This Saturday, April 16, at the Coney Island Museum, I’ll be lecturing on Dreamland and the Invention of the Postmodern, as part of the Congress of Curious Peoples:
Details HERE.
Saturday’s omnium gatherum of scholars, aficionados, and weirdo-rati begins at 10 A.M. with a keynote lecture by the noted cultural critic Norman Klein, author of the magisterial study of spectacle, The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects.
Next, and not to be missed, is a panel featuring that David Lynch of the natural-history museum diorama, Mark Dion, and the incomparable Joanna Ebenstein, curator of the Morbid Anatomy blog and rummager in the darkest corners of the cultural unconscious.
Here’s the blurb for the panel I’m sitting on, which gets going at 3:30 P.M.:
3:30 — 5:30: Immersive Amusements/ Scripted Spaces
Elizabeth Bradley, author of “Knickerbocker: The Myth behind New York”; Mark Dery, author “The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink”; Amy Herzog, author of “Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film”; moderated and introduced by Alison Griffiths, author of “Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinemas, Museums, and the Immersive View.”
I’ll deliver a brief (20-minute) lecture taking The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium as my point of departure, then participate in a panel discussion and Q&A. Copies of the book will be on sale, and I’ll happily sign your copy with a lethally sharp nib dipped in stonefish venom.
See you at the Odditorium.