Creative and Cultural Industries in Times of Crisis

A half-day symposium (including refreshments and wine reception)

Location: 1.17 and 1.18, Clothworkers Building North

This half-day symposium brings together five speakers to explore the contemporary crisis facing the media, creative and cultural industries in the West. At the heart of this crisis is a growing backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion—one that is being amplified by reactionary forces across politics, media and digital culture. Topics will include the rise of reactionary feminist discourse in anti-EDI debates, what the backlash against diversity reveals about the politics of race and nationalism , and the influence of online masculinist spaces on the values and attitudes of early-career male creatives in the UK screen industries.

Schedule

2-3:30pm - Gendered Backlashes: Reactionary Feminisms and Masculinities in Media Today (Chair: Anamik Saha)

Jilly Kay – ‘Feminism in the digital mirror-world: reactionary feminism, post-liberalism, and “left” arguments against equality’

David Lee – ‘Ambivalent masculinities: Digital culture, precarity, and disaffection in the UK screen industries’

Akane Kanai – ‘Everyday feminist reactivism in times of crisis  

3:30-4pm – coffee break

4-5pm: The Crisis of Diversity in the Cultural Industries (Chair: Hannah Curran-Troop)

Rosalind Gil– ‘From critiquing ‘diversity’ to diversity under attack: inequalities and injustice in the creative sector in a new conjuncture?’

Anamik Saha – "The crisis of diversity and the politics of race in the twenty-first century

5-6pm: Wine Reception

About the speakers

Professor Rosalind Gill - Professor of Inequalities in Media, Culture and Creative Industries, Goldsmiths, University of London

Dr Akane Kanai- Assistant Professor in Sociology, University of Warwick

Dr Jilly Kay- Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media,
University of Leicester

Dr David Lee - Associate Professor in Media and Communication, University of Leeds

Professor Anamik Saha - Professor of Race and Media, University of Leeds