NYAS @ WGF: Becky Schulthies and “Re-Registering Moroccans”

The 2013-14 New York Academy of Sciences Anthropology Section lecture series resumes for the first talk of the new year on Monday, February 10, 2014 at 7:00 PM, as we welcome anthropologist Becky Schulthies of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and discussant Sonia Neela Das of New York University. Drawing on her research on the anthropology of media reception and the impact of satellite television on family interpretive strategies and domestic cultural production in Morocco, Dr. Schulthies will be presenting a discussion entitled “Re-Registering Moroccans: Mediatized Temporalities and the Politics of Recognition in State Storytelling.”

The talk examines the process by which a Moroccan television producer re-vitalized a public market story-telling register (rhymed prose way of speaking) associated with proverbs and the wisdom of old folks as a vehicle for modernist liberal messaging. It also describes what several instances of Moroccan audience uptake while watching this program reveal about the salient qualities of re-registering.

This event will take place at the Wenner-Gren Foundation Building, 470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor, New York (at 32nd Street). A dinner and wine reception, free to students, will precede the talk at 6 pm. The event is free, but registration with NYAS is required.