in this pai nting by Magritte.  \;

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That is now too limited an understandin g of it\, however\, as we know not only from more recent research on commu nist surveillance mentioned above but also from growing attention to surve illance in modern capitalist countries.  \;A leading example of the la tter is Shoshana \;Zuboff’s \;book \;The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. \; \;She argues that although ordinary citizens acqui red personal computers to us as a vehicle for more efficient correspondenc e\, in the hands of capitalist firms it became a vehicle for ever-expandin g surveillance as a means of commerce\, drawing people into advertising th ey might otherwise manage to elude and\, thence\, into purchasing commodit ies.  \;Any attempt to use email for correspondence is by now a vanish ingly small percentage of its use in e-commerce.  \;Our email is now&n bsp\;jammed with things we get from having looked\, even inadvertently\, a t a website somewhere.  \;Having become almost useless as an instrumen t of communication among friends and family\, email—and the personal com puter more generally--have become an instrument of surveillance.  \;Su rveillance and capitalism\, possibly building on surveillance in communism \, have pioneered the rise of capitalist commerce.  \;This conjuncture would appear to be an excellent instance of a “crossroad.”  \;It encourages the unexpected possibility of seeing this millennial moment as a convergence between the preferred instruments of a once-antagonistic rel ationship.  \;The lecture will explore these once-unthinkable connecti ons.

DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20231101T180000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR