Tickets for the ICA Boston Preconference on Aesthetics and Popular Culture are selling out fast. To make sure of your ring-side seat register now at the ICA website: http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2011/index.asp And the cost? A mere $50, including transport to and from the main conference hotel, breakfast, and lunch. For those of you who missed our global marketing campaign for this event, below is the full preconference line-up. The format will be discussion-based, workshop style. With the exception of the keynote address, presentations will be kept short: brief position papers and extended abstracts by the presenters will be circulated to all participants before the preconference to enable full participation from everyone attending. Attendance at the conference is not required to register for and attend the preconference. Placing the Aesthetic in Popular Culture: Quality, Value, and Beauty in Communication and Scholarship Co-sponsored by the Popular Communication, Philosophy of Communication, and Visual Communication Divisions 26th May 2011 9.00-17.00 Location: Emerson College, Boston (Transportation is provided to and from the main conference hotel) 9 – 9.30: Breakfast (provided onsite) and Opening Remarks 9.30 – 10.30: Keynote Address Speaker: Georgina Born (University of Oxford) Chair: David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds) 10.30 – 12.00: Experiencing the Aesthetic Chair: Paul Frosh (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Emily Easton "Turn to Stone: The Dangerous Impacts of Aesthetics on the Values of Popular Culture" (University of Illinois, Chicago) Paul Frosh (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “The Aesthetics of Inattention: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges” David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds) "Defending Aesthetic Experience" Annemarie Kersten (Erasmus University) & Denise Bielby (University of California, Santa Barbara), “Talk of the Talkies in the Twenty-First Century: Film Discourse on the Praised and Acclaimed” Eric W. Rothenbuhler (Ohio University), “The Banishment of Aesthetic Criticism” Cornel Sandvoss (University of Surrey), “Horizons of Expectations and the Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Media” 12.00 – 1.00: Lunch Break (lunch is provided on site) 1.00 – 2.15: The Politics and Ethics of Aesthetics Chair: Mark Andrejevic (University of Iowa) Lilie Chouliaraki (London School of Economics), “Post-Humanitarianism: The Visual Politics of Contemporary Solidarity” Ken Feil (Emerson College), “Camp and Circumstance: Aesthetics, Identity, and Mainstream Culture” Tim Markham (Birkbeck College), “The Rough-and-Ready Aesthetics of Citizen Journalism” Anna Roosvall (Örebro University), “Aesthetics, Geo-Politics, and Ethics of World News Pictures: Narratives and Meta-Narratives of ‘Good Picture’ Slideshows” Anamik Saha (University of Leeds), “The Aesthetic Politics of ‘Race’ and the Racialization of the Cultural Commodity” 2.15 – 3.30: Production Aesthetics Chair: Miranda Banks (Emerson College) Alex Leavitt (Microsoft Research), “‘Open-Source’ Culture and Networked Aesthetics” Johann Sumiala (University of Helsinki), “Participatory Aesthetics: Reflecting Ritual Practices of Non-Professional YouTube Posting” Katja Valaskivi (University of Tampere), “Capitalizing Creativity – Yet, Revival for Aesthetics?” Margaret Weigel (bambini media), “How the Digital is Impacting Perceptions of Quality in Aesthetic Domains” Espen Ytreberg (University of Oslo), “The Parts of Aesthetics ‘Authorship’ Does Not Reach” 3.30 – 3.45: Coffee Break 3.45 – 5.00: “Quality” TV Chair: Jonathan Gray (University of Wisconsin, Madison) Linus Andersson (Södertörn University), “Television Aesthetics Reconsidered: What Can Art Teach Us About the Medium?” Irene Costera Meijer (University of Amsterdam), “Quality Taste or Tasting Quality? The Value of Excellent Television from a Professional and an Audience Perspective” Deborah Jaramillo (Boston University), “Rescuing Television from the ‘Cinematic’: Why We Need to Take Television Form Seriously” Jason Mittell (Middlebury College), “The Quality of Complexity (and the Complexity of Quality)” Jane Shattuc (Emerson College), “The Lifetime Network: The Problem of Degraded Culture as Women’s Culture”