Roundtable: The New Ethereality

This roundtable is part of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s winter 2021 series “Media, Technology, and Politics under Pressure.” “The New Ethereality” will focus on the contemporary politics of wireless communication, with special attention paid to the cultural and governmental imaginaries that accrue to emerging wireless infrastructures like 5G. Wirelessness has long been embedded in a range of divergent cultural, political, and social narratives. Today, it is as central to the enduring promise of untrammeled global connectivity as it is to the paranoid divinations of conspiracy theorists. What is at stake in this volatile mix of epistemologies? How might historical debates regarding the possibilities, the substance, and indeed the very existence of the ether help us to grapple with a new era of ethereal speculation?

The roundtable will feature Marisa Duarte (Arizona State University), Shannon Mattern (New School for Social Research), and Rahul Mukherjee (University of Pennsylvania), and will be moderated by Tyler Morgenstern (UCSB).

This virtual event will take place via Zoom. The event is free but prior registration is required.