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The Congress for and of Curious Peoples 2011, The Coney Island Museum, April 8-17

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The Morbid Anatomy Library is so very excited to announce the lineup for this year's Congress for Curious Peoples at The Coney Island Museum. For those of you who don't remember from last year, the Congress for Curious Peoples is a 2-day symposium about curiosity and curiosities broadly conceived; it is organized by The Morbid Anatomy Library and The Coney Island Museum and takes place over the weekend of April 16th and 17th at The Coney Island Museum, marking the final weekend of the 10-day Congress of Curious Peoples (more on that in a moment).

This year's Congress for Curious Peoples symposium was inspired by the themes of the The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, the installation I have been working on as Artist in Resident of The Coney Island Museum and within which the Congress will take place. Topics explored in the symposium will include Immersive Amusements, Human Anatomy on Display, and Science and Technology for Public Amusement and will feature many of my favorite scholars, artists, collectors and bon vivants, including (and this is just a brief sampling) Mark Dion, Norman Klein, Mark Dery, Mike Sappol, Lord Whimsy, Evan Michelson, Mike Zohn, and Laurel Braitman. There will also be a scheduled break to visit the Super Freak Weekend Freakshow that will be running continuously throughout the weekend downstairs in Coney Island USA.

Full schedule for the Congress for Curious Peoples follows. This event is sure to sell out, so I highly recommend getting your tickets as soon as possible!

The Congress for Curious Peoples
Saturday and Sunday, April 16th and 17th
The Coney Island Museum
1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn

Saturday April 16th
10:00 - 11:00 Keynote Speaker
Norman Klein, author of "The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects"

11:30 - 1:30 "The New Curiosity": Scholarship as Artistic Medium
Mark Dion, Artist
Joanna Ebenstein, The Morbid Anatomy Library
Wendy Walker, author of "The Secret Service"
Moderated and introduced by Aaron Beebe, The Coney Island Museum

1:30 - 3:30: Lunch and Sideshow Visit

3:30 - 5:30: Immersive Amusements/ Scripted Spaces

Elizabeth Bradley, author of "Knickerbocker: The Myth behind New York"
Mark Dery, author "The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink"
Amy Herzog, author of "Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film"
Moderated and Introduced by Alison Griffiths, author of "Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinemas, Museums, and the Immersive View"

Sunday April 17th
10:00 - 12:00: The Fairground and The Museum: Human Anatomy on Display
Lisa Farrington, author of "Creating Their Own image: the History of African-American Women Artists"
Anna Maerker, author of "Model Experts: Wax Anatomies and Enlightenment in Florence and Vienna, 1775-1815"
Mike Sappol, author of "A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America"
Elizabeth Stephens, "Anatomy as Spectacle: Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present"
Moderated and introduced by John Troyer, author of "Technologies of the Human Corpse" (Forthcoming)

12:00 - 1:00: Lunch

1:00 - 3:00: The 19th Century Dime Museum in the Contemporary Imagination
Will Baker, author of "Multiple Meanings and Values in Johnny Fox's Freakatorium"
Aaron Beebe, The Coney Island Museum
D. B. Denholtz, editor of "Shocked and Amazed: On & Off the Midway"
Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques and star of TV's "Oddities"
Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and star of TV's "Oddities"
Moderated and introduced by Andrea Dennett, author of "Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America"

3:30 - 5:30: Science and Technology for Public Amusement
Laurel Braitman, author of "Animal Madness" (forthcoming)
Fred Nadis, author of "Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, and Religion in America"
Simon Werrett, author of "Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History"
Moderated by Lord Whimsy/Allen Crawford, author of "The Affected Provincial's Companion, Volume One"

Tickets for the weekend are $25 and can be purchased by clicking here. You can also purchase a 10-day Congressional Passes which gets one into all of the events comprising both the Congress of Curious Peoples and the 10-day Congress for Curious Peoples, including those that are already sold out; click here to purchase one of those, $75 in advance, $100 at the door.

To give you a sense of what this "Congressional Pass" would entitle you to, following is the full schedule for the 10 day Congress of Curious Peoples, of which the Congress for is but a the final part. Confused? I know. Sorry! There's simply no getting around it; that's just the kind of beast this series of events is.

Congress of Curious Peoples Schedule
Coney Island USA
1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn

Friday, April 8

Saturday, April 9

  • Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Tickets at the door)
  • Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar (Curiosity vendors)
  • Party for the 2011 Season Premiere of Oddities on the Science Channel TICKETS/DETAILS (Sold Out!)

Sunday, April 10

  • Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Tickets at the door)
  • Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar (Curiosity vendors)

Monday April 11th

Tuesday April 12th

Wednesday April 13th

  • 7:30: Judson Rosebush, "Burlesque: Exotic Dancers of the 1950's and 60's" TICKETS/DETAILS
  • 8:30: Bambi and Bambi: Classic Burley-q meets the New Burlesque TICKETS/DETAILS

Thursday April 14th

  • 7:30: Amy Herzog, “Primal Scenes: Sigmund Freud, Coney Island, and the Staging of Domestic Trauma” TICKETS/DETAILS
  • 8:30: Rudy MacAggi, finalist on America’s Got Talent 2010 TICKETS/DETAILS

Friday April 15th

Saturday April 16th

  • Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Tickets at the door)
  • Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar (Curiosity vendors)
  • Congress For Curious People Day 1

Sunday April 17th

  • Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Tickets at the door)
  • Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar (Curiosity vendors)
  • Congress For Curious People Day 2

As you can see, this is going to be a seriously epic series of events! Very, very much hope to see you at one, many, or all of them!

To find out more about The Spectacularium and The Congress(es), click here.

Special thanks to the Andy Warhol Foundation, whose generosity helped to fund all of these fantastic events.

Also, the lovely poster was designed by Lord Whimsy; click on image to see larger more readable version.

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  1. Anatomy
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