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Monsters and aliens have always been stand-ins for society's submerged
worries, which inevitably surface in pop cultural dreams: enjoying these
myths can be a healthy way of dealing with fears — and great fun besides! But
the imposing of one's darkest architypal fears on real-world Others always
ends in tragedy. Fear of the Evil Other drives good people to do bad things
and empowers demagogues. Back in the 1950s, the sublimated "monsters" ranged
from the A-Bomb to death and sex to socially-excluded racial Others. For some
people, B-movies and horror comic books were a way to process this scary
world, and so the 50s became the Golden Age of Fandom. For others, though, it
was the movies and comics that were seen as the worst of evils (and probably
part of a Communist plot!). This seminar explores witch-hunting and
censorship in the 1950s (and elsewhere), being careful not to scapegoat Evil
Others ourselves, but rather seeking to identify good and evil with the
fearlessness that comes of knowing that facing the truth is ultimately what
sets us free.
[ PAUL LEGGETT ]
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Westerners have enthusiastically embraced Japanese pop culture in its
multitude of forms — anime, manga, action and horror
films, video games and the rest of a seemingly endless proliferation of
J-Pop. Otaku is the Japanese word for pop-culture nerd or obsessive,
a phenomenon that is hardly limited to the East! But other cultural
phenomena seem particularly rooted in Japanese culture which, like all
cultures, has its troubling aspects. The hikikomori are young people
who have taken otaku obsession to a darker level, withdrawing from
society altogether, sometimes for years at a time, refusing to take their
place in a society that doesn't have much room for variations from social
norms. Using anime as "conversation starters," this seminar offers a firsthand look at the world of the
hikikomori and explores elements of the social context from which J-
Pop emerges with an emphasis on the transformational power of the
gospel [ PAUL NETHERCOTT ]
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What (or who) awakened you to the sense of wonder, magic, possibility —
in language, and in the imagination? This seminar is for those whose sense of
wonder has endured, those who continue to search out texts that dazzle and
amaze us. We will explore versions of the wondrous from "magical realists"
like Borges and Garcia Marquez, to science fiction writers like A. E. van
Vogt and Ursula LeGuin, playing off and with Bruce Sterling's notion of
"slipstream" writing that bends, tests, dissolves, and sometimes explodes our
notions of day-to-day reality.
[ JEFF GUNDY ]
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Elvis is everywhere! Images of The King permeate American culture, postage
stamps to Vegas stage shows. In fact, the kitschy commodification of Elvis
may obscure the fact that once upon a time, he was genuinely cool —
explosively so. The trajectory of the Elvis story charts a path through all
the stages of coolness, and this seminar takes an anthropological interest in
the manifold permutations of Elvis culture.
[ ERIKA DOSS ]
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The humble and hideous zombie has been defined and widely popularized by the
films of George A. Romero, a director who has also pioneered what some have
dubbed "moist cinema" — the outrageous, over-the-top depiction of blood
and viscera splattered all over the screen till the audience feels nauseous.
These seminars will show how Romero's vision is not just one of shock, but a
humane and thoughtful presentation of original sin, greed, racism, sexism,
and even, however tentatively, hope.
[ KIM PAFFENROTH ]
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| AN IMAGINARIUM SYMPOSIUM ON COOLNESS |
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Why do we spend so much energy trying to be cool? Can we even define cool, or
is it too slippery? What does Martin Luther King have to do with Elvis
Presley? How about rebellion and consumerism? Is there hope for a full life
on the other side of cool, a life full of enchantment, compassion and
belonging?
[ PAUL GRANT ]
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THE SEDUCTION OF COOL: REBELS WITH A LOSING CAUSE
Consumer culture thrives off our need to feel unique, special, different,
hip, mod, cool, alternative... you get the point. Some of us are suckers,
some dazed, and others feel immune to the huckster's hype. We will navigate
this world of meaning, consumerism and identity formation with an eye to
finding liberation for ourselves and those around us.
[ AIDEN ENNS ]
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Let's tackle some questions that have always hovered in the background of the
Imaginarium. Namely, what IS it about movies that are so bad they're
good? And what's the deal with these unshakable and complex feelings
we have for aspects of the culture of the 1950s? Are we laughing WITH the
innocent Beavercleaverness of it all, or AT it? Or secretly wishing we could
be a part of it, longing to regain something that we've lost? But is ironic
distance always a bad thing, in a world where everybody's got a pitch to sell
you something? Can art be a commodity or a commodity be art? Can we have an
authentic aesthetic experience with mass-produced goods? With absolute
schlock? Lint Hatcher explores the hidden implications of the cheesy, corny,
kitschy, folksy, tacky and low-brow, visiting Roadside Attractions including:
Goofy Golf, Lookout Mountain, Mexican wrestlers vs. Frankenstein's
Daughter, cheap Halloween toys from China and Mexico that ooze a creepy
originality despite being mass-produced, MST3K, mime homilies,
Dinosaur Land, Howard Finster, Kit Kat clocks, Gamera movies, the Rebel
Korn'r, Flannery O'Connor (when does Lint speak without mentioning
Flannery?), the Confederama, and the virtues of smallness and
imperfection.
[ LINT HATCHER ]
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A suppertime "film study" exploring media-created realities and media-created
debunkings of media-created realities, along with our nostalgic dreams about
an ideal past — especially those dreams and media-created realities
connected to the 50s and 60s. We'll consider films like Back to the
Future, Pleasantville, The Dead Poets Society, and Twin
Peaks. [ MIKE HERTENSTEIN ]
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Jabbers Cafe is a BYO coffee klatch in the mornings, where the truly hard core
can get a bleery-eyed head-start on discussions and debates of this year's
topics at issue. Come connect the dots with others doing the same and learn
what everybody is taking away from this year's Imaginarium experience.
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