Curtis Fletcher grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and earned his B.A. from UC Berkeley. His interests include the history of popular culture, the arts, cultural criticism as well as intellectual and aesthetic responses to technology in 19th and 20th century America. Curtis’ recent research projects have included the following: An examination into the rhetorical endeavor of antebellum inventors to recast their intellectual labor as equivalent to artistic activity in order to combat rampant infringement and the growing perception of inventors as the purveyors of mechanical “humbugs.” A study which locates the emergence of Experiments in Art and Technology—a late 1960’s organization dedicated to collaborative work between artists and cutting-edge engineers—within the context of widespread fear among artists, academics and educationalists that society’s lust for technology might outstrip any interest in the arts or humanities and cause artists to lose what little funding and stature they possessed. In the most general terms, Curtis is interested in the ways in which the aestheticization of technology, both as systems and individual items, can make it appear and/or perform as practically and philosophically more user-friendly. Curtis is happy to respond to any questions from potential students concerning USC’s history department. |
