New York University’s Steinhardt School and its Departments of Art and Art Professions and Culture and Communication present “The Visible Empire,” the first workshop on Visual Culture, Violence, and Globalization, funded by NYU’s Humanities Council to support discussion of visual culture and the role of images within contemporary society. The event will feature Susan Buck-Morss, director of Cornell University’s visual studies program, Friday, September 23, 6:30 p.m.; Einstein Auditorium, 34 Stuyvesant Street. The event is free and open to the public.

WHO: SUSAN BUCK-MORSS, guest speaker Director of Cornell University’s visual studies program in the Department of Government; professor of political philosophy and social theory; author of Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left (Verso, 2003) and Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (MIT Press, 2000).

WHAT: “THE VISIBLE EMPIRE” In this extensively-illustrated lecture, Professor Buck-Morss examines the concept of empire through new interpretations of the Roman Empire with its own policy of ‘terror and awe.’ The inaugural workshop on Visual Culture, Violence, and Globalization, Violence, a collaboration between Nicholas Mirzoeff, professor in Steinhardt’s Art and Art Professions, and Allen Feldman, associate professor in Steinhardt’s Department of Culture and Communication.

Mirzoeff wrote Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture (Routledge, 2005) and An Introduction to Visual Culture (Routledge, 1999), and Feldman authored Formations of Violence: the Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland (The University of Chicago Press, 1991) and recently published, “The Actuarial Gaze: From 9-11 to Abu Ghraib” in the Journal of Cultural Studies, 2005.

WHEN: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005, 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, EINSTEIN AUDITORIUM, Department of Art and Art Professions, 34 Stuyvesant Street, New York City

For more information about the event and for media RSVPs, contact Jennifer Zwiebel, NYU Steinhardt Public Affairs, 212.998.6797.

Press Contact