Cambridge, Massachusetts
Registration for the conference will open in August.
Comparative Media Studies/Writing in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will host a three-day international conference, “Bearing Witness, Seeking Justice: Videography in the Hands of the People,” October 5-7, 2022.
Keynote speakers and youth participation include:
Sam Gregory, Director, WITNESS Program
The Somervile, Mass., school district, members from which will participate in the conference and facilitate workshops
The conference builds on scholarship and public policy that emerged as a result of the Rodney King uprisings in the early 1990s, continuing through the many police killings of black men and women, to the horrific murder of George Floyd, all in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement born during the past decade.
A history of videography will set the stage. Central to our discussion will be the role of videography in protecting our rights and civil liberties. The use of video technology on police forces, in banks, in hospital operating rooms, and in the matter of George Floyd and Darnella Frazier, Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery, among other high-profile events, will be analyzed from multiple vantage points. In particular, the two recent court cases of Rittenhouse and of Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan (the latter three found guilty of murdering Arbery) — all claiming self-defense and vigilantism — featured videos as star witnesses, arriving at opposite verdicts for similar defense. The crucial role videography in seeking justice is complex. The roles played by both the mainstream and alternative press and by social media will also be scrutinized.
Participants will be responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation expenses, and there will be a registration fee of $150 for participants ($75 for college and graduate students; high school students are free). MIT participants are exempt from this fee. Breakfast and lunch items will be provided each morning and afternoon. There will be a hosted conference reception on the evening of October 5 and a conference dinner on October 6, each with a keynote address. The five keynote addresses will be hybrid, in-person and virtual, so as to provide worldwide access to topics of the conference.