Pop Goes the Culture

Clarke Forum's nod to mod

September 15, 2009

The Clarke Forum for Contemporary issues is exploring popular culture issues, including Bob Dylan, Japanese robots and the Berlin Wall. Photographer A. Pierce Bounds ’71 snapped this picture of the wall before its demise.

The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was a monumental event in the modern Western world. Parties materialized all over the globe. Wall fragments became coveted souvenirs. Over time, Europeans altered their collective perceptions of themselves and their countries—perceptions that continued to evolve as communications technology further blurred perceived political, social and national borders.

Twenty years after this triumph of democratic ideals, The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues explores this phenomenon and more in its 2009-10 series on popular culture.

It’s a complex theme that defies easy definition. Any phenomenon that permeates the mass consciousness of a society, but that cannot be classified as “high culture,” is fair game in this lecture series, which examines political, social, economic, cultural and technological events, ideas, trends, traditions, history and language.

The season opens with a tip of the Stetson to Bob Dylan, a music and cultural icon who informed a generation of restless Americans and who maintains a space in American pop culture, today. Dylan’s 2001 album, Love and Theft, takes its name from a book on race and American culture. In a Sept. 4 lecture at Dickinson, the book’s author, Eric Lott, an English professor at the University of Virginia, described such appropriations as a necessary aspect of popular culture and creativity.

Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor at the University of California-Irvine, is this year’s Priestley Award lecturer. She will explore the meaning and impact of false memories. This year’s Rush Award recipient is William Greenlee, CEO of The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences. Greenlee will deliver a speech about the pursuit of new knowledge and the translation of that knowledge into products and policies.

Other series highlights include programs on politics and filmmaking, Japanese robots, the fat acceptance movement, virtual realities and New Age racism.

Topics such as these offer ample opportunities for personal and sociological insight, said Harry Pohlman, Clarke Forum executive director and professor of political science.

“Popular culture is an important dimension of everyone’s life,” says Pohlman, who notes that Dickinson faculty provided guidance and advice for selecting this semester’s events. “It deserves study and reflection so that we have a better understanding of ourselves and our society.”