2025–2026 Theme: “Performing Populisms and Fascinating Fascisms”
Our theme for the coming year grapples with fascisms old and new and compares them to the explosion of populisms in recent decades. Far from equating these two phenomena, we seek to explore the textured and historically specific variations of their different approaches to modern political and social formations that invest in “the masses.” In different ways, fascisms and populisms depend on visual cultures and performances for their power from charismatic icons that crystalize ideology to the sounds, choreographies, and framing of crowds as spectacle. Our invited speakers include scholars and artists who approach fascisms and/or populisms globally, in both historical and contemporary iterations.
Questions we will explore include: What aesthetic categories are most generative to understand modern and contemporary political forms? Who speaks for the many, and how is this speech shaped by visual cultures and performance? What roles do voice, rhythm, music, and noise play in constructing these political collectives? What is the role of new media platforms and/or global media conglomerates in the fomenting and sustaining of fascist or populist collectives, and how do they compare to earlier understandings of the crowd? How do emotions undergird and produce fascism and/or populism, or shape forms of living alongside or under them? How might the current upsurge in populisms and fascisms globally indicate unmet social needs, utopian promises of collectivity, or fantasies of the good life? How might art practice and theory help us explore, challenge, or otherwise rechannel these desires for a more democratic understanding of “the people” in all their complexity?
The CVC has a video archive available upon request.
Please contact us if you would like to view a particular lecture from Fall 2018 – Present.
Fall Programming
Genevieve Yue
Lecture
Thursday, September 11
Elvehjem L150
5 PM
Workshop
Friday, September 12
University Club Rm 313
12 PM
Paula Chakravartty
Lecture
Thursday, September 25
Vilas 4070
4 PM
Workshop
Friday, September 26
University Club Rm 212
12 PM
Sophia Farmer
Lecture
Futurist Eco-Imaginaries: Nature, Agriculture, and Colonialism in Fascist Italy
November 13
Elvehjem L150
5 PM
Workshop
Difficult Heritage
Friday, November 14
University Club Rm 313
12 PM
Spring Programming
Nilo Couret
Lecture
Thursday, February 5
Workshop
Friday, February 6
University Club Rm 313
12 PM
Monika Mehta
Lecture
Thursday, February 26
Workshop
Friday, February 27
University Club Rm 313
12 PM
Jorge Pavez Ojeda
Lecture
Thursday, April 9
Workshop
Friday, April 10
University Club Rm 313
12 PM
Sponsors:
Our work is made possible by support from the Anonymous Fund, College of Letters and Sciences, and Department of Art History. Event co-sponsors include the Departments of African Cultural Studies, Art, Chican@ & Latin@ Studies, Communication Arts, English, French & Italian, Gender & Women’s Studies, German, Nordic & Slavic+, Geography, Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, Spanish & Portuguese, Theatre & Drama as well as Center for the Humanities, Center for Research on Gender & Women, Center for South Asia, Havens Wright Center for Social Justice, Institute for Research in the Humanities, Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies, and Wisconsin Center for Film & Theatre Research.