The University of Wisconsin-Madison
VISUAL CULTURE CLUSTER
February 1-3, 2006
Visiting Speaker Marita Sturken
Associate Professor of Culture and Communication at New York University , Sturken’s work spans the fields of cultural studies, popular culture, consumer culture, and art and technology. It is interdisciplinary with an emphasis on the ways in which individuals create meaning from cultural products and artifacts, focusing on cultural memory and national identity, images and visual culture, the social function of art, and the cultural effects of technology .
Lectuure: Teddy Bears, Snow Globes, and the Kitschification of America
Thursday, February 2 at 5pm in Chazen L140
This talk examines the role played by kitsch in American patriotic culture, in particular in relation to the production of innocence in U.S. national identity. It examines the role of consumerism in the production of citizenship and national identity, and considers the primary role played by kitsch objects and images in the production and maintenance of a U.S. national identity that is both isolationist and exceptionalist. This talk traces the circulation of kitsch symbols through various networks of image and consumer cultures, and considers the political implications of a kitsch aesthetic on American political discourse.
Workshop:
Architectures of Grief and the Aesthetics of Absence
Friday, February 3, 9am to 11am
In this workshop we will look at chapter 5 from my recently completed manuscript, Tourists of History: Memory, Consumerism, and Kitsch in American Culture. It is concerned with the architecture and design proposals for buildings and memorials at Ground Zero in NY, and in particular the phenomenon of architectural design reenacting the twin towers and the events of 9/11 in design. It argues that the constant reenactment of the twin towers and 9/11 in the redesign of lower Manhattan constitutes a kind of compulsive repetition of grief, one that threatens to inscribe the space of Ground Zero permanently in a kind of replay. Finally, this chapter examines Art Spiegelman's book In the Shadow of No Towers as an example of a different kind of reenactment that incorporates irony to reflect on the contradictions of history and experience.
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