Lunch Talk – How the Other Half Looks: Remediating the Lower East Side

Posted by on Thursday, March 16, 2017 in Past Events.

Join us at the Robert Penn Warren Center on Thursday, April 6th at noon for a talk by Sara Blair, Patricia S. Yaeger Professor of English, American Culture & Judiac Studies (University of Michigan).

Throughout its evolving history, the Lower East Side served as a proving ground for responses to the problem of managing social heterogeneity and change. During the 19th century, its unprecedented density and raw materiality made it a favored site to test new technologies and practices for observing U.S. social life. In turn, these practices generated habits of observation that focused literary and popular expression, and shaped projects of remediation–that is, social amelioration as well as the emergence of key media forms.  Focusing in this talk on the post-WWII, post-atomic context and the conduct of the popular mass journal Colliers, Blair explores the ongoing power of the Lower East Side as a resource for dystopian visions and for an imagination of America’s futures.

Lunch will be served.

This event is free and open to members of the VU community and is sponsored by the Vanderbilt University Program in Jewish Studies, the Department of English, and the Robert Penn Warren Center.

*The Program in Jewish Studies aims to make our events accessible to all who wish to attend. Please contact the department for further accessibility information or to make a request for an accommodation.