Censorship at the Smithsonian by Amy Johnson Frykholm posted here as a lure into her web-site and that as a sample of what we might hear from Amy and talk with her about when she is on campus February 14-15. This post is about congress getting involved with removal of a portion of a video in a new show exploring GBLT lives at the Smithsonian. (More precisely: the National Portrait Gallery's show "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture".) Amy reminds us that curators have the responsibility to make choices and to compose coherent exhibits that promote the artists expression. Curators don't include everything; there is not room and they are themselves making statements as they develop an exhibit. This suggests, to me at least, that when we consider freedom of speech we might do well to link it to freedom of assembly and to remember that this is a group effort.
When Amy is on campus she will be very busy. She's an alum and has been extremely generous is agreeing to take on several events including a lecture for AmCon 102 on apocalypticism and American religion, a public lecture on her forth coming book (Lecture: Doing It Right: Sex, Bodies, and Christianity in American Media), and a craft talk based on her biography of Julian of Norwich. More details to come. The lecture will be streamed on www.stolaf.edu.
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