Memetics and Mimesis: The Memosphere in the Public Sphere
This conference is part of a four-part project investigating the aesthetics, pragmatics, and politics of contemporary meme culture and its online public sphere. Dartmouth College, February 23-24, 2024
Schedule of Events
Friday, February 23, 2024
8.30AM – 9.00AM / Breakfast (Haldeman Center 031)
9.00AM – 11.15AM / Welcome & Keynote 1 (Haldeman Center 031)
Nirvana Tanoukhi (Dartmouth College):
Brief Welcome Remarks
Ryan Milner (College of Charleston, Department of Communication):
“Can You Close Read a Meme?”
Respondent: Paloma Duong (MIT, Comparative Media Studies)
11.15AM – 12.30PM / Lunch at Exhibit (The Design Loft - ECSC 007)
Brown Bag Lunch and Group Visit to Meme Exhibit
12.45AM – 2.30PM / Panel 1 (Haldeman Center 031)
Moderator: Patricia Stuelke (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing)
Nirvana Tanoukhi (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing):
“What Is a Good Meme?”
Paloma Duong (MIT, Comparative Media Studies):
“Of Mines and Memes: Mapping Contemporary Political Imaginaries in LatinAMerica”
Jaime Chu (Independent Scholar) (Zoom):
“To Whom This Facebook Group May Concern: Memeing Social Change in Post-2019 Hong Kong”
2.45PM – 4.30PM / Panel 2 (Haldeman Center 031)
Moderator: Andrew McCann (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing)
Chris Kelly (University of Wisconsin-Madison, English):
“‘Heaven knows I’m miserable now’: Nichetok, Corecore, and the Question of Digital Refamiliarization”
Sophie Schweiger (Yale, Germanic Languages and Literatures):
“Memes and Ressentiment”
Christine Goding-Doty (The New School, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts):
“Cake or Fake?: Memes, Coloniality, and the Hyperreal”
4.45PM – 6.30PM / Panel 3 / (Haldeman Center 041) **Room change
Moderator: Alysia Garrison (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing)
Kyle Parry (UC Santa Cruz, History of Art and Visual Culture)
“Memes Beyond the Viral”
Russ Castronovo (University of Wisconsin-Madison, English)
“Memes and the Optical Unconscious”
Ranjodh Dhaliwal (University of Notre Dame, English)
“Cringe Memetics: On Internet Aesthetics and the Upcycling of Trash”
7.00PM / Dinner (Pine , 2 E Wheelock St., Hanover 03755)
Saturday, February 24, 2024
8.30AM – 9.00AM / Breakfast (Haldeman Center 041)
9.00AM – 10.45AM / Keynote 2 (Haldeman Center 031)
Nan Z. Da (Johns Hopkins University, English):
“Inferred Data”
Respondent: Aden Evens (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing)
11.00AM- 12.30PM / Memes 101 (Haldeman Center 041)
Moderator: Liam Kruger (University of Notre Dame, English)
Eleanora Alloway ‘26
“Misconceptions About Meme Culture, A Show and Tell”
Jack Vawrinek ’26 and Chris Eaton ‘26
“On Shitposting”
12.15PM – 1.15PM / Lunch (Paganucci Lounge at Class of 1953 Commons)
1.30PM – 3.30PM / Panel 4 (Haldeman Center 041)
Moderator: Aden Evens (Dartmouth College, English & Creative Writing)
Kennedy Hamblen, Ethan Demartinis, Alyssa Noseworthy, Xiaoyu Wei:
“Authors in the Memosphere”
James Yeku (University of Kansas, African and African-American Studies) (Zoom):
“Cultural Netizenship and the Intermediality of the Nigerian Memesphere”
Mehak Khan (University of Notre Dame, English):
“Qandeel and her Afterlives: Self-making through Memes in Pakistani Public Culture”
Liam Kruger (University of Notre Dame, English)
“Can You Historicize a Meme?”
3.45PM – 4.45PM / Closing Reception (Haldeman Center 041, location subject to change)
With many thanks to our sponsors:
New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) • Ethics Institute at Dartmouth • Design Initiative at Dartmouth (DIAD)
Leslie Center for the Humanities • Department of English and Creative Writing • Wright Center •
The Writing Program (IWR) • Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program (MALS) • Rockefeller Center for Public Policy
Department of Film & Media Studies • Department of Asian Societies, Languages, and Cultures
Department of Art History