Bearded editor comes to King’s

The editor and publisher of Bearded magazine, Gareth Main, will be doing a talk for CMCI at King’s College London on the topic ‘Music Magazines, and How To Start One Up: The Importance of Tastemakers in a Free Digital Music Universe’.

The talk will take place at 4pm on Tuesday 31 March, in Room K3.11, King’s Building, Strand Campus, King’s College London. All are welcome.

Bearded is a magazine specialising in independent popular music, and is available at newsagents across the UK. Gareth Main will speak about the uses and importance of media in promoting artists in a culture where almost any kind of music can be obtained for free. Can the media — especially magazines — still act as tastemakers in this environment? How do great musical artists with limited financial resources become known in the internet age?

For further information, please contact Dr Harvey G. Cohen at harvey.cohen @ kcl.ac.uk.

Free Speech in the Universities

Centre Director Dr Richard Howells is among the academics and students contributing to the new “Free D” campaign funded by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and supported by the National Union of Students, Universities UK and the Guardian.

The campaign is intended to encourage students, academics, policy makers and members of the general public to join in the debate about whether free speech should be uninhibited or constrained.

Richard takes the view that truly free speech and debate are essential to the life of the university (and beyond), even though some may find this socially uncomfortable or politically inconvenient.

Along with Richard, students from King’s College London are included in the video sequences, together with fellow KCL academic Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies and the French Department.

MA CCI students may be interested in the way the issue is “framed” as well as in the actual content. In addition to YouTube and Facebook, you can see it (and even join in) on the project website www.free-d.org.uk and the Guardian microsite www.guardian.co.uk/free-d

Picture Perfect

Congratulations to CMCI lecturer Dr Harvey Cohen: The King’s College Humanities Research Committee has awarded him a welcome sum to help with the photographic costs for his forthcoming monograph Duke Ellington’s America. Lost in CCI thanks the committee in return.

Harvey’s book is due out in spring 2010 with Chicago University Press.