I N F O R M A T I O N * S C H E D U L E * P E O P L E * C O N T A C T S


IMAGES OF AMERICA
Princeton University U.S. Studies
Institute for Foreign Policy Officials
28 July - 17 August 1997



The organizing premise of the program is

that contemporary American life and

democratic institutions are undergoing

something like an "information revolution."

The speed and ubiquity of the image changes

our experience of our society, and not just

"our" experience. Understanding American

democracy today at home and abroad requires

both an unprecedented attention to the news

media and a rich interpretation of the sphere

of culture and images as a whole, ranging

from entertainment television to the

Internet to advertising and art. "Images

of America," then, examines at once the

images of America presented to the world,

primarily through the popular media, and

the images available in America of the

rest of the world. In its three-week curriculum,

the institute examines the current state

of American (1) politics and government,

(2) identity and society, (3) culture and

economics, and (4) international relations

and foreign policy. Discussions of these

topics are organized around celebrated

media events, those highly-publicized

moments or events which have served in

recent years to focus or prompt public debates

about the central questions facing the United

States today--the Clinton-Bush presidential

campaign, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson,

MTV and the Internet, and the "humanitarian"

disasters and interventions in Somalia

and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In emphasing these

"images of America," the program seeks to

work with and complicate what the participants

already know about and have seen of the

United States, taking advantage of a global

familiarity with things American to raise

some new questions about the leading

institutions and issues in America today.



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