The Wellness Myth

Department: Film and Media Studies

Date and Time: May 10, 2018 | 9:30 AM-5:00 PM

Event Location: HG 1010

Event Details


The Wellness Myth

This day long conference is the culmination of two quarters of workshop discussions that we have been having on the topic of ‘wellness,’ economic history, ideologies of self-help and Silicon Valley’s embrace of ‘alternatives’ to public goods. Featuring Richard Barbrook (co-author of “The Californian Ideology,” Labour Party’s digital strategy consultant as well as co-founder of “Class War Games”) and Jennifer Silva, (author of Coming Up Short: Working Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty).

9:30 am
Opening Remarks: Catherine Liu

9:45-11:00 am
Richard Barbrook: “The Californian Ideology 2.0”

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Thomas Williams: “No Revolution is Possible: Depression and Late Capitalism”
Benjamin Krueger-Robbins: “Healing through Quality TV: AIDS Public Pedagogy and NBC’s 1980s Rebranding"
MacKenzie Weeks: “Independence In the Checkout Aisle: Self-Service, Self-Care, and the Twinned Logics of Management

12:30 – 1:30 pm
Lunch

1:30- 2:45 pm
Jennifer Silva: "Pain and Politics in the Heart of America"

2:45 – 4:15 pm
Annie Yaniga: "Forging Elite Fitness: CrossFit and the Biopolitics of Health, Becoming, and Self-Care"
Devan Bailey: "Therapeutic Self-Poiesis: Jerry Rubin’s Reverse Bildungsroman"
Michael Mahoney: "With the Right Amount of Creativity, Even Volatility Can Smile: Corporate Animism and the Insanity of Wellness in the Age of Crisis"

4:15 – 4:30 pm
Break

4:30 pm
Concluding Roundtable Discussion with Richard Barbrook, Jennifer Silva, and Catherine Liu

This project has been made possible by grants from Medical Humanities, Humanities Commons as well as support from the Department of Film and Media Studies, the Institute for Virtual Environmentsand Games, Culture and Capital and the Critical Theory Institute