Serial Baroque in the TV Show "American Gods"

Beschreibung

American Gods (2017-2021) tells of how people’s faith makes the gods real. The old gods of vanished cultures and from other continents have previously embraced the American way of life. But now they are gathering to fight the new deities of globalization, new technologies and new media.
Showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green conceived the series based on the novel by English author Neil Gaiman. The staging of the first season is particularly spectacular and has delighted critics. It references the old Italian and Spanish Baroque tradition of having allegorical figures embody abstract concepts such as truth, love or evil. This cultural heritage has long become the basis of the relationship between Neo-Baroque and Contemporary Entertainment (Angela Ndalianis, 2004). That is why the new gods are called “Media,” “New Media,” and “Technology.” And American Gods, of course, belongs to these new media and thus corresponds to the cherished paradoxes of self-referential art in the baroque age.
The lecture is dedicated to the transatlantic relationship as it is shown between the Old and the New World. But it is also about the US itself, because the TV series was released during the presidency of Donald Trump and the new deities can be interpreted as the allegories o

Zeitraum	26 März 2022
Gehalten am	Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW), Österreich
Bekanntheitsgrad	International