Dr. Bolte-Picker on “Hurricane Katrina - Difference, Diversity and the Power of Skin Politics”

On September 15, 2005 the President of the United States George W. Bush, spoke to the Nation after having been criticized for his style of leadership during the disaster of hurricane Katrina which overtook the gulf coast only one month before. A picture taken from this speech runs around the world: it shows the President in front of St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, New Orleans, his sleeves rolled up like a craftsman ready for rebuilding all signs of destruction that Katrina has left behind.

In her analysis of speech and image as medial representation, Dr. Bolte-Picker will ask for implicit political statements that have been visually presented on the political stage of America in 2005: How did word and image as well as image and image interrelate? How did visual significance constitute a politically connotated imaginary? Looking back to this speech and its representation in the aftermath of Katrina, Dr. Bolte-Picker will expound how "thinking in images" (Marie-José Mondzain) leaves traces of difference that refer to different aspects of social diversity in today's New Orleans.

Ms Bolte-Picker's talk is part of the lecture “Twenty-First Century US America: A Cultural History of the Present” by Prof. Greta Olson (Professor of English and American Literary, Cultural, and Media Studies,
Institut für Anglistik).