Lecture title: Who’s Your Daddy?Televisual Representations of Contested Fatherhood Through DNA Tests

Speaker profile: Kathalene Ava Razzano

Position: Adjunct Professor, Global Affairs Program, George Mason University & Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Time: 2pm, June 26, 2017

Location: Conference room, 2rd floor, Teaching Building Ⅲ, Yanchang Campus（延长三教二楼基地会议室）

Brief description:

This lecture examines the televisual representations of men and women seeking to prove the paternity of a child. These stories play out almost daily on daytime television shows in the United States. I suggest there are three types of paternity programs. An analysis of these programs reveals that they are fraught with contradictions and conflicts, especially around the different forms of needs, responsibility and justice at work in identifying a father. A set of key questions emerges: Why do we ask the question? Who asks the question? And what are the material and nonmaterial gains when we ask the question? Further, what we find is a space for a critical consideration of paternity and the consequences of being fatherless for men, women and children.