Leibniz Uni Hannover – Page 7

Christina Meyer, “Popular Visions of War, Gender, and Nation in [High]-Art-Advertising-Comics”

Abstract for Christina Meyer’s talk at “Cultural Distinctions Remediated: Beyond the High, the Low, and the Middle” (Leibniz University of Hannover, 15-17 December 2011):

Popular Visions of War, Gender, and Nation in [High]-Art-Advertising-Comics: Reading Nell Brinkley’s Newspaper Romance Serials

Christina Meyer (American Studies, Osnabrück)

This paper will engage with the female newspaper illustrator, artist, and writer Nell Brinkley (1886-1944). It will focus on her graphic serials, asking how they locate themselves in the discourse of gendered mass culture and how, while drawing on conventions of sentimental fiction and the conventionalized cliffhanger continuity of nineteenth-century serialized narratives, they defy the ideology of feminine domesticity mediated, for example, in the visual language of the well-known and popular Gibson Girl illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson.

Looking at Nell Brinkley’s serialized First World War saga “Golden-Eyes and Her Hero, Bill” (1918-1919) and situating it within the wider socio-historical context, this paper seeks to trace the intersections of the following discourses: patriotism, female identity, and representation in the battles over standards of taste in art and advertising and modern nation swirling around Brinkley’s popular success. It will further be argued that these and Brinkley’s other pages exemplify the cross-infiltrations of cultural forms (e.g. vaudeville, film, advertisement, poster art); in the debate about women’s social and political roles that took place across a range of media, Brinkley’s romance serials interact with, negotiate, and re-mediate, the widely disseminated images of (at times allegorical) female figures of the era. An analysis of Brinkley’s “serial queen heroines” (Lambert, 2009: 6) reveals not only the changing attitudes about the roles available to women during the 1910s and 1920s; it also allows for new insights into the interconnection between sentimental themes, commercial success and the economic context of (cultural) consumption in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Shane Denson, “Lady Gaga’s Mainstream Queer”

[UPDATE: a revised version of this paper was presented at the “Nonhuman Turn” conference in Milwaukee, May 2012. A screencast video of the complete presentation is available here: Object-Oriented Gaga.]

Abstract for Shane Denson’s talk at “Cultural Distinctions Remediated: Beyond the High, the Low, and the Middle” (Leibniz University of Hannover, 15-17 December 2011):

Lady Gaga’s Mainstream Queer: A Serial Media Remix

Shane Denson (American Studies, Hannover)

In this paper, I propose looking at Lady Gaga as a “serial figure”—as a persona that, not unlike Batman, Frankenstein, Dracula, or Tarzan, is serially instantiated across a variety of media, repeatedly restaged and remixed through an interplay of repetition and variation, thus embodying seriality as a plurimedial interface between trajectories of continuity and discontinuity. As was the case with classic serial figures, whose liminal, double, or secret identities broker traffic between disparate—diegetic and extradiegetic, i.e. medial—times and spaces, so too does Lady Gaga articulate together various media (music, video, fashion, social media) and various sociocultural spheres, values, and identifications (mainstream, alternative, kitsch, pop/art, straight, queer). In this sense, Gaga may be seen to follow in the line of Elvis, David Bowie, and Madonna, among others. Setting these stars in relation to iconic fictional characters shaped by their many transitions between literature, film, radio, television, and digital media promises to shed light on the changing medial contours of contemporary popularity. Serial figures define a nexus of seriality and mediality, and by straddling the divide between medial “inside” and “outside” (e.g. between diegesis and framing medium, fiction and the “real world”), they are able to track media transformations over time and offer up images of the interconnected processes of medial and cultural change. This ability is grounded, then, in the inherent “queerness” of serial figures, which Lady Gaga transforms from a medial condition into an explicit ideology, one which sits uneasily between the mainstream and the exceptional. As a serial figure, I propose, Lady Gaga may be an image of our contemporary convergence culture itself.

Lynn Spigel, “Designer TV”

Abstract for Lynn Spigel’s keynote at “Cultural Distinctions Remediated: Beyond the High, the Low, and the Middle” (Leibniz University of Hannover, 15-17 December 2011):

Designer TV: Television and the Taste for Modernism in Mid-Century America

Lynn Spigel (Screen Cultures/Communication, Northwestern University)

This talk explores the history of television, modern design, and taste cultures in mid-century America. Television’s rise in mid-century America coincided with the boom in mid-century modern design, and the widespread idea among designers that “good design” (if made affordable to average consumers) could elevate American tastes. In the first period of television’s commercial rise TV was a virtual showroom for new trends in modern design, from graphic design to set design to furniture design to package design for products advertised on TV. Numerous leaders in graphic and industrial design (from Saul Bass to Ben Shahn to Charles and Ray Eames to Ronald Searle) all worked for the networks and helped to introduce TV audiences to these new forms of mid-century modernism. More than just a visual style, the aesthetics of modern design on television had broad industrial, national, political, and social dimensions. Television’s modern design aesthetic was integral to how mid-century publics would literally see the world and their place in it. At least in the view of some of the loftier marketers and designers for television, modern design would ultimately democratize taste, elevate the ‘masses,’ invigorate consumption, and re-design America itself as the leader of the modern world. Yet not all people shared the enthusiasm for avant-gardism on television or in design, and some viewers and industry workers protested the use of a mass medium for visual styles that they associated with the intellectual, “highbrow,” and (in some people’s minds) “communist” goals of democracy through design. This talk considers those broader concerns and explores how American tastes (and distastes) for modern art and design relate to the history of television as an aesthetic and cultural form.

Preview of Coming Attractions

Artist James Hance, maker of really cool stuff, has graciously allowed us to use his “Dark Starry Knight” image for the posters we’re putting together for our conference, “Cultural Distinctions Remediated: Beyond the High, the Low, and the Middle,” which will be held December 15-17 at the Leibniz University of Hannover. What you see above is a mock-up, not the final deal. More info on the conference coming soon. In the meantime, in case you missed it: here’s the “promo video” for the conference–with superheroes on a subway!

English Theatre Group: Under Milk Wood

Under the direction of Dr. Peter Bennett, the English Theatre Group at the Englisches Seminar will be performing Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas from Tuesday 12 July through to Saturday 16 July 2011, starting at 19.30.

Tickets will be on sale in the foyer of the Conti Tower from 9.45 until 16.15 each day this week (Mon. 4 – Fri. 8 July).

Film & TV Reading Group

In connection with the Initiative für interdisziplinäre Medienforschung, Florian Groß and Shane Denson are planning a film and television reading group, open to interested students, PhD candidates, and faculty members alike. Beginning in the coming winter semester, we plan to meet regularly to discuss classic and contemporary texts in film and television studies (including both general theoretical texts and more narrowly focused, applied studies as well). Both readings and discussions can be in German or English, and texts will be chosen according to the interests and needs of the participants. In order to get a first assessment of who might be interested, as well as what kinds of topics participants are interested in, we would like to meet once in the remainder of the summer semester and discuss possibilities and plans for next semester. Our preliminary meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 13 at 2:15 pm in room 608 (6th floor Conti-Hochhaus). For more information, please contact Shane Denson (see the “About” page for contact info).

Expelled: Filmvorführung am 22. Juni

Am 22. Juni gibt es eine Filmvorführung im Rahmen des Seminars “Anti-Intellectualism in America” (von Dr. Kirsten Twelbeck). Weitere Teilnehmende sind herzlich willkommen — es können gerne Knabbersachen etc. mitgebracht werden.

Der Film ist interessant für all diejenigen, die sich für Dokumentarfilme und/oder die Debatte über “Intelligent Design” interessieren.

Film: Expelled. No Intelligence Allowed
Documentary
Director: Nathan Frankowski
With: Ben Stein
Rocky Mountain Pictures, 2008
1hr. 37 min

Ort: Königsworther Platz 1, Raum 615
Zeit: 18:00-20:00

Movie Info

Intrigued by the recent trend of scientists, journalists, philosophers, and teachers who have been ostracized and discredited for daring to suggest that humankind may be the product of intelligent design rather than a random fluke in the cosmic scheme of things, Ben Stein sets out on a journey to investigate the supposed persecution of the many by the select few. Stein asserts that in recent years, anyone who dares to question the idea that adaptation is responsible for the development of Earth’s organisms is held to ridicule, and over the course of the film, he travels the globe to speak with the supporters of both theories, pondering the reasons why believing in a higher power has seemingly become a massive taboo in the eyes of educators and the media. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi (on www.rottentomatoes.com)