What's On Elsewhere at Birkbeck
The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities is supported by the following Schools:
At Birkbeck, you join a community of scholars - much of their research is conducted by research centres and institutes that enable our academics to concentrate on their particular interests. Among them are:
- The Birkbeck Institute for Social Research
- Centre for Media, Culture and Creative Practice
- Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Birkbeck, University of London
- London Consortium
More events at Birkbeck:
Birkbeck Film Season: Department of Psychosocial Studies and Gender Studies and Ralph Samuel CentreMay/June 2012 Birkbeck Cinema Gordon Square
Home Movies: Surveillance and the Family
From the Oresteia to The Godfather, the family has been a primary unit of drama and the site of tragedy. In Hollywood the family remains the preferred site of redemption as well as the ideal object to threaten with malevolent external forces. The family, it seems, must be protected at all costs but it is also persecuted by the relentless gaze and eaves-dropping of documentaries and reality TV. The extent and intensity of representations and observations of the family in contemporary visual culture testify to the psychic and social anxiety it evokes.
The main form of surveillance in the family has been the self-surveillance of the home movie and it is via this internal, reflexive gaze that we will be looking at the family in this series. In particular we will be examining the relationships between the vicissitudes of family life, audio-visual technologies, documentary and fantasy.
Screenings and Panel Discussions
Family Viewing (Atom Egoyan 1988) Wednesday May 30th Birkbeck Cinema 6pm-9pm
Panel: Professor Emma Wilson (Cambridge University) Dr Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary College, London) Chair: Dr Amber Jacobs (Birkbeck)
Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki 2002) Wednesday June 13th 6pm-9pm
Panel: Professor Mandy Merck (Royal Holloway, University of London), Dr Alisa Lebow (Brunel University) Chair: Dr Amber Jacobs (Birkbeck)
Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette 2003) Wednesday 20th June 6-9pm
Panel: Dr Catherine Grant (Sussex University), Dr Michael Lawrence (Sussex University) Chair: Gordon Hon (Winchester School of Art)
(Please note this is a free event and open to the public but the audience is asked to remain for the discussion)
Other Events
- Topology at the Tate
The spatial structure of the mind in relation to politics, culture, society, art, history, architecture. Topology: Secrets of Space
