Reva Wolf, professor of art history at SUNY New Paltz, will deliver the sixth annual Dennis O’Keefe memorial lecture sponsored by the Friends of the Sojourner Truth Library at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, in Lecture Center 104 on the New Paltz campus. This event is free and open to the public.
Wolf’s lecture, titled “Seeing Satire in the Peepshow,” examines the role of the peepshow as satire in the 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe. Wolf said, “The image of the peepshow is common in European visual and literary satire of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Indeed, the peepshow — a popular street entertainment of its day that is considered to be a forerunner of the moving picture — comes to be a veritable synonym for satire. The metaphorical power of this equation of the peepshow with satire is especially evident in Spain, where Francisco de Goya mined it in two drawings. In recent studies, these drawings are understood as Enlightenment criticisms of popular entertainments or as fitting into a chronology of fantastic imagery. I shift the focus to show how Goya’s peepshow drawings belong to a broad European tradition and convey, with remarkable concision, the role of visual imagery in the creation of satirical humor.”
O’Keefe graduated from New Paltz in 1973 and was a dynamic member of the college and community. His positive spirit inspired the lives of New Paltz faculty, staff, students and community members.
For further information, please contact Morgan Gwenwald at 257-3677.
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