Prof. Carolyn Marvin
(The Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania)
"Voting Alone: The Passing of 'Mass'
Democracy"
Wednesday, February 21st, 2001, 3:00 p.m.
While Americans pursue politics in small-scale conversation
and larger scale social movements, and through media technologies
old and new, one communicative mode of the political culture
stands atrophied: popular civic rituals of shared bodily space.
We argue that this is unfortunate, for live gatherings carry
unique information about the democratic public that is attainable
through no other medium. Popular gatherings are also sensationalist
modes of bodily mass communication that provide modes of entry
into public life for citizens less prone to political conversation,
organization, and other paradigmatic forms of participation.
We illustrate these claims by examining one of the most successful
civic rituals in American history: presidential elections in
the late nineteenth century. These broad-based events gathered
the democratic mass together in shared space and showed the
value of public, body-based sensationalism as an important mode
of democratic communication and engagement.
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Carolyn Marvin is an associate professor of communications
at the Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania. Her Ph.D.
is in communications from the University of Illinois. She is
the author of two books, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking
About Communications in the Late 19th Century (Oxford, 1988)
and Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American
Flag (Cambridge, 1999). Marvin teaches courses that examine
the nature and function of social taboos and that consider ritual
and ceremonial forms of communication in contemporary life.
She is working on a book that will try to show how notions about
ritual might help us understand media practices and forms.
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The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Open to the public
Refreshments will be served
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DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
The MARIAL Center is located on the 4th floor
of the main building of Emory West, 1256 Briarcliff Rd. There
is ample parking close to the building. Alternatively, you may
take the Emory shuttle (Route W). The shuttle leaves every half
hour from the main campus and is a 10-minute ride. Route W shuttle
stops are located at the corner of Asbury Circle and Pierce
Drive, along Pierce Drive, and in front of the Administration
Building.
Please tell the receptionist at the front window
that you are here for the MARIAL Center lecture.
