The Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice organises monthly seminars with speakers from within and outside the university, covering a wide range of disciplines and topics. These cover the study of conflict and its links to inequality in social-political, cultural, and domestic contexts.
They discuss a range of psychological, psychoanalytic and social theories alongside the development of new affective methodologies to explore the complexities of experience in the late modern world. The aims are to promote diverse and equal societies, addressing inequalities and experiences of marginalisation.
If you would like to present at our centre, please get in touch with Dr. Catalin Brylla ([email protected])
Rage against the empathy machine revisited: The ethics of empathy-related affordances of virtual reality
Dr Gal Raz
Virtual reality (VR) has been called the "ultimate empathy machine" for its purported ability to deeply immerse users in another鈥檚 perspective.
As VR has garnered increasing attention, criticism of its so-called "empathic superpowers" has also intensified. Critics argue that the vision of empathic VR is ethically flawed, claiming it is misleading and fails to capture the non-communicable aspects of others' experiences. Additionally, several scholars contend that VR's empathy rhetoric exploits marginalised groups, reducing them to objects of "identity tourism" for the privileged.
In this paper, I revisit these critiques, suggesting they rely on empathy concepts rooted in traditional art forms and media, while overlooking VR鈥檚 distinct experiential affordances. Drawing on psychophysiological evidence, I argue that VR鈥檚 ethical significance lies in its unique ability to alter users' body schema through multisensory stimulation.
These manipulations lead to unprecedented empathy-related perceptual and conceptual shifts, necessitating a new ethical framework to address their implications. The seminar is based on
Gal Raz is Senior Lecturer at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, and a researcher at the Sagol Center for Brain Functions, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center
His research agenda includes motion pictures and affective neuroscience, virtual reality, and brain-computer interfaces.
Time to Move on? Disavowal, Lying and the Manic Defence in Political Culture鈥�
Professor Candida Yates
Prof. Candida Yates argues that the practice of lying has always been aligned with politics. Stretching the truth or breaking a promise have been viewed by some as almost a political necessity when setting out one鈥檚 stall as a politician and getting one鈥檚 message across to the electorate. However, at the other end of the spectrum, and in a more destructive vein, the danger of violent propaganda and the use of 鈥楾he Big Lie鈥� are key components of totalitarian societies where the psychological mechanisms of splitting, projection and denial become embedded in the processes of political communication and in its affective appeal to followers. The latter, which was used to deadly effect in Nazi Germany, has resurfaced through the authoritarian populism of Donald Trump and his ongoing legacy. Today, it is commonplace to say that the practice of lying is an endemic feature of political leadership, where the blurring of lines between fact and fiction have become ever-more indistinct. Donald Trump, and in the UK, Boris Johnson, (and his potential successors for the job of PM) seemingly traverse the boundaries between wish and truth on a daily basis. I look at these themes by discussing the relationship between the culture of lying in politics and the psychosocial processes associated with the Manic Defence 鈥� an unconscious psychological defence mechanism that involves a swerving away from reality and truth and is used to manage feelings of loss and helplessness. I will unpack these ideas by focusing on the public response to the political leadership of Boris Johnson, whose Pinocchio proclivities were much in evidence throughout the Brexit campaign, during the Pandemic and more recently, 鈥楶artygate鈥�.鈥�
Candida Yates is Professor of Culture and Communication at 成人直播. She is an interdisciplinary scholar and applies a psychosocial approach to culture, politics and society and has published widely in that field. She works with academics, clinicians, creatives and cultural organisations to create new understandings of emotion and affect in the public sphere. She teaches on the Political Masters Programmes at 成人直播 and is a Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice. She sits on the Boards of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and the Association for Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society; She is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council and is an Academic Research Associate of the Freud Museum. She is Joint-Editor of the Routledge book series: Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture.鈥�
Have your cake and feed it forward too 鈥� YouTube鈥檚 Struggle with 鈥淩esponsible Recommendations鈥澛�
Dr Steffen Krueger聽
Dr. Steffen Krueger explains that in the past years, the video streaming platform YouTube has come under increased scrutiny. Particularly, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence to the recommender system, tasked with making personalised recommendations of what video to play next, has triggered a wave of public indignation. Zeynep Tufekci鈥檚 (2018) critique, served in a culinary metaphor, specifically, that YouTube is a fast-food restaurant serving its customers increasingly sugary and fatty food, has resonated with wide-spread unease about the platform and its effects. However, while this accusation took a political turn almost immediately, with YouTube being accused of feeding increasingly extreme(ist) videos into people鈥檚 playlists, I want to suspend such directly political considerations for a moment so as to give room to the strong oral aspects that Tufekci鈥檚 metaphor captures so poignantly. Closely reading the relevant parts of the engineering literature on recommender systems, I will unpack how YouTube has indeed been designed to keep viewers as tightly attached to the platform and for as long as possible. In response to the wide-spread critique, the platform has now promised substantial changes to the system, with 鈥渞esponsible recommendations鈥� and 鈥渜uality watch time鈥� suggesting a new quality-over-quantity approach. Yet, comparing these announcements with how the engineering literature defines and conceptualises responsibility, one can see that the announced change is mostly based on magical thinking and primitive modes of denial captured in the proverbial 鈥楬ave your cake and eat it, too鈥�.聽
Steffen Kr眉ger, PhD, is senior lecturer at the Dept. of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Norway. His research interests are at the intersections of media and psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies and critical theory. Together with Jacob Johanssen he has written Media and Psychoanalysis 鈥� a critical introduction (Karnac 2022).鈥�
The Female Avenger and Vindictive Anger鈥�
Dr. Margrethe Bruun Vaage
Dr. Margrethe Bruun Vaage examines the contentious nature of the female rape survivor turned avenger in rape-revenge film, and argues that it is caused by a little-understood emotion in the film viewing experience, namely vindictive anger. She focuses on a recent trend of contemporary rape-revenge film made by women directors, such as Baise-Moi, Revenge, The Nightingale, and Promising Young Woman, and ask what it might mean for women in particular to watch female avengers. She argues that the reason some women filmmakers explore this convention is because it is all about an emotion that is difficult for women, and used to label women as difficult, namely anger, and this is the potential political value of this type of story. The central premise in my project is that understanding the emotions stirred up by this type of story is crucial in order to understand its recurring, contentious presence in popular culture, and she offers a feminist, political analysis grounded in the psychological and philosophical study of the emotions.鈥�
Margrethe Bruun Vaage is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Kent. As a cognitive film theorist, she works at the intersection between film theory, analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology, and specializes in exploring the spectator's engagement with fictional films and television series, and more specifically its emotional and moral aspects. She has previously published the monograph The Antihero in American Television (Routledge), as well as numerous articles in anthologies, encyclopaedias and handbooks, and in leading journals in both film and philosophy, such as Screen, British Journal of Aesthetics, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, and Poetics Today. She is currently working on a book about female avengers.鈥�
Developing an Improved Cognitive Film Theory Sensitive to Emotion & Race鈥�
Professor Dan Flory
Professor Dan Flory aims to improve on philosopher Noe虉l Carroll鈥檚 cognitive film theory by means of analyzing it from a critical race theoretical perspective. In spite of Carroll鈥檚 theory already being a solid general explanation of character allegiance in movies and other moving images, he argues that it pays insufficient attention to both the role disgust plays in generating solidarity and the role race plays in generating disgust. He also argues that implicit bias and embodied affect figure into character allegiance much more seriously than Carroll鈥檚 theory, as currently stated, indicates. These weaknesses affect related theories in both philosophy of film and cognitive film theory, but which may all be improved through the analysis provided in this presentation. The result is a sketch of a revised version of these theories that better accommodates race and the emotions that are often elicited in relation to it.鈥�
Dan Flory is Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University. He is author of Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir (Penn State University Press, 2008) and co-editor (with Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo) of Race, Philosophy, and Film (Routledge, 2013). He has also written over thirty essays on philosophy, critical race theory, film, and the history of philosophy, which have appeared in venues such as the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Projections: the Journal for Movies and Mind, Film and Philosophy, Film-Philosophy, Journal of World Philosophies, Western Journal of Black Studies, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, The Philosophy of Spike Lee, and On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis. He is currently working on a book project about philosophy of film, race, and genre.鈥�
A Nollywood Movement in 成人直播: Historicization and Imaginaries鈥疘
Professor Oluyinka Esan
Nigerian media expert Professor Oluyinka Esan discusses Nollywood鈥檚 history and imaginaries. Nollywood, in its historic and contemporary contexts, is an (un)conscious 鈥渕ovement鈥� beginning in 1992 with its inaugural film, Living in Bondage (1992); its VHS format, similar to that of the pre-existing Yoruba travelling theatre. With an innovative producorial system steeped in the African worldview of collective survival, shared ownership, and kinship, Nollywood would soon become a democratic site of film production, innovative for minimalist-budgetary expertise (Okhai 2008; Iwowo 2018, Iwowo et al 2023). Thus, it ultimately dislocated hegemonic capital implications of production, distribution, and consumption (Obiaya 2011). Several Nollywood filmmakers continue to advance these foundations of the industry.鈥��
Oluyinka Esan maintains an interest in the social relevance of Nigerian media and film messages. She brings non-Western perspectives to the study of media, film and communication. Her study of production practices foregrounds inquiries into cultures of reception, offering insight to audience pleasures and meanings that are created and circulated, with a particular focus on women and children. Committed to bridging gaps between theory and practice, her quest is to develop knowledge and understanding of media and film cultures for social and behavioural change communications. She has lectured at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos Nigeria, and the School of Media and Film, University of Winchester, and she is currently Professor in Broadcasting, Film and Development Communication at Caleb University, Imota Lagos Nigeria. Professor Esan, a Commonwealth scholar, holds a doctorate degree in Sociology from the University of Glasgow (1993).
A Nollywood Movement in 成人直播: Historicization and Imaginaries鈥疘I
Rogers Ofime
Rogers Ofime, multiple award-winning filmmaker and associate-visiting fellow at 成人直播 unpicks Nollywood as a 鈥渕ovement鈥�, as per his body of works. In this light, Ofime also discusses his current transnational production鈥� Sparrow鈥檚 Song鈥�, a professional-practice aspect of his ongoing fellowship at 成人直播. Nollywood, in its historic and contemporary contexts, is an (un)conscious 鈥渕ovement鈥� beginning in 1992 with its inaugural film, Living in Bondage (1992); its VHS format, similar to that of the pre-existing Yoruba travelling theatre. With an innovative producorial system steeped in the African worldview of collective survival, shared ownership, and kinship, Nollywood would soon become a democratic site of film production, innovative for minimalist-budgetary expertise (Okhai 2008; Iwowo 2018, Iwowo et al 2023). Thus, it ultimately dislocated hegemonic capital implications of production, distribution, and consumption (Obiaya 2011). Several Nollywood filmmakers continue to advance these foundations of the industry.鈥�
Rogers Ofime has been filming across Africa and Canada as a producer, executive producer and director for film and television over the last 20 years. As a producer on Africa鈥檚 largest cable network Mnet, Ofime produced 3,000 episodes of 鈥淭insel鈥� (2006 - ongoing). It is the continent鈥檚 first multi-camera, studio-based daily series, and screens across 48 countries. In 2013 he was commissioned by Mnet to develop a tele-film initiative to produce 180 feature tele-films between 2013 and 2015. This involved Ofime managing a crew strength of 120 filmmakers, and this initiative titled 鈥淎frica Magic Original Films鈥� (AMOF) would birth the widely successful channel of the same name on Mnet. Ofime runs Theatron Media Incorporated in Canada, and is also the Executive Producer at Native Media TV, a production company, which produced the series 鈥淶one 222鈥� (2016) and 鈥淭ill You Are 16鈥� (2016) for Africa Magic TV. His other successful works include 鈥淥loibiri鈥� (2015), 鈥淰oiceless鈥� (2020), 鈥淭he Johnsons鈥� (2017 - ongoing), 鈥淭he Mystic River鈥� (2021) and 鈥淲ura鈥� (2022 鈥� ongoing).鈥�
Developing Community-led Research: Creating Parity of Participation鈥�
Professor Mel Hughes
We hear lots of talk regarding co-production, collaboration and equality, diversity and inclusion of people with lived experience in research. Creating spaces and collaborations where people report genuinely being an equal partner in the process is easier said than done. Dr. Mel Hughes shares some experiences and insights from the BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices on collaborating with marginalised groups and from the development of the PIER community researcher model.鈥�
Mel Hughes is Professor of聽Social Work in HSS. Mel champions lived experience expertise through her roles as Academic Lead for the PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership and Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Seldom Heard Voices. Mel is committed to ensuring that those who are most affected by social, economic and health inequalities have a voice in shaping and informing research, education and practice. She has a track record for developing inclusive, arts based, co-created and community led research and co-designed and co-delivered education, training and coaching. She is editor and co-author of the textbooks: A Guide to Statutory Social Work Interventions: The lived experience and Social Exclusion in the UK: The lived experience. Mel is Guest Editor of the British Journal of Social Work (BJSW) special issue on the Voice and Influence of People with lived Experience.鈥��
Stereotypes and Emotions 鈥� Politics, Morality and Ageism鈥疘
Sibila Marques
In a context of rapid population ageing the main and urgent challenge is how to maintain people active and healthy throughout these long lives. Ageism and age discrimination represent a major barrier to achieve this fundamental goal and there is a pressing need to change our views on aging and the way we represent different age groups. Multiple studies have shown that aging stereotypes have a significant influence across several domains of older people鈥檚 performance. In this presentation the goal is to discuss the concept of ageism exploring its prevalence, determinants, consequences and possible interventions aimed to tackle this important form of exclusion in our societies. A special focus will be given to the discussion on how ageism is prevalent in the media and the role that this may have on the fight against ageism.鈥�
Sibila Marques is an Assistant Professor at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal. She is an expert on ageism and age discrimination, and she was the scientific coordinator at Iscte-IUL of the European projects SIforAGE (FP7) and INHERIT (H2020). She has more recently collaborated as an expert on the Global Report against Ageism with the World Health Organization.鈥�
Stereotypes and Emotions 鈥� Politics, Morality and Ageism鈥疘I
Miguel Ramos
Previous work has argued that groups in society tend to be stereotyped according to two major dimensions of stereotype content 鈥� competence and warmth. However, politicians, especially in countries with high levels of perceived corruption and low trust in political efficacy, might tend to be stereotyped uniquely in terms of a morality dimension. With a sample of respondents from 9 countries in Latin America, we examined the stereotype content of politicians and examined the effects of such perceptions. Our findings showed that among three important dimensions of stereotype content (i.e., morality, sociability, and competence), morality related traits were the most preferred to stereotype politicians. An analysis of the effects of morality showed that these traits, when attributed to politicians, are associated with negative emotions, which in turn are translated into a lack of support for the status quo. The mechanisms identified in this research allow to better understand the impact of stereotypes on society.鈥�
Miguel Ramos is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research investigates the impact of stereotypes and discrimination on multiple outcomes, such as the intergroup contact emerging in diverse contexts and the well-being and health of minority groups.
Parasocial Relationships and Reducing Prejudice
Professor Bradley Bond
Prof. Bradley Bond discusses how media can reduce social prejudice through the parasocial contact between viewers and screen characters. Prof. Bond鈥檚 research has used content analysis, surveys, experimental and physiological methods to study the effects of media on identity, stereotypes, and prejudices towards marginalised groups.
Bradley Bond is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of San Diego USA. His research examines the development and maintenance of parasocial relationships with media personae and the influence of media on identity and outgroup attitudes. Much of his current work focuses on the depiction of marginalized individuals in entertainment media and the effects of exposure on identity, stereotypes, and prejudices. Dr. Bond is the review and commentary of the Journal of Children and Media and an incoming associate editor of the Journal of Media Psychology.鈥��
Reducing Prejudice through Parasocial Contact鈥�
Dr Catalin Brylla
Dr. Catalin Brylla has adapted the parasocial contact hypothesis (Schiappa et al, 2005) to documentary film practice in his latest book Documentary and Stereotypes: Reducing Stigma through Factual Media, proposing a set of prejudice reduction tools for filmmakers. The event will start with the two speakers presenting their research, followed by a discussion that will centre on the adaptation of their ideas in theory and practice in order to achieve social impact.鈥�
Catalin Brylla is Principal Lecturer in Film and TV at 成人直播, where he is Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice. He chairs the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image. His work advocates for the filmmaker鈥檚 understanding of how media representation can enhance society鈥檚 perception of stigmatised groups, such as disabled people and African communities. As a filmmaker he has made documentaries about such groups, including The Terry Fragments, June鈥檚 Patchwork and Zanzibar Soccer Dreams (with Florence Ayisi). He has co-edited the books Documentary and Disability (with Helen Hughes) and Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film (with Mette Kramer).鈥�
Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) +鈥�
Dr. Uchenna Emelonye
This talk by Dr. Uchenna Emelonye focuses on the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council and aimed at eliciting research interests on a successor UPR+. The UPR is the only intergovernmental global process to review the human rights records of all UN Member States. Launched in 2006, it has witnessed almost universal participation by Member States in the three previous cycles. After 16 years, the 4th cycle of the UPR commenced in November 2022 and will conclude in February 2027. Amidst the multiple, complex and persistent challenges to the enjoyment of human rights in many countries, there is a need for research that explores a new UPR paradigm.鈥�
Uchenna Emelonye is a Visiting Professor of Human Rights Law at 成人直播. With decades of multidisciplinary career experiences with the UN and other intergovernmental organizations across 22 countries in conflict, post conflict, transition and development contexts, his research interest is at the intersection and fusion of human rights law and practice. Professor Emelonye was admitted to the roll of Barristers and Solicitors of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1995 and holds a doctorate degree in Law (LL.D) from the University of Helsinki, Finland.鈥�
The Disability Lens: Television Framing of Intellectual Disability and Inclusive Education Engagement in Kenya鈥�
Dr. Jackie Lidubwi
Dr. Jackie Lidubwi鈥檚 research examines how the framing of intellectual disability on Kenyan TV influences the level of involvement of learners with intellectual disabilities in education in Kenya. Through media frame analysis, surveys and interviews with media professionals, teachers, education officers and disability activists, her study found that TV programmes do not support the inclusion of intellectual disabilities in education. The study recommends that TV producers need training in representing disability in more inclusive ways, that journalists need to expand their coverage of disability issues, and that media regulators, such as the Media Council of Kenya, enforce policies for disability inclusion in media representations.鈥�
Jackline Lidubwi is currently the Internews Coordinator for the Clean Air Catalyst pilot project in Nairobi. She previously led the Inclusive Media Project at Internews, where she trained journalists on the inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities in media in Sub-Saharan Africa. As Head of Station for Y254 TV and Senior Producer at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, she founded 鈥淎bled Differently鈥�, the first disability-specific media program in Kenya. She won several media awards, including the Disability Mainstreaming Award (2017), the Annual Disability Rights and Advocacy Award (2014), and the UNFPA/KEMEP Award (2013) as Best Television Producer in the Female Genital Mutilation category. She is also an adjunct lecturer at the University of Nairobi, St. Paul鈥檚 University, and the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication.鈥�