James Carey Memorial Lecture: Formal Objects in the Anthropocene

Wednesday, September 25, 2024
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Robert C. Pew Grand Rapids Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

A rebooted formalism might be able to provide resources for responding to the civilizational problems of the Anthropocene Era. The study of form, however, is complicated by the ubiquity of forms: the term is primitive and empty while referring to spoons, skeletons, galaxies, equations, nursery rhymes, and just about everything else. As a provisional solution to this problem, I focus on formal objects: familiar, distinctive things that are widely reproduced and valued because of their shape, resonance, or other aesthetic quality. By examining the formal object of the silhouette, some features of formal appeal and response become evident. Formal objects also can allay characteristic problems in formalism, as when the silhouette provides resources for political advocacy.

Robert Hariman is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Argumentation and Debate in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His book publications include Political Style: The Artistry of Power, two volumes co-authored with John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship, as well as edited or co-edited books on popular trials, political judgment, the discourse of political realism, and cultures of catastrophe. Book chapters and journal articles include work on parody, allegory, image appropriation, and other modes of public address. His work has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, and French.

Location Information

Loosemore Auditorium

Contact Information

If you need special accommodations or information, please contact Professor Peter [email protected].

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This event was added to the calendar by Kristen Krueger-Corrado (kruegekr@gvsu.edu) on Thursday, September 5, 2024 and was last updated on Monday, September 9, 2024 at 2:42 p.m.