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Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 14:00-16:00 Stephen Harper (University of Portsmouth) University of Westminster, Harrow Campus, room A6.08 Did Somebody Say ‘Neoliberalism’?: Media Studies Beyond the Left Registration at latest until Monday, March 3, per e-mail to [log in to unmask] Beginning with a wide-ranging critique of left-liberal media (and left-liberal media critics’) perspectives on a range of social and political topics – including ‘humanitarian intervention’, mental distress, immigration and ‘the environment’ – this talk argues for the necessity of Marxism for media criticism. The second part of the talk offers a more focused interrogation of certain discursive themes in contemporary Media and Cultural Studies, with a particular focus on the now hegemonic, yet problematic category of ‘neoliberalism’. Overall, this ‘big picture’ talk aims to contribute to a reassessment of the explanatory power and theoretical adequacy of some of the prevailing postulates of left-liberal Media Studies. Stephen Harper is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on British television drama and documentary, media and war, and the mediation of mental illness, as well as the single-authored books Madness, Power and the Media (Palgrave, 2009) and Beyond the Left: The Communist Critique of the Media (Zero, 2012).