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<div align="center"><font face="Garamond">UNSW Media Film and Theatre
Seminars</font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Garamond">Wednesday 19 April
2006</font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Garamond">5 p.m. Webster
Building<font size="-1" color="#000000"><b>
327</b></font></font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Garamond"><br></font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Garamond" size="+3"
color="#FF0000">Mapping Media Ecologies</font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Garamond" size="+1"
color="#FF0000">Uneven Development and the Critical
Chiasmus</font></div>
<div><font face="Garamond"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Garamond" size="+2">The concept of a 'media ecology'
has had intermittent success since the heyday of Marshall McLuhan's
peak of theoretical productivity; at its worst lapsing into puerile
positivism and celebration, while at its best finding it difficult to
position itself effectively<i> vis-<font
color="#000000">à</font>-vis</i> other, sexier media concepts. In this
paper, Murphet sketches a dynamic model of Darwinian and Freudian
energetics in a competitive media environment. Drawing on the work of
Luhmann, Kittler, Jameson and Hansen, the argument ultimately finds a
critical destination in Benjamin's Freud as a basis for understanding
the struggle for survival between media, and the chiasmic relation
between the most 'advanced' and most 'archaic' strata of a given media
ecology.</font><br>
<font face="Garamond"></font></div>
<div><font face="Garamond" size="+1"><i>Julian Murphet is Senior
Lecturer in the Department of English at Sydney University, author
of</i> Literature and Race in Los Angeles<i> (2001),</i> Brett Easton
Ellis'<i> American Psycho</i>: A Reader's Guide<i> (2002), co-author
of</i> Narrative and Media<i> (2005), co-editor of</i> Literature and
Visual Technologies: Writing After Cinema<i> (2003), and author of
various articles and chapters on postmodernism, theory, race and
film.</i></font></div>
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<div><font face="Garamond">Dr James Donald<br>
Associate Dean (Education), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences<br>
Professor of Film Studies, School of Media, Film and Theatre<br>
University of New South Wales<br>
Sydney<br>
NSW 2052<br>
Australia<br>
<br>
Telephone<x-tab> </x-tab>(02)9385 4858<br>
Mobile<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>0433
126445<br>
Facsimile<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(02)9662 2335<br>
<br>
International<br>
Telephone<x-tab> </x-tab>+612 9385 4858<br>
Mobile<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>+61433 126445<br>
Facsimile<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>+612
9662 2335<br>
</font></div>
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