How do cartoons, memes and chats create as well as sustain the ‘cultural front’ of war? Turning to the contemporary context, this roundtable event will explore the aesthetic dimensions of information warfare in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Each of the speakers will discuss the role of aesthetics in creating atmospheres of war that infuse reason, strategies, rationalities and governance. They will also attend to affective resonances beyond language, their manipulation and their circulation in a thoroughly mediatized context. In addressing the cultural and aesthetic patterns of information warfare as well as the influence of skilfully constructed, aesthetically modulated information, the roundtable will examine challenges posed by (dis)information for sense-making alongside attempts to govern war and contemporary security.

SPEAKERS

Svitlana Ovcharenko, Professor of the Department of Humanities and Social Studies of the Odesa Polytechnic National University and Visiting Faculty at the Geneva Graduate Institute

Elizaveta Gaufman, Assistant Professor of Russian Discourse and Politics at the University of Groningen and Visiting Faculty at the Geneva Graduate Institute

Ákos Kopper, Associate Professor of International Relations at Eötvös Loránd University, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), and Visiting Faculty at the Geneva Graduate Institute

CHAIR

Anna Leander, Professor of International Relations/Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute

This event is co-organized with the Department of International Relations and Political Science.