COMMColloquium Series: Aswin Punathambekar

March 3, 2025
3:00 pm
Mann Library, 102
COMMColloquium
Identity at the Limits of Representation
Aswin Punathambekar, Distinguished Lecturer, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
3 pm in 102 Mann
Reception to follow in the Hub
Given the continual and savvy recognition by the state and the media industries of various kinds of social and cultural difference, how should we approach breakthroughs in media representation? If racism in Western, multi-ethnic societies operates in the context of increased, not less, visibility, how do we make representation matter anew? I approach these questions by focusing attention on how Muslimness in Western television entertainment is being reimagined in the context of new industrial logics and techno-cultural possibilities enabled by streaming video services and social media platforms. Taking stock of shows including Ms Marvel (Disney+), Ramy (Hulu), Man Like Mobeen (BBC/Netflix), and We Are Lady Parts (Channel 4/Peacock), this talk will develop an account of diasporic worldmaking that captures marginalized communities’ deeply felt desires for being seen and heard, the representational moves that media workers are crafting, and the translocal networks that diasporic media professionals are forging in order to imagine and produce new cultural worlds.
Aswin Punathambekar is a Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC). His work explores media and cultural change in postcolonial and diasporic contexts, with a focus on media industries and institutions, formations of audiences and publics, and cultural identity and politics. He takes cultural and historical approaches to studying global media and communication with focus on South Asia, the U.S., and the U.K. He has authored and edited several books including A Mobile Popular: Media, Culture, and Politics in Digital India (forthcoming, NYU Press) and Planet Digital (co-edited with Adrienne Shaw and Jonathan Gray, forthcoming from NYU Press), and Media Industry Studies (Polity). He is now shifting attention to a new book project, provisionally titled Television and British Asian Culture: From Broadcasting to Streaming Media.
arch 3
Additional Information
Program
South Asia Program