• Date of Event: 8th March  2018
  • Name of Organization: Centre for Media Research, and the Arts and Humanities Research Institute Ulster University, Northern Ireland
  • Contact Email: hashtagresist2018@gmail.com
  • Organisers: Dr Giuliana Monteverde and Dr Victoria McCollum (Ulster University)
  • Deadline for Abstracts: 30th November 2017
  • Website: cstonline.nethashtagresist.wordpress.com/

We invite papers that explore protest and resistance in relation to Brexit Britain and the Trump-era United States. We are interested in media created in response to these seismic periods of political change, media created in the period leading up to them, and media that more broadly deals with themes related to populism, politics, and power. As well as discussing media that can be seen as protest or resistance, this event will consider media forms that fail to resist, or those that merely hint at protest. In doing this we can also consider the responsibility of media creators to engage in and respond to political shifts and crises.

As well as focusing on media texts themselves, the discourses around them, and the political potentials within them, we wish to consider the broader ramifications and responsibilities of living through periods of extreme political turmoil. Do we bring these texts and conversations into our classrooms? Do we discuss them with family and friends? What is the role of popular media in creating and facilitating conversations about social injustice, political participation, and critical literacy?

Our definition of ‘media’ is broad, including: Television and Film (all genres); Radio and Podcasts; Social Media, Memes and Viral Videos; Political Commentary and Punditry; and Print Media, Political Cartoons and Published Polemics.

How does comedy call attention to, and call out, dominant narratives and political injustices? How do documentary and political news-shows present issues from an ‘objective’ (aka masculine, straight, white, middle-class) perspective? How do political dramas create a reality with higher stakes than that which is playing out across the UK and US?  What does it mean that the President of the USA uses a social media platform as his main form of communication?

This event will parse these questions, and is interested in any others that contributors would like to pose. Below is a list of suggested themes and texts; please feel free to submit abstracts addressing these or to propose themes from your own research and teaching.

Suggested Themes and Texts:
  • Anti-Immigration and Building Walls
  • Black Lives Matter: The NFL Protests and White Supremacists in the Streets
  • Brexit and Trump in Global Media
  • Comedy Panel Shows: Have I Got News for You; Mock the Week; The Last Leg
  • Documentary: Grayson Perry: Divided Britain; Brexit: The Movie; Brexit Means Brexit: The Unofficial Version; Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time; Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
  • Dystopian Drama: The Handmaid’s Tale; The Man in the High Castle; Black Mirror; Westworld; The Leftovers
  • Economics on Screen: I, Daniel Blake; The Big Short; Inside Job; Too Big to Fail
  • Gender and The Glass Cliff: Theresa May, Arlene Foster and Nicola Sturgeon
  • Hashtag Resistance: #Resist #LoveTrumpsHate #NotMyPresident #TheResistance
  • Late Night US Talk Shows: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; The Late Show With Stephen Colbert; Jimmy Kimmel Live!; The Late Late Show with James Corden; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; The Daily Show; Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
  • ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!’: Political Protest through Memes
  • Podcasting Politics: Distraction Pieces; The Russell Brand Podcast; The Bugle; Throwing Shade
  • Political Drama: House of Cards; Game of Thrones; The Good Wife; Scandal; The Death of Stalin
  • Political Horror: Get Out; The Purge: Election Year; American Horror Story
  • Politics in Animation: Zootopia; South Park; Rick and Morty
  • Politics on British Television: Daily Politics; Question Time; The Andrew Marr Show
  • Post-Brexit Hate-Crime: Homophobia, Islamophobia, and Transphobia
  • Predictions, Polls and Pundits: Referendum/Election Coverage
  • Pride: LGBTQ Solidarity
  • Stranger than Fiction: Satire and Political Comedy
  • Solidarity: Deportations, Social Media and Boycotting
  • Teaching Trump: TV Studies and Fake News
  • The Special Relationship: Nigel Farage and British “Legitimacy” in Trumpland/The intersections of Brexit and Trump’s USA
  • The War on Women continued: Reproductive Health, Female Leaders, and Postfeminist Complicity
  • The White Working Class: Discourses of class around Brexit and Trump
  • Trump and Twitter: Responding to the President in 140 characters or less
  • Unlikely Leaders and Reluctant Media: Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May, and Donald Trump
Submission Guidelines:

Abstracts for 20minute papers should be 250 words or less, with a 50-word biography, and sent to hashtagresist2018@gmail.com by 30th November, 2017

Notifications made by: 7th December, 2017

Keynote Speaker TBC

The organisers are also open to receiving panel submissions (of approximately 3-4 related papers), and are interested in non-traditional forms such as performance, short-films, sketches, workshops, Q+As and so on. We welcome submissions from scholars in full-time or temporary positions, Masters and PhD students, Early Career Academics, Postdoctoral Candidates, and Independent Scholars.