Lecture & Discussion with Dr. Richard Chalfen
February 1, 2007 – 7:46 amSpeculating on Trends in Outsourcing Identity: The Distributed Self Revisited
A lecture and discussion by Dr. Richard Chalfen
5:00 PM, Monday 5 February 2007
Microsoft Research India
96/36 2nd Main (Sankey Road) in Sadashivnagar, Bangalore,
between the Cauvery Theatre Junction and Bashyam Circle
Dr. Richard Chalfen, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Senior Scientist, Center on Media and Child Health, Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Chalfen is a leader in the field of Visual Anthropology, and in the related interdisciplinary studies of Visual Culture and Visual Studies. Over 100 scholarly articles and books are illustrative of his broad contributions to Communication, Cultural Anthropology, American Studies and more recently, Asian Studies. In the past decade, in particular, Dr. Chalfen focused on the visual culture of modern Japan.
Discussion will focus on the evolving nature of homo pictus/pictorus and stress how we have become the most pictured people in the history (and pre-history) of the human condition. This overview will cover trends in past and emergent opportunities for establishing pictorial identity (blogs, web albums, camera phones), including efforts to manage identity through camera use and subsequent display and sharing of pictures. Given the social nature of identity formation, recognition and negotiation, this illustrated talk will also cover attempts to understand the growing diversity of interactions between people and their pictures and increasingly blurred genres of mass and home media. Examples will come from ongoing fieldwork in both the US and Japan accompanied by implications for what might be found in India.