Abstract

Full programme and registration: https://wordpress.com/view/posttruthphenomenon.wordpress.com

This exciting series of events, open to the public, approaches the post-truth phenomenon in a variety of ways, including journalism, feminism, politics, theatre, academia, film, art, human rights, and technology.

CGHR is sponsoring a panel on Evidence in the Post-Truth Era: Human Rights Perspectives.

‘Post-Truth’ was the 2016 Oxford Dictionaries word of the year. Announced in November, shortly after the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the referendum on Brexit in the United Kingdom, this selection added fuel to an ongoing mainstream and social media frenzy about fake news and ‘alternative facts’ and concomitant implications for politics, citizenship, journalism, and beyond. The post-truth phenomenon, ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,’ as defined by Oxford Dictionaries, has been the subject of much instant commentary – though little academic analysis. This series of teach-out events and conference are an opportunity to consolidate and advance our understanding of the post-truth phenomenon through collaborative activities and interdisciplinary conversation. At these events’ core is the view that this is a moment of ‘knowledge controversy,’ namely, a rupture of the naturalised order that provides a window onto the norms, practices, and power relations supporting that naturalised order.

The Conference is organised by Dr Ella McPherson, Dr Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra and Devika Ranjan.