Events & Calendars "Pattern Recognition: Anticipation and Surveillance in the Post-Privacy Era"

Dr. Joseph Masco, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and author of "Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico," will be lecturing at Amherst College on Oct. 25. His lecture, “Pattern Recognition: Anticipation and Surveillance in the Post-Privacy Era,” examines the affective and material production of a new U.S. national security state in the 21st century. Tracking the conceptual linkages between the Cold War "balance of terror" and the current U.S. "war on terror," it theorizes national security affect as a key component in American life and interrogates the infrastructures built at a time of national panic. Focusing on a new state commitment to eliminating the possibility of “surprise” by “anticipating terror” in all its forms, the paper considers how the ongoing revolution in social media both challenges and enables the emerging surveillance efforts of the counter-terror state. The lecture will be in Converse 103 at 7:30 p.m. A reception will follow. All are welcome.