The University of Wisconsin-Madison
VISUAL CULTURE CLUSTER

Michael Peterson
Research

"My current book project, Las Vegas Culture, analyzes the diverse spectacles of one of the twenty-first century’s most concentrated yet least-studied cultural capitals. The book works with the practices of production and consumption that constitute visitors’ experiences of the city–live entertainment, architecture, retail environments and tourist marketing–and finds in their structures and themes, key elements of contemporary globalized tourist entertainment culture. While theatrical performances are my most important cases, and “performance studies” my general approach, this study has developed into a broad cultural analysis encompassing everything from stage shows to fine art to food.

My previous work includes the book Straight White Male Performance Art Monologues (University of Mississippi Press Performance Studies Series, 1996) a study of identity privilege in performance. I was an actor from childhood to college and have directed plays by Aphra Behn, Caryl Churchill, Christopher Durang, William Shakespeare and Naomi Wallace, as well as numerous collaborative original performance events."

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File last updated: August 4, 2003