The Google India ad "Google Search: Reunion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE
has recieved a good deal of attention around the world, with the youtube video already garnering almost 8 million views since November 13, 2013.  Because "Reunion" raises so many issues that intersect with the work of our students and faculty, I asked them to prepare a brief statement on the ad and how we should understand it.  This page will be updated as the responses come in.

Google India describes the ad in this way:

"Partitions divide countries, friendships find a way
(Use captions to translate the film in 9 languages including French, Malayalam and Urdu)
The India-Pakistan partition in 1947 separated many friends and families overnight. A granddaughter in India decides to surprise her grandfather on his birthday by reuniting him with his childhood friend (who is now in Pakistan) after over 6 decades of separation, with a little help from Google Search." http://youtu.be/gHGDN9-oFJE

Kumru Toktamis, Associate Professor (CCE) of Social Science & Cultural Studies.

"It is a tearjerker all right. All the techniques of visuals have been used to achieve a heightened level of sentimentality. It may be a topic so far away, yet the sentiments are so close to home for everyone: who does not miss a childhood friend; or how sweet it is for a young person who helps his/her ailing grandparent using technological skills he does not have. The political and economic world maybe full of tensions, past injustices, contemporary obstacles, conflicts but thanks to Google which is above and beyond all, we can and we are able to overcome them all!

In pre-google world we were not in control, but now we are!

Are we?

Google is already a household name as essential as the refrigerator. But no other product, (save the Bible maybe) has been upgraded to such a position of superiority, untainted by economic and political conflicts and in fact has the empowering role to resolve them all. This false sense of empowerment (of two fragile old man, two impressionable young persons, all innocent, all victims of larger structures) is of course a good, no, excellent way of selling a product, "naturalizing" it as one of us; the one that gives us all agency when we have lost it.

Google is just an instrument, a tool, a technology, not a divine solution."

Francis Bradley, Associate Professor, Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies.

"The Google advertisement exploits our desire for things new and modern, for connections between peoples otherwise divided, and for instant social gratification. On the surface, Google addresses the issue of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the social and cultural divide that emerged in its wake. On the one hand, we might see this as a critique of political modernity and all the promise that consecutive generations placed in the nation state to fulfill the hopes and dreams of peoples worldwide. For the generation of 1947, partition was often seen as a necessary separation to allow for the flowering of both political entities, their peoples, and the myriad cultures that inhabited the descendant states.

But the Google advertisement has turned to the intimate loss felt by many in the wake of partition through the lens of social cleavages. The mass migrations that ensued and the severing of familial links still felt more than 65 years later. Yet, the advertisement comments on another human anxiety that accompanied modernity and post-modernity, that is, the social isolation felt by many who are now too busy to spend time with family, who have moved to pursue more profitable employment, or who have downsized their own family units. These human-to-human connections, we are led to believe, can be reconstituted via contemporary technology that bridges previously insurmountable obstacles. The question remains, however, the extent to which this is fulfilling? Can chatting or texting replace our desire to hear human voices? Can a phone call, even with visual effects, take the place of the human touch? "

Senior Grace Myers writes in her blog Heartashion of the ad as a "Bromance Made Possible By Google"

"It is no secret that Google is taking over the world. Recently, an ad for Google India was released world-wide only a few days ago and has received over 5 million views. Though the story is fictional it brings to light the devastation  still remaining in the hearts of Indians and Pakistanis alike. In 1947 just before Britain left the subcontinent they divided it in two forming India and Pakistan. The reason for this was the growing religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims. Family, friends, and neighbors were separated overnight migrating across borders. Extreme violence ensued. In 2004 discussions of peace started but the countries remain in conflict. Though I can never truly know the tragedy that was witnessed by the people in India and Pakistan, I am extremely touched by this video. This story may be fictional but its a story that unfortunately has happened many times over, and Google is illustrating that technological advances can make reunions possible."

http://heartashion.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/bromance-made-possible-by-google/





Reunion is accompnied by several follow-up ads, including ad "Google Search: Anarkali" of the Grandfathers playing chess:

"Shopping for an Anarkali suit is just a move away
The reunited grandfathers decide to play match-maker with their grandkids by sending them shopping, but the grand-daughter checkmates them with a little help from Google."

http://youtu.be/O0lzSb0m1cs

As well as: "Google Search: Cricket"

"Settle scores, instantly. The India-Pakistan cricket rivalry reaches its peak during a power-cut and the grandfathers settle scores with a little help from the granddaughter and Google."

  http://youtu.be/qI_Ke3iyfac

"Google Search: Fennel"

"Food always finds its way across languages The reunited grandfathers want to make biryani and reach a hurdle when they don't know what an ingredient's local name is, but with a little help from Google Search, they manage." http://youtu.be/vYVoM8tgbvA 

"Google Search: Sugar-free"

"When fondness grows with age. A grandfather trying to sneak some sweets is caught red handed but is rewarded with some more; the same evening with a little help from Google."

  http://youtu.be/ltXy9tGqlT0




 

 Susie Linfield is the author of The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and has been translated into Italian and Turkish.  She is an associate professor in the journalism department at New York University, where she directs the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program. Linfield writes about politics and culture for an array of publications including the Nation, the Washington Post Book World, Aperture, Dissent, the New Republic, the Boston Review, and Guernica.

 An excerpt from "The Exchange: Susie Linfield on Photography and Violence"  
The New Yorker by Ian Crouch
November 29, 2010 

"This suspicion, even dislike, of photographs was absorbed by many subsequent critics, including Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes; and certainly by the postmodern critics who came after them. Of course, that kind of skepticism and suspicion can lead to certain insights; but at a certain point, it also occludes. The Frankfurt-Sontag-postmodern critique has made it too easy for us to not look at photographs. We’re so afraid to look—we fear that looking is voyeuristic, that it’s exploitative, that it’s a cheap form of knowledge. Not-looking has been endowed with a kind of moral sanctity and intellectual respectability, which I don’t think it deserves....

This year, the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies began offering a Minor in Sustainability Studies. The minor deepens the understanding of the interdisciplinary approach to sustainable environmental, economic, and social practices, providing students with a broad understanding of the complex interrelationships between humans and ecosystems and the best practices for protecting environmental quality and fostering social equity. The minor can be combined with any undergraduate major and requires the completion of 15 credits approved in Sustainability Studies. These may come from the following courses:
SUST 201 The Sustainable Core (3 credits, required)
MSCI 270 Ecology (3 credits, required. May substitute MSCI 271 or 280)
SUST 401 Power, Pollution, and Profit (3 credits, elective)
SUST 405 Production, Consumption, and Waste (3 credits, elective)
PHIL 356 Environmental Ethics (3 credits, elective)
INT 332 Environmental Theory (2 credits, elective)
IND 487 Sustainability and Production (2 credits, elective)
MSCI 426 Toxics in the Environment (1 credit, elective)
MSCI 438 Chemistry of Modern Polymeric Materials (3 credits, elective)
To register for the minor, or for any questions on these courses, please contact the coordinator Carl Zimring at czimring@pratt.edu.

*A critical understanding of culture that is grounded in philosophy, history, the social sciences, and humanities.

*Comprehension of critical social theory, analytical structures, techniques of communication, and familiarity with a range of research methods and perspectives in understanding the natural and social worlds.

*An understanding of the interconnections and dependencies of the various and diverse fields of human inquiry, artistic endeavor, and cultural, social, and political life.

*An appreciation of the aesthetic achievements of cinema/film, literature, poetry, and the visual arts.

*A critical sense of your ethical, social, and political responsibilities and of the world’s diverse cultures and communities.

*Meaningful access to the historical past both for its own sake and to think creatively about the future, i.e., to learn to learn.

*The ability to develop and critically integrate written, oral, visual, and spatial expression.

*The flexibility to pursue both in-depth studies as well as opportunities to make links between academic work and the working world through internships in cultural institutions, especially non-profit arts and public service agencies.

*A faculty whose scholarship and teaching is on the cutting edge of social and cultural criticism and analysis.

Lectures, Forums and Speaker Series as well as the department’s regular Scholar-In-Residence appointment bring renowned scholars, intellectuals, and artists from around the world together with our students in large lectures and intimate seminars. Past speakers and Scholars-In-Residence include: Susan Buck-Morss, Patricia Clough, Alain Badiou, Stanley Aronowitz, Susan Meiselas, Gyan Prakash, Randy Martin, Martha Rosler, Nora Alter, Vicente Rafael, Gina Dent, Saidiya Hartman, Sukhdev Sandhu, Deborah Willis Anna Grimshaw, Robin Blackburn, Juan Cole, Tina Campt, Jim Czarnecki, Claudio Lomnitz, David Harvey, Nona Shepphard, Brendan Fernandes, Silvia Federici, and Franco Berardi Bifo.

First Level: The first two years of the curriculum will give our students a broad and solid foundation in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as allowing you to begin exploring your own individual interests.

Semester I
The first semester immerses our students into the foundations of the Liberal Arts: critical analysis, history, philosophy, science, and literature. Students share a common experience in the first semester that will establish a unique basis for your studies:

CST.100 First Year Seminar - 3.0 credits
CH.300 World History I - 3.0 credits
PHIL.208 or PHIL.209 History of Philosophy - 3.0 credits
ENGL.101 Introduction to Literary and Critical Studies I - 3.0 credits
MSCI.210 Science and Society - 3.0 credits
CST.190 Beyond Google I: Basic Information Literacy - 1.0 credit
Total Credits 16.0

Semester II
Semester Two completes the introduction to history, critical studies, literature and writing. It allows students the flexibility to choose electives from across the department, the school, and the institute. To ensure a distribution of elective credits, in semesters 2, 3, and 4 students may take no more than 6 non-required credits in any one disciplinary field of Social Science, History, Philosophy, and, Math and Science and no more than 15 credits from any single division at Pratt (i.e. SLAS, Art & Design, and Architecture).

ENGL.103 Introduction to Literary and Critical Studies II - 3.0 credits
CH.400 World History II - 3.0 credits
Open Elective credits 9.0 - 3.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester III
In Semester Three, students take the new Symposium course and continue their distribution of electives.
SS.225 Symposium - 3.0 credits
Open Elective - 12.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester IV
In semester 4, students participate in the guided advisement of Moderation. They also take their required Theory and Practice course and continue to take electives. “Moderation” provides students with the opportunity to reflect on their studies during semesters 1-3, identify their interests and begin to focus on the concentration that will structure the final two years of their program. Moderation requires students to examine their initial experiences in the program, their goals, and their interests, to evaluate their performance and their commitment to a course of study and to chart their final two years of college with the help of a faculty committee.

Theory and Practice requirement - 3.0
SS.299 Moderation - 2.0
Open Elective credits - 9.0
Total Credits - 14.0

First Level (Years 1 and 2) Total Course Credits: 60



Second Level: In their third and senior years, students are immersed in their guided electives, minors, internships, and their senior project or honors thesis. The project or thesis is undertaken with a committee chosen from and approved by the faculty. With the help of their Moderation advisers, students develop a course of study tailored to their individual interests and faculty expertise.

Semester V
CST.390 Beyond Google II: Thesis and Information Research - 1.0 credit
Guided elective - 9.0 credits
Open elective - 6.0 credits
Total Credits - 16.0

Semester VI
Guided electives - 9.0 credits
Open electives - 6.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester VII
Guided elective - 3.0 credits
Open electives - 9.0 credits
CST.440 Senior Seminar - 3.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester VIII
You may choice two options, either a 6 credit Senior Thesis or a 3 credit Senior Thesis
CST.480 Thesis/Senior Project* - 3.0 credits
Open Electives - 12.0 credits
OR
CST.480 Thesis/Senior Project* - 6.0 credits
Open Electives - 9.0 credits

Total Credits - 15.0
Second Level (Years 3 and 4) Total Credits 61
___________
Total Credits for Degree - 121

*Senior projects carry 3 credits while more formal and in depth academic thesis carries 6 credits. If a student undertakes a 3 credit project, then they will take 12 elective credits. If a student undertakes a 6 credit thesis, they will take 9 credits.

 Visit the link below for admissions requirements or to apply online. We look forward to reviewing your applications!
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions/applying/

For more information, please visit our official page at:
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal_arts_and_sciences/critical_visual_studies/

BA Program in Critical & Visual Studies
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Pratt Institute
200 Willoughby Ave.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11205