#wendelmoot | The Third Wendelmoot CRISIS CRISIS Symposium featuring Dr. Agnese Pastorino, CERLIS Researcher (Sorbonne) | February 19, 2019 @4pm, Music Bldg 206 | SDSU Main Campus

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MALAS is proud to be co-sponsoring this lecture with SDSU English and Comparative Literature and SDSU Press:

Dr. Agnese Pastorino

Associate researcher at the CERLIS research center Sorbonne University (Paris, France). Past affiliations: Multimedia Producer, United Nations English News (New York, USA, 2017); Marie Curie researcher, Sapienza University (Rome, Italy, 2014-2017).

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Lecture Abstract: Nowadays, youths have access to an enormous variety of audiovisual contents, produced and distributed in a very fast pace through the Web. The rapid consumption and production of audiovisual contents is especially diffused amongst young adults. Recent studies have shown how the playful reception of these video materials can have negative consequences on their health and psycho-physical development. For example, numerous researches have been conducted on the impact of violent video games, or pornography. Also, recent public debate has focused on potential audiovisual risks for youths, such as child-pornography and terrorist videos. Although several influential voices have expressed concern about potential risky uses of harmful audiovisual contents, the Web is based on a liberal approach to media production and distribution. This perspective has been founded on the first amendment of Constitution of the United States, which defends the principle of freedom of expression. In this regard, European institutions are implementing policy initiatives aimed at proposing international solutions for a safer online environment. Based on several years of research on these issues, the lecture will show the perspectives of different stakeholders involved in media use and policy-making, by paying particular attention to young people and European institutions. Through a sociological eye, the author pays attention to some of the main contemporary ethical challenges: on the one hand, the hedonistic universe of media consumption and, on the other, the ethical approaches adopted by policy-makers with regards to online harmful contents.

Agnese Pastorino, PhD, is an associate researcher at the Sorbonne University in Paris (CERLIS research center). Since 2010, her research focuses on sociological and political issues concerning the use of audiovisual harmful contents for youths and adolescents. She has been awarded a Marie Curie fellowship by the European Commission from 2014 to 2017. She’s a member of the ICA International Communication Association. Alongside her research activity, she worked on multimedia production and communication management in international organizations, such as European Commission (Safer Internet Programme, Luxembourg, 2013) and the United Nations (News & Media, New York, 2017).

Agnese Pastorino’s Featured Lecture is the Third Presentation in the Wendelmoot Symposium Series Sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature @ SDSU—additional support provided by MALAS, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences; and San Diego State University Press.

literature.sdsu.edu | wendelmoot.sdsu.edu

Sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature @ SDSU—additional support provided by MALAS, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences and San Diego State University Press

About the Origins of the Wendelmoot Symposium Series
An Interview with William Nericcio, Wendelmoot Curator, 2018-19

• What are your plans for the series (e.g., what events do you envision)?

I am planning to coordinate a series of lectures/presentations/performances entitled “The Crisis Crisis: Interdisciplinary Reactions to a World in Transition/Translation.” Drawing on a shortlist of international scholars and performers, both new and established, I hope to fashion a lecture series/events catalogue that will be a gathering site for exchange, dialogue, discovery and debate. I envision a series of at least 4 lectures and events. I want to maintain maximum flexibility so that the best speakers might be sought, but also so that the Wendelmoot Symposia will be woven into the fabric of the department, augmenting and complementing the Humanities in Action series as well as, if we are lucky enough to get a hire, the new faculty searches we will be running.

• What organizes your vision for the series (e.g., what are your motivating interests and reasons; how does this series strengthen or steer the department as a whole)?

Never before has fear and loathing, crisis and crisis management, been so near and dear to the hearts and minds of our faculty and our students. The realities of our current context— political and economic—coupled with the tenuousness of the entire academy (especially the Humanities) means that the subject of crisis is right at hand for ourselves and our colleagues. Developing a lecture series focused on “Crisis” allows us to convert a negative anxiety filled with the unknown, into an intellectual project that will assuage as it enlightens, relieve pressure as it illuminates the current cultural conundrums roiling Literature, to be sure, but a host of disciplines across the humanities and sciences. I envision the lecture series as serving to further allow for the evolution and strengthening of English and Comparative Literature ties to the Digital Humanities Initiative.