Open Air Salon: Lauren Berlant at City Hall Park
6:30-7:30pm
On the occasion of Danh Vo: We The People, award-winning scholar Lauren Berlant will lead participants through a discussion about the Statue of Liberty as an icon of national fantasy, both historically, and in a contemporary context.
A leading figure in feminist and queer studies, Berlant is the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago. Her work examines notions of intimacy, belonging, and the fantasies and realities of citizenship in the United States. She has made vast contributions to the many disciplines that her scholarship touches, expanding and complicating the discourses surrounding identity politics, the relation of law to gender and race, and the political potentials of the humanities themselves. Her recent books include Sex, or the Unbearable (with Lee Edelman, Duke University Press, 2013), Cruel Optimism (DUP, 2011), and The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture (DUP 2008).
Participants should meet at the central fountain in City Hall Park. Seating will be provided.
Rain location: Governor’s Room at City Hall, Second Floor