“Global Media, Global Spectacles,” the 3rd Annual Global Studies Symposium to be held Feb. 26

The 3rd Annual Whitman College Global Studies Symposium focuses on the topic of “Global Media, Global Spectacles.” The symposium features invited external speakers from different disciplines and Whitman student and faculty respondents. It takes place Saturday, Feb. 26 from 1-4 p.m. in Maxey Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

According to Bruce Magnusson, Whitman associate professor of politics, “In the context of media spectacles, speakers will address media coverage of the uprising in North Africa and the Middle East, the conversion of the Rocky Flats nuclear site into a nature preserve, and the evolution-creationism debate in the Islamic world.”

Speakers include:
•    Douglas Kellner, philosophy of education chair of social sciences and comparative education, University of California-Los Angeles.  “Media Spectacle and the North Africa Arab Uprisings: Some Critical Reflections"
•    Shiloh Krupar, assistant professor of geography, The Culture and Politics Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. "Transnatural Camp: The Post-Nuclear Nature Spectacle of Rocky Flats"
•    Salman Hameed, assistant professor of integrated science and humanities and the Five College Astronomy Department, Hampshire College. "Navigating Modernity: Islam, Science and Global Media"

The symposium will be moderated by Whitman’s Bill Bogard, Deburgh Chair of social sciences and professor of sociology. Whitman faculty discussants are Gaurav Majumdar, assistant professor of English, and Delbert Hutchison, associate professor of biology. There also will be three student commentators.

Funded by a $345,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Global Studies Initiative, now in its third year, is comprised of annual faculty seminars, symposia that engage the Whitman and Walla Walla communities, and workshops and course development exercises – all focused on incorporating global issues, perspectives and critical analyses into Whitman’s liberal arts curriculum.