A workshop by and for master’s students and PhD candidates

Based on the ZeM’s annual focus “Control of Loss“, the graduate workshop “Navigating Control of Loss” focuses on media crises and losses. The workshop is aimed at master’s and doctoral students in media studies and related disciplines.

Controlling losses or making the act of losing beneficial is an economic paradigm that also has an impact on other crises—be they of a media, communicative or other nature. The term evokes associations precisely because of its lack of definition. Instead of a closed definition, the workshop will use the permeability of the term to approach it from different perspectives. Possible questions and topics could be: Is control of loss an individual-focused phenomenon or an outgrowth of systematic attributions of loss and presence? Is control of loss a natural consequence of the media crises of recent years? How can the control of loss be navigated? How does the term relate to ideas of normality and standardization processes, for example in relation to (dis)abilities?

The workshop will allow for ‘undesirable cognitive stops’ in particular, i.e. discomfort, loss of trust, isolation and superstition, which are also part of this navigation process.

Methodology & format

Responding adequately to all of this is challenging enough—a start should be to hold the workshop not in a top-down manner, but using the open space format as a model. The aim of an open space is always to bring the participants into a mode of self-organization.

It is essential that all participants come to the workshop with ideas / keywords / utopias / gaps in the discourse / castles in the air and can thus provide impetus for the agenda. The process will be rounded off on April 27, when we will spend half a day on action planning. During the workshop, participants will have space to contribute their own (research) interests and to network. The results and emergences of the workshop will be documented on the project website.

In order to register for the workshop and for additional information please refer to the workshop website at http://verlustkontrolle.workshop.tilda.ws/.

For the schedule please refer to the workshop programme (PDF). Contact:

Moderation: Yaari Pannwitz (Open Space)

Food Performance: Jasmine Parsley (freelance artist)

Organisation: Natalia Aleksandrova, Tim Meldau, Kateryna Tykhonenko, Sophie Warmbrunn (European Media Studies, University of Potsdam and University of Applied Sciences Potsdam)

Image: Natalie Maximova, PickPik

An event within the ZeM’s annual focus “Control of Loss”.