Militarization of Territorial Planning in Cold War USA
<p>This conversation with Joe Masco can be seen as the third archipelic episode of what I like to call “counter-history of the American suburbia.” After talking with Olivia Ahn about the suburban house as a gender-making apparatus, and with Karen Tongson about processes of queering the suburbia, Joe and I converse about the territorial strategies at work in the creation of suburbia itself. The strategies were very much informed by both the propensity of capitalism, as well as the militarized prospect of a large-scale nuclear attack. Joe explains how an imaginary of fear—similar to the one we currently experience through the so-called “war on terror”—had to be implemented to generate a useful tension among the American population. The 1955 Operation Cue that simulated on live television the nuclear annihilation of a mock-up village is used as a paradigm of such an imaginary throughout the conversation.</p>
Host: Léopold Lambert
Guests: Joe Masco
Part of: The Funambulist Podcast