Graduate Students

Oliver Belcher

B.A. Geography, University of Iowa
M.A. Geography, University of Kentucky  

contact:
Miller Hall room 8
Tel.:(859) 257-8237
Fax: (859) 323-1969
email: oliver@uky.edu

Profile

My interests lie primarily in exploring a relatively underdeveloped aspect of geography/landscape studies: the role of visuality in the production of cultural landscapes. Despite calls for a greater emphasis on the role of 'the visual' in constituting social relations in and through space (cf. Rose 2003), the way cultural landscapes are seen/meant to be seen has been somewhat slighted in geography due to an overwhelming focus on what landscapes mean historically/hermeneutically, or how they are produced materially/socially.

I envision my contribution to geography revolving around the following questions: What do we see? How are we supposed to see? How does visuality render governance? In my research, I want to explore the intersection between visuality, governance, and space, albeit in a very particular way. In his discussion of the rise of 'discipline society' and the development of the 'panopticon,' Michel Foucault has stressed the ways in which power has become decentralized and given rise to a dynamic whereby individuals can assume 'the gaze of the sovereign'; hence, the 'gaze is alert everywhere.' I am interested in how this 'simulated sovereigny' manifests itself in 'simulation landscapes'; i.e., how the 'panopticon' effect is embedded in everyday interactions with multifarious landscapes.

For my thesis, I am investigating different landscapes that produce and are produced by sovereign gazes. For example, the 'Viva Visual' apparatus on Fremont St. in Las Vegas; video arcades that are in the business of producing particular visualities; visual techniques created by Boeing Corporation for MTA subway surveillance in NYC; and visualities produced by and on screens in movie theatres.

My dissertation will focus on what I call 'transitional visualities' in post-Soviet Russia. I am primarily interested in the role of cultural landscapes in producing (and being produced by) social memory and visuality. My particular focus is on the burgeoning Soviet nostalgia among discontented youth and historical preservation movements against state policies that seek to dismantle memorials and iconography produced during the Soviet era. One of the sight/sites of struggle in contemporary Russia is Lenin's mausoleum, where his exposed body has become a nodal point of contention around Russian citizen identity.

In my free time, I conduct independent research on geographies of underground music scenes and youth movements, particularly underground hip-hop and graffiti scenes. When my partner (Lauren Martin) allows me to work 16 hours a day/7 days a week without contact with her and the outside world, I will be working on a paper on the production and policing of hip hop culture in Lexington, KY with Professor Michael Crutcher. At the moment, however, we both have too much work to do. Instead, we drink beers together, and wonder and dream about how great our contributions could be to the exciting new field of Hip Hop Studies.