(dis)Information: A symposium on truth, fiction, and the in-between

The History Department Research Committee invite yous to (dis)Information, a symposium on truth, fiction, and the in-between. The symposium will take place on Wednesday, 1/29/25 at Newman Library 207a from 1:30-6:00PM. Drop-ins and classes are welcomed, and refreshments will be provided.

You can find a detailed agenda below:

1:30PM  –  Welcome

1:45PM  –  Session 1: Exposing Political Violence
Adela Cedillo: The Secret Police Archives, a Mirror of the Shifting Balance of Power in Mexico
This presentation explores the convoluted trajectory of the archives of the Secret Police in Mexico, the Federal Security Directorate and the General Directorate of Political and Social Investigations, which represent some of the best-preserved archives related to political violence during the Latin American Cold War. The classification, declassification, censorship, and total release of these archives reflect the dynamics of power between the government and the civil society after the end of the one-party rule in 2000.

Nick Copeland: Plantation Science as Sugar Industry PR
Indigenous and peasant communities in Guatemala accuse sugar plantations of monopolizing and contaminating water systems, among other harms. In response, the sugar industry created a scientific wing to discredit criticisms and portray the sugar industry as green. Community efforts to produce their own science are impeded by infrastructural violence, industry political strategies, and dominant development aesthetics that idealize the plantation form.

2:45PM – Intermission break

3:00PM  –  Session 2: Power and Physical Resistance
Rachel Kuo: Diasporic Dissent and Working through Contradiction
What is considered “disinformation” as it spreads across online platforms connects to longer-standing systems of race, power, and state violence, including the uses of narrative and propaganda to legitimize military occupation, carceral punishment, and the suppression of liberation movements. As technological infrastructures are used to criminalize and curtail political dissent, how do organizers navigate technology use under these conditions?

Marian Mollin: Actions Louder Than Words: Bodily Protest as a Countervailing Force
Disinformation, surveillance, and propaganda are nothing new, even if the current technologies used to discourage and criminalize dissent are. So perhaps it is worth considering how social movements have countered these forces in the past as a way to consider options in the present day. This talk will present several examples of how activists in the 20th-century U.S. used their bodies as potent forms of radical “truth-telling” in efforts to motivate others to support and join their causes.

4:00PM – Intermission

4:15 –  Session 3: Debating Facts in American Media
Jon Grinspan: Pre-Truth: The Rise of Political Fact
For the first century and a half of American democracy, citizens had no reasonable assumption that political news was accurate or unbiased. Incredible technologies and public fascination spread information across vast networks, but partisanship dominated and distorted much of it. This talk will chart the arc from this environment into a 20th century order in which the public assumed its information was broadly accurate.

Paul Quigley: How the Fight Over Slavery Became a Fight Over Free Speech
From the 1830s to the 1860s, Black and White abolitionists in the United States unleashed a barrage of information, publicizing the injustices of slavery. In response, slaveholders strove to silence abolitionists, delegitimizing their claims and denying their right to speak at all. The result was a public debate over free speech and the nature of truth that helped propel Americans toward civil war. 

5:15PM  – Round Table Closing

5:30 PM  –  Closing remarks