[acc-cca-l] Matt Stahl talk: Sing for the Competition and go to Prison: Accounting for the Force of (Non-IP) Law in the Study of Cultural Work

[Nicole Cohen]

[△EXTERNAL]


Dear GTA-based colleagues,
I’m pleased to invite you to a talk by Prof. Matt Stahl (Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University) on April 11 at the University of Toronto. Open to all (this is an in-person event).

Sing for the Competition and go to Prison: Accounting for the Force of (Non-IP) Law in the Study of Cultural Work
Prof. Matt Stahl
Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University

April 11, 1-3pm
Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
Bissell Building, 140 St. George, St. room BL 507

Hosted by the Faculty of Information and the Department of Geography

By enforcing labour and debt contracts, law does for capital what capital cannot do for itself. This project proposes a genealogical account of law’s force in the relations of capitalist cultural production. It aims to shed light on the relationship of cultural labour’s legality—the state of its conformity to law—to its economic productivity—the state of its conformity to markets. Today this legal legacy reveals itself most prominently in controversy over non-compete and non-disclosure agreements in the high tech and entertainment industries as well as other sectors. Non-competes and NDAs point to deeper politics at issue, not least the right to quit. This presentation will examine the historical basis for these sorts of contract enforcement mechanisms in a Victorian contest over a prima donna’s human capital, their coupling with creditor-debtor relations in the early 20th century sharecropping system of the U.S. South, and how, in combination, these two modes of labor control have structured professional recording artistry since its inception.


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Nicole Cohen, PhD
Associate Professor

Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology (ICCIT) & Faculty of Information

University of Toronto

nicolescohen.com







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