On April 5, 2013, Ivan Gaskell delivered the keynote address of the University of Rochester’s ninth Visual and Cultural Studies conference: “A Matter of Time: Temporalities of Material Culture.” In his whimsically titled speech, “Buds, Bugs, and Bird Skulls: Do (…)
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Latest from the InVisible Culture Blog
Announcement Concerning Film and Exhibition Reviews
IVC is expanding its reviews section! InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal of Visual Culture (IVC) now welcomes film and exhibition reviews from emerging and established scholars and critics in addition to book reviews. IVC accepts both contemporary and historical works of film (…)
Erratic Copying: Consummate Memetics in the Year 2012
Perhaps the greatest delight in teaching is watching students realize that debates are often not what they initially appear. I relished this transition in particular this fall, when my freshman working on an argumentative paper about the future of journalism (…)
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and the Problem of the ‘Rape Scene’
Although somewhat late to the party, I recently viewed the American adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Like many viewers, I found the unapologetically graphic and confrontational rape scenes to be troubling. (…)
CFP: “Temporalities of Material Culture,” April 5-7, 2013, University of Rochester
CALL FOR PROPOSALS “A Matter of Time: Temporalities of Material Culture” 9th Visual and Cultural Studies Graduate Conference University of Rochester, April 5-7 2013 As cultural critics have noted over the past thirty years, we seem to be living in (…)
CFP InVisible Culture, Issue 20: Ecologies
Ecologies InVisible Culture, Issue 20 InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture invites papers that consider “ecologies” for Issue 20. We imagine ecologies primarily as organizational spectrums. Political philosopher Jane Bennett argues that attuning our critical sensibilities to the (…)
Now (Exclamation Point) Visual Culture
Nick Mirzoeff’s choice to add the declarative, the imperative, the ambiguous shift-1 keystroke that turns the pinky on its side and flips the bird on the number pad (frankly a radical move in the usual topography of typing) requires a (…)
Visualizing the Student Debt Crisis at Now! Visual Culture
The Friday morning sessions at the Now! Visual Culture conference this weekend in New York began with a timely wake up call: a panel organized by Dr. Joan Saab of the University of Rochester examining the twin crises of academic (…)
The Other Woman: Joan and Peggy move up in the world
The title ‘The Other Woman’ is of course a reference to the angle the SCDP creatives originally take when brainstorming for their Jaguar pitch: positioning the E-Type as a beautiful, exciting mistress. However, it also brings to mind the inevitable (…)
InVisible Culture Blog
We are happy to announce that InVisible Culture will feature an interactive blog. This new feature will present up-to-date, non-peer reviewed content, including exhibition, film, and book reviews that will reflect the current issue as well offer a forum for considering the state (…)
We Are the Hollow Men: Mad Men and the Flatness of Representation
1In a recent article about Mad Men published in The New York Review of Books Daniel Mendelsohn settles the score with the show’s writers and creators.2 Startled by the unanimous global praise of the show, and horrified by what he (…)
A Symphony in Plaid
Firmly ensconced in the middle of the 1960s, the fifth season of Mad Men has begun to reflect some of the “youthquake” that shaped much of our popular perception of this period. Don and Harry tried to recruit the Rolling (…)
Reflections on Hip and Square
In this week’s episode each of the characters featured in “Far Away Places” have a moment where their self-understanding is challenged by a reflection of something else. Peggy listens to Ginsburg, but watches him in a window while he relates (…)
All Finished With Her Pink Virgin Cocktail
At the outset of season five’s seventh episode, Sally and Glen have a phone conversation wherein Glen makes a sure-fire prediction: “You’ll see when you break up,” Glen says. “It hurts.” Instead of commiserating with Glen, Sally puts up a (…)
Home Is Where?
Mad Men, of course, has always been a show about work. And although the characters seem to like one another, or at least many of them do, their connection, after all, isn’t so much friendship but a common pursuit (…)