Talks and Topics
Doing Peace through Practical Wisdom
Social Trust and Public Life
The Virtue of Unbelonging
Curiosity as Morality
Developing Discernment
Cultivating Kindness
Acting As If and Imagining Otherwise
Research, Essays, and Opinions
Silvestri is author of numerous academic research articles as well as essays and commentaries written for popular outlets. Please enjoy the selections below, arranged topically.
Quick Reads On Memes, Apps, Social Media, Food, Hate, and Truth
“Why Study Hate?” (Journal of Hate Studies, 2021)
This is an introductory note to an issue of The International Journal of Hate Studies, which Silvestri edited in 2021. She addresses “the festering wound of American racism” and the need to diagnose and confront hate in an effort to counter and transform it.
“Post-Truth or Post-Trust?” (In Media Res, 2017)
Written in 2017, this (prophetic) commentary addresses how facts and evidence have lost truth-value as digital misinformation, “fake news,” or “alternative facts,” drown out veracity in public discourse, and how this has lead to an apathetic cynicism indicative of a post-trust society.
“The Challenge of Explaining Omar Mateen through his Social Media Accounts” (The Washington Post, 2016)
This invited opinion piece discusses the Florida night club shooting and the impulse to seek closure by trying to explain the inexplicable in the throes of tragedy.
“Feeding the Civic Imagination” (Pop Junction, 2022)
A published interview about the role of food in social justice and democracy. Encourages readers to consider all the places and cultures they interact with when they eat and about their supermarket’s “ethnic food” aisle.
“Parenting IRL” (In Media Res, 2019)
This short post is a response to the public release of an app developed to “decode your baby’s cry,” arguing that the “appification of everyday life” leads to (among other things) disembodiment and a loss of wisdom
“Our ‘Friends’ at ‘the Front’” (War and Media, 2015)
The lines distinguishing the contexts of war and everyday life are blurring. This post discusses Silvestri’s early research findings on the ways in which social media is changing what it’s like to be at war.
“Beneficent Memes” (Culture Digitally, 2015)
This post considers the political power of “charity memes” like the ALS Ice Bucket challenge. To what extent can imitating performative codes of charity lead to genuine feels of compassion? In other words: Can memes transmit and spread benevolent behavior online?
Memory, Security, and Communication (Communication and Security, 2019)
Silvestri explores how digitality changes our conceptualization of memory, privacy, and permanence. She considers recent data breaches and new legislative measures regarding Equifax, Yahoo!, and Starva. What does it mean to secure digital memory?
Academic Articles On Solidarity, Collaboration, and Grace
Standing Down, Standing Together: Coalition-Building at Standing Rock (Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2023)
This essay explores coalition-building as a confluence of space and embodiment by studying the relationship between U.S. military Veterans and Lakota protestors during the 2016 and 2017 anti-Pipeline Demonstrations at Standing Rock.
Precarity, Nihilism, Grace (International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2021)
This article explores the ambient affect of contemporary nihilism through an analysis of image macros in the ‘nihilist meme’ stash. Drawing from Berlant’s theory of cruel optimism, Silvestri identifies an active form of nihilism unique to the present moment that suggests new possibilities for what it means to live a good life.
Start Where You Are: Building Cairns of Collaborative Memory (Memory Studies, 2021)
Digital mediums have changed how we collect, store, process, and share memories. This article considers how social media status updates inform individual and collective memory by envisioning them as instances when personal narrative coalesces with communal narrative in the memory-making process.
Academic Articles On Power, Resistance, Possibility
Memeingful Memories and the Art of Resistance (New Media and Society, 2018)
This article explores the potential for internet memes to influence not only the content of public memory but also the attitudes with which we remember that content.
Together We Stand, Divided We Fall: Building Alliances with Combat Veterans (Soundings, 2012)
This essay critiques the individualizing rhetorics of pathology that we apply to combat Veterans, arguing that it shifts the responsibility of socially produced problems onto the overburdened individual
The Welcoming: War Resistance and Transnational Memory in British Columbia (Experiencing War Memorials, 2025)
An analysis of “The Welcoming,” an unfinished statue meant to commemorate Canadian hospitality to Americans during the Vietnam War. Despite never being displayed, the statue triggered intense public feelings tied to national identity.
Academic Articles On War and Media
War:Time (International Relations, 2022)
This short essay considers how new technologies and styles of warfighting change both our view of time and our understanding of war itself.
Shiny Happy People Holding Guns: 21st Century Images of War (Visual Communication Quarterly, 2014)
When U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan filter their war experiences through visual aesthetics characteristic of contemporary mobile messaging culture, they produce a new visual discourse for war in the Internet age. A critical reading of 250 Facebook photos reveals an emphasis on colloquial representations of young adult life: hanging out, goofing off, playing games, and wearing costumes.
Surprise Homecomings and Vicarious Sacrifices (Media, War & Conflict, 2013)
The recent popularity of ‘surprise military homecomings’ on YouTube offers an opportunity to revisit debates about the role of online spectatorship in performances of citizenship, particularly during times of war.
Mortars and Memes: Participating in Pop Culture from a War Zone (Media, War & Conflict, 2016)
Post 9/11 wars have been mediated more than any other conflict in history. Just as television defined Vietnam and the first Gulf war, the internet is defining what we know, see, and remember about Iraq and Afghanistan.
Telling the Truth about War in Six Words (Truth in the Public Sphere, 2016)
This essay explores the “The Six Word War,” a crowdsourced war memoir written by “boots-on-the-ground” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Silvestri considers how this new form adapts to the “changing cannon of truth” by showcasing new forms of eyewitness accounts and new demands on truth claims.