Share 
About the Symposium
How does the group that calls itself “Islamic State” communicate? How has Islamic State been understood and contested? The Third Biennial CARGC Symposium seeks to explore and understand the players, patterns and practices that have mediated Islamic State: the communicative ways in which the group has been studied, reported on, visualized, narrated, mocked, spoofed, and resisted. We use “mediation” rather than “media” to shift public discourse on Islamic State beyond the focus on technology that has characterized research on media and socio-political change generally, and Islamic State communication in particular. Rather, we seek to understand the historical, ideological, technological, and cultural complexity of Islamic State, meshing translocal struggles with global geopolitics. Mediation connotes a broad approach to media which includes words, images, bodies, platforms, and the expressive capacities and meaning making practices that communicators generate when they deploy these media. Grounded in CARGC’s mission to advance a global media studies that fuses multidisciplinary regional knowledge with theory and methodology in the humanities and social sciences, the symposium spurs a critical conversation that promises a new understanding of the transnational nexus of communication, identity and violence.
Schedule
Thursday, April 5, 2018 | Annenberg School for Communication, Room 500
3:30 – 4:00 PM
Welcome Reception
4:00 – 4:05 PM
Welcome
Michael X. Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication
4:05 – 4:10 PM
Introduction
Marwan M. Kraidy, Director, CARGC
4:10 – 5:30 PM
Panel I: Journalism, Satire, Drama
Ahmed Albasheer, Writer/Host/Director: Al-Basheer Show
Shereen El Meligi, Senior Manager – Content: O3 Productions, MBC Group
Rafia Zakaria, Author/Columnist: DAWN
Friday, April 6, 2018 | Annenberg School for Communication, Room 109
8:30 – 9:00 AM
Breakfast & Registration
9:00 – 9:15 AM
Introduction & Welcome
Marwan M. Kraidy, Director, CARGC
9:15 – 10:45 AM
Panel II: Rhetoric, Network, Sovereignty
Roxanne L. Euben, Wellesley College
Spectacles of Sovereignty in Digital Time: ISIS Executions, Visual Rhetoric and Sovereign Power
Brian Hughes, American University
Lone Wolf in the Hypertext: The Internet and Pseudo-Ideological Violence
Michael Krona, Malmö University, Sweden
Collaborative Media Practices and Interconnected Digital Strategies of Islamic State (IS) and Pro-IS Supporter Networks on Telegram
Philippe-Joseph Salazar, University of Cape Town
A Caliphate Standing in Time: The Literacy of Terror
Chair: Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania
10:45 – 11:00 AM
Break
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Panel III: Spectacle, Aesthetics, Temporality
Yara Damaj, American University of Beirut
The Islamic State: Politics by Other Means
Nathaniel Greenberg, George Mason University
Khalifah Ad Absurdum: On the Communicative Aesthetics of the Islamic State Group
Lina Khatib, Chatham House
"Traces" of the Islamic State
Bashir Saade, University of Stirling
ISIS and Game of Thrones: The Global between Tradition, Identity and the Politics of Spectacle
Chair: Samira Rajabi, CARGC, Annenberg School for Communication
12:30 – 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 – 2:45 PM
Panel IV: Image, Sound, Affect
Kareem El Damanhoury, Georgia State University
The Social Media Battle for Mosul: Visual Framing Analysis of Daesh’s Imagery in Ninawa Province
Rayya El Zein, CARGC, Annenberg School for Communication
Hearing Familiar Friends and Foes: Sonic Racialization and the Mediation of IS
Christoph Günther, University of Mainz
Iconic Socioclasm: Idol-Breaking and the Dawn of a New Social Order
Chair: Jamal Elias, University of Pennsylvania
2:45 – 3:00 PM
Break
3:00 – 4:15 PM
Panel V: Body, Gender, Power
Heather Jaber, CARGC, Annenberg School for Communication
Mediation, Moderation, and Melodrama: The Portrayal of ISIS in Al Gharabeeb Al Soud
Weeda Mehran, Georgia State University
“You Will be More Beautiful, Have More Jewelries, and a Wardrobe Full of Fine Dresses”: The Promise of Heavenly Rewards for Female Militancy
Mohammed Salih, CARGC, Annenberg School for Communication
The Islamic State and Biopolitics: Power, Triviality and the Camp
Chair: Yasemin Y. Celikkol, CARGC, Annenberg School for Communication
4:15 – 4:45 PM
Discussion & Concluding Remarks
4:45 – 5:30 PM
Reception
This event is co-sponsored by the Middle East Center and Perry World House.
Contact: marina.krikorian@asc.upenn.edu