Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

1200 new exo-planets possibly similar to Earth in one sector of space, nine planets orbiting our sun,
one planet sheltering all life as we know it. Yet just how do we all get along? Across time, in space,
at this place, we find the human race. Imagine driving a car. You can’t really see where you’re
going, the windscreen is dusty; can’t really see where you come from, the mirror is foggy; you’re in
a hurry, don’t want to ask for directions, doing 119km per hour and you’re in second gear. She’ll be
right mate, we have image nation a place we call Australia. This is a talk that considers what
security means in a world that is joined and fragmented.
Laikwan Pang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong), Laikwan Pang is Professor of Cultural Studies in the
Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the author of
a few books, including The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)
and Creativity and Its Discontents: China’s Creative Industries and Intellectual Property Right Offense (Duke
University Press, 2012). Her latest manuscript, The Art of Cloning: Cultural Production during China’s
Cultural Revolution, is forthcoming from Verso.
Abstract:
“The Agony of Freedom: Debates around Hong Kong Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014”
This paper discusses the Hong Kong government’s recent withdrawal of its Copyright Bill
Amendment after netizens’ tremendous protests. Copyright becomes a highly politicized site of
contestation in Hong Kong after the Umbrella Movement, when the local people’s distrust of the
SAR government increases, and press freedom declines. This amendment is meant to step up
copyright protections against online piracy. But many local people find the internet the only safe
haven where freedom of expression can be exercised. The original commercial concerns of the
copyright owners are quickly sidelined by the epidemic political anxieties, and the netizens worry
that this copyright bill could become legal means to stamp the little freedom of expression left in
this city. This paper analyzes how copyright becomes a battlefield in Hong Kong’s fight for
democracy, and how the commercial interests of the right holders collide and contest with the
political interests of the public.
Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku), Susanna Paasonen is professor of Media Studies at University of
Turku, Finland. With an interest in studies of sexuality, popular culture, affect and media theory, she is
most recently the author of Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography (MITP 2011) as well as coeditor
of Working with Affect in Feminist Readings: Disturbing Differences (Routledge 2010) and Networked
Affect (MITP 2015). Her current research topics range from theories of distraction to sexual play, network
failure, monster toon porn and the uses of the tag, #NSFW.
Abstract:
“Boredom, frustration, distraction: affective oscillations and networked media”
As work, leisure and combinations thereof are increasingly organized through smart devices and
online platforms, network connectivity has grown into a matter of infrastructure without which
individual and collective lives no longer feel quite manageable. This talk examines the affective
dynamics of ubiquitous connectivity in the framework of attention economy trading in eyeballs,
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