Global TV: Lupin
- Tuesday, November 9, 2021 / 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (PST)
- With Jean Beaman, France Winddance Twine, Lisa Parks
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Starring: Omar Sy, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, Hervé Pierre, Soufiane Guerrab
Series creators: George Kay and François Uzan
Set in Paris, the Netflix smash hit Lupin offers a contemporary spin on the legendary capers of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, who appeared in early twentieth-century stories by French author Maurice Leblanc. The series follows master criminal Assane Diop (Omar Sy), who was inspired by the Lupin character as a young man, in his quest for vengeance after his Senegalese immigrant father is framed for the theft of a priceless diamond necklace. Diop squares off against the crooked patriarch (Hervé Pierre) of the wealthy and unscrupulous Pellegrini family to expose a criminal conspiracy of thievery, kidnapping, assassins, and corruption. Created by George Kay and François Uzan, Lupin is globally renowned as one of the most-watched non-English shows on Netflix.
The Carsey-Wolf Center was delighted to welcome Jean Beaman (Sociology, UCSB), France Winddance Twine (Sociology, UCSB), and Lisa Parks (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a virtual discussion the global success of this series, as well as the provocative ways in which it engages with issues of genre, racial representation, immigrant cultures, and contemporary Paris.
Biographies
Jean Beaman (Sociology, UCSB)
Jean Beaman is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with affiliations in Black Studies, Political Science, Feminist Studies, Global Studies, and the Center for Black Studies Research. Her research is ethnographic in nature and focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, international migration, and state-sponsored violence in both France and the United States. She is author of Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017). Her current book project is on suspect citizenship and belonging, anti-racist mobilization, and activism against police violence in France. She is the Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, “Race, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context” for 2021-2022.
France Winddance Twine (Sociology, UCSB)
France Winddance Twine is a Professor of Sociology, an ethnographer, documentary filmmaker, and feminist race theorist whose research is intersectional, international, and innovative. Twine is a research affiliate at Cambridge University where she collaborates with the Sociology of Reproduction research group. She is the author and editor of eleven books, including A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy (Duke University Press, 2010), which develops her concept of racial literacy. In 2020, Twine won the 2020 Distinguished Career Award from the Race, Gender and Class section of the American Sociological Association. She is the Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, “Race, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context” for 2021-2022.
Lisa Parks (Film and Media Studies, UCSB)
Lisa Parks is a Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies and Director of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab at UC Santa Barbara. She is a media scholar with research on satellite technologies and media globalization; critical studies of media infrastructures; media, militarization, and surveillance; and environmental media. She is currently working on two new books, a co-edited collection entitled, Media Backends: Digital Infrastructure and the Politics of Knowing (under contract with University of Illinois Press), and Mixed Signals: Media Infrastructures on the Outskirts. She is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and the Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, “Race, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context” for 2021-2022.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center.
CWC Presents: Global TV
Television has traditionally been understood through national frameworks, corresponding to national networks of television distribution. The Carsey-Wolf Center series “Global TV” explores the way some contemporary television programs and formats have become unmoored from their national contexts of production and distribution. The series will spotlight a number of recent shows that showcase this phenomenon, including a French heist caper, a South African vigilante thriller, and a crime drama set at the epicenter of political and social change in twenties Berlin; each of these shows both transcends and is rooted in its national context and culture. The events in the series will examine how and why a particular program might travel and take hold with an international audience, addressing questions about the role of contemporary streaming services and global flows of creative labor.
CWC Global
Media are global by nature; they express culture just as much as they transcend borders. The CWC Global series is dedicated to showcasing media from around the world. This series features screenings and events that place UCSB in conversation with international media makers and global contexts across our deeply connected world.
CWC TV
In recognition of the extraordinary accomplishments of the Center’s namesakes, Dick Wolf and Marcy Carsey, the Carsey-Wolf Center is committed to examining television as an institution, industry, and cultural form. In our post-network, multi-channel, multi-media environment, understanding television demands understanding its past as well as its future, through exploration of individual episodes, mini-series, and documentaries.