Performing Difference in Nineteenth-Century Exhibitions A Lecture by Professor Lucian Gomoll Part of the theater class Performing the Museum Tuesday April 26 1-2:20 in Macgowan 2310C Space is limited: Please email Gwynn Shanks at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> by Monday, April 25th to RSVP to reserve a spot [Description: Macintosh HD:Users:admin:Desktop:American Museum Poster.jpg] Exhibitions in the nineteenth century commonly featured displays of difference, or the staging of people as abnormal and exotic Others in contrast to a putatively normal public. Such presentations of the live body were invitations for audiences to make sense of colonial relationships, racial differences, new injuries caused by war and industry, and the role of science in culture. They also provoked unpredictable responses and competed with other forms of exhibition for the attention of viewers. Thus near the end of the century, institutional antagonism and hostile legislation worked to eliminate live displays from what was once a more inclusive exhibitionary network. This lecture historicizes the quiet ocular-centrism of museums by revealing how such behavior became paradigmatic in the twentieth century as a result of the push to eliminate live and popular productions from the exhibitionary circuit. Lucian Gomoll is an Assistant Professor in Liberal Studies and the Honors College at CSU Los Angeles. He previously held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wesleyan University. Gomoll is a critical theorist who writes about disability, gender, race, indigeneity, species, sexuality, museums, art, and the sciences. He gave the keynote address “Chronotopography, a Curatorial Method” at the University of Alberta’s 2013 conference Encoding/Decoding. His writing has been published in numerous books and journals, and he was a guest editor for a special issue of Collections on the topic of curating. For more, visit: luciangomoll.com<http://www.luciangomoll.com> Space is limited: Please email Gwynn Shanks at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> by Monday, April 25th to RSVP to reserve a spot