The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Bloggers in Cairo's Tahrir Square

Twenty-first century international affairs cannot be understood in isolation from global media. Media can no longer be regarded as a mere observer or recorder of worldwide events, an inert and separate Fourth Estate. It is growingly an influential actor in its own right, dynamically defining, reshaping, and conditioning the fundamental character of international discourse. Nor can media and culture be wholly conceived as distinct and separate; they are inextricably at work shaping one another. The emerging ramifications of this are only beginning to be addressed, especially with regard to what they mean for the development and preservation of open, democratic societies. While more traditional programs in international affairs often sideline the role of media and culture in the processes of international interaction, the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School is proud to offer a unique concentration with the critical study of media and culture from an international affairs perspective as its focus.

• Short Documentaries: Produced as part of Nerina Penzhorn's Reading and Making Documentary Course.
  
  "Saul 'El Chévere'" - by Diego Senior
  Description: "'El Chévere' portrays the life of Saúl Bermúdez, a Colombian migrant in New York who lives somewhat of a double life: he is a baker but also is a musician that composes, records and performs folkloric music with a 14-man band he assembled in his native Bogotá through the money earned from baking.
  
  All migration focused documentaries make the effort to expose harms of different national laws that ultimately affect people on both side of international borders. This documentary pretends to portray a positive twist on migration issues, where sometimes, a double life can be beneficiary of someone's identity. At the same time, the story pretends to surface the reasons why the migration issue continues to exist: lack of basic economic opportunities in the developing world."
  
  
  
  
  "protest!" - by Shannan Smith
  Description: "protest! is a 7-minute documentary that follows New York's Freedom Party to a combative protest of the Broadway minstrel musical, "Scottsboro Boys." Have you seen it? This documentary relates to my International Studies in media in culture because it highlights the sometimes agitated overlapping of culture, racial politics and the arts."
  
  
  
  
  "Francesco - a documentary" - by Alessandro d'Ansembourg
  Description: "National identity and its denial, struggle to maintain an artistic honesty against the rules, the laws, imposed by society and by the state in a tough city like New York. Francesco - a documentary, is an impressionistic portrait of a man whose vision and interaction with society are an evocative example of what it means to be live on the fringe of western bourgeois society in the twenty-first century."
  
  

• EVENT: Community Media and Civil Society: Then and Now (October 27) What are the most effective strategies for achieving social and political change through community media? How is new media advocacy changing grassroots media practice?
  
  Moderated by Sean Jacobs and Christine Newkirk
  
  With
  James Lebbie, Radio Producer, Cotton Tree News, Sierra Leone
  Liz Hodes, Programs Manager, Digital Democracy, New York
  Lova Rakotomalala, French Language Editor, Global Voices, Madagascar
  Pricila Neri, Program Coordinator, WITNESS, New York
  
  Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 6pm.
  
  The New School, Wollman Hall
  65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10014

• EVENT: Conversation about Comedy and Politics (September 29) How does comedy influence politics? Does political comedy lead people to be more critical of politicians or just more cynical? This event featured The Gregory Brothers, from YouTube and Barely Political fame for their Auto-Tune the News videos, Baratunde Thurston, the web editor of The Onion and co-founder of the blog Jack & Jill Politics, Dan Powell former Associate Producer on The Daily Show, currently working on Comedy Central’s Ugly Americans, and Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life.