Associate Professor of English Catherine Kodat will be the next speaker in the new Faculty Lecture Series on Friday, Oct. 26, at 4:10 p.m. in KJ 109 (Red Pit). She will speak on the topic "'Don't Act': The Cold War Politics of Art."
Kodat says:
"'Don't Act': The Cold War Politics of Art" is the working title of a book I'm writing about the importance of global Cold War political imperatives in the creation of federal arts funding programs in the United States. In fact, my hypothesis is that current controversies over federal arts support (annually revived in budget hearings for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts) are due not simply to anxieties about 'offensive"' art but also to the disappearance of the political and social conditions that created and sustained public support for such programs in the first place. The book looks at federal arts funding from the Federal One program of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration to the creation of the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities, but Friday's talk compares the Cold War rhetoric of the power of art with the post-Cold War ethos of entertainment, and focuses on the recent Ridley Scott film, Gladiator. Are you not entertained?
The Faculty Lecture Series provides an occasion to highlight the scholarly work of the faculty and make it accessible to a general audience. Each talk lasts 20 to 30 minutes, followed by discussion and questions. After the talk and discussion there will be a reception at Cafe Opus.
