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This essay examines the 2010 NBC situation comedy Outsourced, with special attention to its representation of the racial politics surrounding business process outsourcing to India. Specifically, it discusses how Outsourced participates in what Jodi Melamed calls “neoliberal multiculturalism” to work through, symbolically and narratively, the realities and contradictions of globalized economies as they are experienced. By staging the dilemmas of outsourcing through the specter of the white male middle manager traveling to India to train Indian call center workers, Outsourced minimizes the affective labor necessarily performed by Indian call center workers and dramatizes outsourcing as a crisis of white U.S. masculinity alone. Moreover, it figures our white male protagonist as the global multicultural citizen to be emulated insofar as he models the appropriate attitude toward outsourcing and toward “other” cultures in general. Finally it suggests that the failure of the show has less to do with issues of cultural stereotyping and more to do with the failure of neoliberal multiculturalism to soothe anxieties around changing global economies.

There was a time in Indian television when actors who had limited luck in the Hindi film industry would migrate to Indian television. By the 1990s, with the beginning of television’s transformation in India owing to economic liberalization, the converse was also occasionally true with former TV actors such as Shahrukh Khan and Vidya Balan becoming successful in Hindi cinema. The boundaries between Indian film and television were slowly becoming blurred toward the end of the twentieth century. Yet, the migration of stars from the big screen to the small was still considered a “failure” and the less common movement from television to film was deemed more successful. In the twenty-first century, however, television is no longer considered a consolation medium. The Hollywood television debut of the hugely successful Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra in a leading role on the TV show Quantico (USA, ABC, 2015–2018) and her subsequent numerous appearances on American television talk and award shows, including the Oscars, offer a prime example of television as a competitive medium for established stars. However, Chopra’s case is noteworthy for exemplifying not just star mobility between film and TV but also across national industries. Her move to American TV testifies to the increasing transnational viability of Bollywood stars in the twenty-first century. Importantly, the uptake of her rise on the American TV screen has been seen as part of the broader arrival of South Asian performers on American TV. But her success differs from Indian actors of American origin whose trajectory recapitulates the immigrant narrative of breaking free of stereotypical roles to play realistic, meaningful characters on the screen. Chopra’s representational currency and her “global” Indian English accent instantiate the logic of televisual mobility – her transnational screen navigations speak, not to a teleological moment of arrival on the American screen but her ability to make professional choices that enable her to represent Indians everywhere.

Television delivery throughout the world has changed rapidly over the past two decades. Within South Africa, much of this global narrative is repeated. The last 25 years saw a move from a single monopoly broadcaster within the ‘public service’ tradition (but later subsumed into the apartheid political agenda), to the present situation of a multi-company, multi-platform, increasingly digital delivery, calling into question even the very definition of ‘broadcasting’. ‘Global difference’ in South Africa plays out through a relatively late start but surprisingly short catch-up period, emphasizing a demographic/socio-economic specificity that has resulted in a highly skewed television market in which the uptake of high-end technology is less widespread than in other more ‘developed’ markets, and where the taste of local programming dominates even the technologically advanced sectors. The move toward a digital system, together with the introduction of competition, has provided challenges to the regulatory regime. The majority of the audience share, however, remains with local programming, regardless of its delivery.

The chapter traces the evolution of Chinese television since 1958 from a state propaganda organ to a profit-generating media juggernaut, with China Central Television (CCTV) as the only network TV responding to both market principles and party directives. Commercialization and marketization played a major role in the rapid development of the Chinese television industry. In recent years China’s TV industry has witnessed the rise of private media companies and the rapid expansion of digital media and the proliferation of over the top (OTT) content. The chapter further provides an overview of China’s overall TV structures and teases out the relationship between CCTV and local stations. The most popular genre on Chinese TV is serial drama, which developed from predominantly single-episode anthology dramas in the 1980s to chiefly multi-episode serial dramas. Talk shows and reality TV became fashionable since the late 1990s.

As a case study, this article examines the development of China’s online game industry and how China responds to the forces of globalization. Based on in-depth interviews, ethnographic research, and the analysis of archive documents from the past few years, this study identifies China’s evolving strategy of neo-techno-nationalism. In the Chinese context, this national strategy manipulates technology to create a version of popular nationalism that is both acceptable to and easily censored by the authorities. Therefore, cultural industries that adopt this strategy stand a good chance of prevailing in the Chinese market. This success explains why the regional competitors of Chinese online games—Korean games—are more successful in China than most of their Western counterparts. By providing a snapshot of the current ecology of China’s online game industry, this article also discusses the influence of regional and global forces in a concrete context and argues that the development of China’s online game industry depends more on political factors than economic factors.

Aucune étude n’a jamais démontré que les formes médiatiques disposeraient d’un pouvoir direct de transformation des réalités sociales. Une approche critique un peu sérieuse préférera ainsi appréhender le jeu vidéo comme le site d’un ensemble de rapports de pouvoir opérant au sein de la culture dominante, traversé, à l’instar d’autres formes culturelles, par des contradictions, des résistances et des réappropriations – autrement dit par des circulations dans la production de sens, les formes et les affects, qui viennent renforcer, nuancer ou déstabiliser les normes de l’hégémonie culturelle. Depuis le début des années 2010 et en particulier la polémique du #GamerGate en 2014, la communauté vidéoludique ne peut plus ignorer le sexisme. Les féministes n’ont pourtant pas attendu si longtemps pour se manifester. Mais c’est peut-être l’année 2012 qui marqua un réel tournant, lorsque Anita Sarkeesian lança une campagne de crowdfunding pour une série de vidéos sur sa chaîne YouTube feministfrequency. Sa démarche déclencha une vague de cyberharcèlement qui alla des insultes aux menaces de mort et jusqu’à la publication de données personnelles. Ce modèle de violence sexiste s’est reproduit à de multiples reprises, notamment en France en 2013 à l’encontre de la créatrice de jeu et féministe Mar_Lard, attaquée pour sa critique argumentée du sexisme dans la culture geek. Elle revenait en particulier sur des propos plus que complaisants d’un journaliste à propos d’une séquence où le personnage de Lara Croft, héroïne du mythique je…

Computer Science education research establishes collaboration among students as a key component in learning, particularly its role in pair programming. Furthermore, research shows that girls, an underrepresented population in computing, benefit from collaborative learning environments, contributing to their persistence in CS. However, too few studies examine the role and benefits of collaborative learning, especially collaborative talk, among African-American girls in the context of complex tasks like designing video games for social change. In this exploratory study, we engage 4 dyads of African-American middle school girls in the task of designing a video game for social change, recording the dyads' conversations with their respective partners over an eight-week summer game design experience during the second year of what has now become a six-year study. Qualitative analysis of dyadic collaborative discussion reveals how collaborative talk evolves over time in African-American middle-school girls.

En 2014, une collaboration entre le studio Upper One Games et des conteurs et aînés iñupiats d’Alaska a mené au lancement du jeu vidéo Kisima Inŋitchuŋa (Never Alone). Ce jeu de plateforme invite à une immersion poétique dans un univers nordique guidée par une trame narrative inspirée d’une légende traditionnelle. Dans une perspective culturelle, les fonctions ludique et documentaire du jeu permettent d’acquérir des connaissances en lien avec les pratiques traditionnelles et la vision du monde des Iñupiats. Ainsi, l’étude exploratoire présentée dans cet article contribue à comprendre les caractéristiques du jeu (design, narration, mécaniques) et les stratégies relevant de sa conception. Les résultats invitent à reconsidérer des représentations dominantes du Grand Nord et soulignent en quoi le jeu vidéo se fait vecteur d’expression du patrimoine culturel, artistique et oral d’un peuple autochtone de l’Arctique.

Parution dans la revue Diogène d’un article co-écrit avec James Berclaz-Lewis. En dépit de la publication de travaux importants depuis les années 1990, le champ disciplinaire des études ciném…

CMS,Netcommons,Maple

This article presents the ways in which Japanese survival horror employs video games as a tool for cultural representation. First, it analyses the main differences between American and Japanese horror, and how the historical relationships of competition/collaboration between both have led to a constant exchange of cultural references present in their games. This relationship of domination/submission traces back to the post-war period in which the United States began exercising control over Japan. It is as a result of this period that Japanese terror begins to take shape and take its first steps towards the current J-Horror. Second, it analyses the work of game designer Keiichiro Toyama, namely Silent Hill and Siren, as a well-known example of the construction of a cultural identity halfway between the devotion to the Other and the respect for tradition. Finally, the article addresses other examples of Japanese survival horror to analyse more deeply which stance Japanese industry takes in this era of cultural globalization, or hyperculturality, which is seriously transforming our conception of culture in digital media.

Avec Alex Wilson, Jeffrey McNeil, Teddy Syrette, May Ela and Ahmed Maswadeh.

Where do computer games "happen"? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of "space", "place" and "territory" featuring in most general theories of space to lay the groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these.

"Women have long been the creative force behind Native American art, yet their individual contributions have been largely unrecognized, instead treated as anonymous representations of entire cultures. 'Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists' explores the artistic achievements of Native women and establishes their rightful place in the art world. This lavishly illustrated book, a companion to the landmark exhibition, includes works of art from antiquity to the present, made in a variety of media from textiles and beadwork to video and digital arts. It showcases more than 115 artists from the United States and Canada, spanning over one thousand years, to reveal the ingenuity and innovation fthat have always been foundational to the art of Native women."--Page 4 de la couverture.

Ce travail vise à montrer deux choses. La première, c’est de saisir toute l’importance du tournant postcolonial/afro-décolonial dans la construction d’une contre-épistémologie propre au sujet culturel colonisé africain. En d’autres termes, pour le sujet colonisé, cette contre-épistémologie sert à décoloniser les imaginaires, à partir d’un questionnement de la colonialité de l’épistémologie et du savoir donnés pour universels par l’occident. La deuxième chose, c’est que ̶ à quelques mois de la commémoration du centenaire de la naissance du prolixe et polygraphe auteur africain-colombien Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920-2004) ̶ cet article puisse le situer à sa juste place. Celle d’un sujet culturel colonisé africain des Amériques dont l’abondante production culturelle et la pensée, portées et révolutionnées par le concept de Muntu africain, participent de la décolonisation des imaginaires et de l’épistémologie

Pairing Dominican-born artist Firelei Báez with Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu, this article meditates on relational black and brown aesthetic strategies by reading femme gestures performatively across individual works, as well as the exhibition spaces within which the artists draft practices of informed and resistant engagement. Working with both theories of brownness that emerge from Latinx studies as well as scholarship of the black radical tradition, the author follows a sense of shared aesthetic gestures in Báez and Mutu’s work toward an indictment of pervasive Global North racial epistemologies. Focusing on the performative gesture as the basis for relation, this article ultimately hones in on the chimeric figures—amalgamations of flora and fauna—that both artists deploy, arguing that these present a model for imagining an otherwise arrangement of the social.R Poniendo en diálogo a Firelei Báez, una artista nacida en República Dominicana, con Wangechi Mutu, que nació en Kenia, este artículo invita a una meditación sobre las estrategias estéticas relacionales negras y morenas mediante una lectura en clave performativa de gestos femeninos en obras individuales y en aquellos espacios de exposición en que las artistas elaboran prácticas de participación política informada y de resistencia. Trabajando tanto con las teorías de lo moreno (brownness) que emergen de los estudios Latinx como con el trabajo académico de la tradición radical negra, la autora rastrea gestos estéticos presentes tanto en el trabajo de Báez como en el de Mutu para denunciar las omnipresentes epistemologías raciales del norte global. Centrándose en el gesto performativo como la base de la relación, este artículo se enfoca en última instancia en las figuras quiméricas – amalgamaciones de flora y fauna – que ambas artistas despliegan en su trabajo para sostener que estas presentan un modelo para imaginar otra manera de organizar lo social.

En esta charla conversaremos sobre las luchas históricas por la reivindicación de los derechos del pueblo afro que están detrás de su estética, específicamente en dos de sus expresiones femeninas: el turbante afro y el pelo natural, los cuales han servido como elementos de resistencia para la pervivencia de las prácticas y costumbres ancestrales. Como parte de la exposición temporal del Museo del Oro 'A bordo de un navío esclavista, La Marie-Séraphique' (que se presentó en Bogotá del 7 de octubre de 2018 al 7 de abril de 2019) hablamos en el museo sobre algunos peinados ancestrales, como la espina de pescado, las tropas, el hundidito, el ciempiés y la vicha, y sobre los usos, significados y modelos de los turbantes afro, como la cadena del esclavo, la autoridad, el kitambala, el enkeycha y el doek. El termino mata ‘e pelo surge de las expresiones propias de nuestras ancestras, que se referían al pelo afro cómo una gran mata (árbol), frondosa, incontrolable y rizada, que requería unos cuidados particulares por su condición crespa, abundante y diversa. El cuerpo de la mujer negra, raizal y palenquera ha estado históricamente ligado a las luchas por la reivindicación de los derechos del pueblo afro, siendo la mata ‘e pelo el elemento estético que más las ha transmitido. Entre las personas de ancestros africanos, la estética del pelo afro se remonta a un pasado cargado de lucha y resistencia, pues las trenzas fueron usadas para la elaboración de mapas que marcaban el camino a la libertad de los cimarrones. Las mujeres se reunían en el patio para peinar a las más pequeñas. Diseñaban en su cabeza un mapa lleno de caminitos y salidas de escape, en el que ubicaban los montes, ríos y árboles más altos. Así, al verlas, los hombres sabían cuáles rutas tomar. Su código, desconocido para los amos, les permitía a los esclavizados huir. El balance humano de la trata de cautivos africanos a través del Atlántico es dramático: con una inmensa brutalidad, desplazó a 13 millones de hombres, mujeres y niños entre la segunda mitad del siglo XVI y finales del siglo XIX. #ElMuseoDelOroTambiénEsAfro Producción Banco de la República Realización Santiago Martínez

Cet article se penche sur les relations et collaborations récentes entre les cinéastes autochtones et québécois. Une brève exploration des représentations autochtones antérieures et du contexte contemporain de co-réalisation Québec/Autochtonie nous permet d’esquisser un portrait plus nuancé des nouvelles configurations transnationales du paysage cinématographique québécois. De même, les notions d’autochtonisation du médium, de souveraineté visuelle et de survivance nous aideront à mieux cerner les œuvres de fiction réalisées par des cinéastes autochtones, qui contribuent à l’enrichissement d’un cinéma qui propose de nouvelles façons d’habiter les territoires québécois/autochtones.

Queer cinema, no matter how rebellious, is the child of straight cinema-its bastard child, perhaps, but its progeny no less. Queer cinema must push against decades of tradition to create itself anew. Borrowed genres and hand-me-down narratives have served their purpose. If the (curated though not novel) propositions and (recent though not unique) examples that follow point anywhere, it is to a still-to-be-imagined future where queer cinema can continue to expand while never ceding its right to be "nice" in order to serve those it portrays.