Palpable excitement hung in the air of Curtin 175 on the Thursday afternoon prior to the Century for 20th Century studies 50th anniversary Symposium. Now known as the Center for 21st Century studies, the center’s long legacy enjoyed a well-deserved celebration this past week. Guests from the Center’s past and present spoke of their experiences at the center, the friends they made, the serendipitous professional connections they forged, and the memorable parties they attended. On Thursday, Professor Emerita of Film Patricia Mellencamp spoke with gusto about her experience as a pioneer in the field of film studies, and the humble beginnings of the program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She spoke of building courses on the fly, carrying heavy film reels to and from Mitchell Hall for screenings, and most importantly, her love of film. She described “movie heaven,” those moments in films that cinephiles know so well, which she emphatically pointed out to undergraduates in her courses. Dr. Mellencamp’s vivacity set the tone for the Symposium on Friday, and for the warmth, appreciation, and comradery the center has provided for so many alumni and faculty over the years.
The Symposium offered an exciting array of arguments that overlapped with one another in appropriately lively ways. After all, the center is a place where ideas percolate, and where different fields synthesize. From the center-forged study of aging to vulnerable spectatorship, the panels felt like a day-long master course in current scholarship on visual media and culture.
Two talks haunt my thoughts as the days pass, and in our political moment, they are painfully relevant. Gary Weissman’s “On Photographing Nazi Camps” aimed to reconcile the representations of Nazi camps in photographs by Dirk Reinhardt and Erich Hartman–both venerating the camps as haunting ruins—with the work of James Friedman. Friedman’s photographs pull these now tourist sites into the present day. His photographs feature tourists and plaques, and signal the social and political significance of these sites today. The harrowing story that Weiss told about visiting one of the sites himself raises questions about these camps as places that are hallowed and alternatively places that are defiled. He ultimately raised questions about how images can aid in the process of learning, unlearning, and relearning histories as we become more attuned to the ways in which representation is inescapable, and echoing Georges Didi-Huberman, of the utmost importance.
Tara McPherson’s talk, “Platforming Hate: The Right in the Digital Age” called stark attention to the legacies of hatred that remain strong in our time, and that permeate not only cyberspace, but our cities and streets. McPherson argues that platforms such as Discord and Reddit are lenticular, meaning that they have a certain way of organizing representations and epistemologies. This structure leads to immersion—users of these platforms find themselves saturated in hateful content. The vertical axis of the platform, the scroll, deepens and extends this experience. The horizontal axis of the platform spreads the messages far beyond these obscure corners of the web. Her in-depth analysis of the way these platforms operate raises crucial questions. How do we work to oppose these messages? How can be mobilize platforms for counter-mediation? What regulatory recourse exists to remedy open hate speech online? Though these questions are difficult, they are more important than ever. In the face of continual violence and extremism, the Center for 21st Century Studies provides not a respite, but a meeting ground for conversations on how to address these problems. As we search the horizon for what’s next at the Center, the commitment to the effect the humanities can have on humanity as a force of good is crystal clear.
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Joni Hayward
PhD Student in Digital, Cinema & Media Studies at UWM
*The 50th Anniversary Symposium for the Center for 20th Century Studies took place on Thursday, October 25th and Friday, October 26th at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.