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Media Aesthetics: Experience, Practice, and Pedagogy project examines and engages the saturation of ordinary life by varieties of constant mediation, while also examining the diverse array of mediated experiences and modernities worldwide. Here we have in mind new forms of digital technology from smartphones, ubiquitous wireless networks, social media, and streaming platforms. Art forms such as literature, cinema, music, and visual art remain important here. But now, with the durationally encompassing nature of contemporary mediation, we look to aesthetic experience broadly for its power to navigate the everyday.

Kicking off a series of spring lectures and discussions hosted by the Center for Media, Communication, and Global Change (MCGC), on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, the center invited three leading thinkers on contemporary democracy – Charles Taylor, Dilip Gaonkar and Craig Calhoun – to participate in a hybrid event discussing their recent book publication: Degenerations of Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2022). The event featured commentaries by Ilaria Cozzaglio (Göethe  Institute, Frankfurt), and Â̾ÞÈËÊÓƵ Professors Julian Culp and Stephen Sawyer. Center Director Jayson Harsin moderated the event. The event was cohosted with Â̾ÞÈËÊÓƵ’s Center for Critical Democracy Studies (CCDS).