Bob Bednar

bednarb@southwestern.edu
512.863.1440
Olin 119
http://people.southwestern.edu/~bednarb/

Notable Achievements

Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar presented a plenary talk titled “Bringing the Archives Out of the Archives: Mobilizing and Reframing University Archives in Critiques of Campus Commemorative Landscapes” at the Austin Archives Bazaar, held at Scholz Garten in Austin on April 14. The talk described the experience of developing the Placing Memory Interactive Story Map in Summer 2023 with Megan Firestone, Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives, and a team of 11 student researchers: Bettina Castillo ’24, Max Colley ’24, Adrianna Flores-Vivas ’24, Lainey Gutierrez ’25, Teddy Hoffman ’24, Hannah Jury ’24, Shawn Maganda ’24, Harper Randolph ’25, Andrea Stanescu ’24, Michelle Taing ’24, and Ava Zumpano ’25.

Expertise

Visual Culture, Visual Communication, Cultural Studies of Mass Media & Everyday Life, Public Memory, Trauma Studies, Automobility, Affect Theory, Material Culture, Tourism, Landscape & Built Environment, Design & Culture, Film Theory/Practice, Environmental Studies, American Studies, Contemporary U.S. Cultural History

Biography

Research

Bob Bednar received his PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 1997, his MA in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, and his BA in American Studies from Southwestern University in 1989.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Bednar, Robert M. 2013. “Killing Memory: Roadside Memorials and the Necropolitics of Affect,” Cultural Politics vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 337-356.

Bednar, Robert M. 2011. “Materialising Memory: The Public Lives of Roadside Crash Shrines,” Memory Connection, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 18-33. [Lead Article] Located at URL: http://www.memoryconnection.org/article/materialising-memory-the-public-lives-of-roadside-crash-shrines-2/

Peer-Reviewed Chapters in Edited Scholarly Books

Bednar, Robert M. 2015. “Placing Affect: Remembering Strangers at Roadside Crash Shrines,” in Christine Berberich, Neil Campbell, and Robert Hudson (eds.), Affective Landscapes in Literature, Art and Everyday Life: Memory, Place and the Senses (Farnham, UK: Ashgate), pp. 49-67.

Bednar, Robert M. 2012. “Being Here, Looking There: Mediating Vistas in the National Parks of the Contemporary American West,” in Thomas Patin (ed.), Observation Points: The Visual Poetics of National Parks (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 1-28.

Bednar, Robert M. 2011. “Denying Denial: Trauma, Memory, and Automobility at Roadside Car Crash Shrines” in Anne T. Demo and Bradford Vivian (eds.), Rhetoric, Remembrance, and Visual Form: Sighting Memory (London: Routledge Press), pp. 128-145.

Bednar, Robert M. 1996. “Searching For an Old Faithful America: National Park Tourism in the 1970s,” In Elsebeth Harup (ed.), The Lost Decade: America in the 1970s (Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus Press), pp. 53-78.

Invited Chapters in Edited Scholarly Books

Bednar, Robert M. 2011. “Making Space on the Side of the Road: Towards a Cultural Study of Roadside Car Crash Shrines,” in Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader (eds.), The World is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts, 4th Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), pp. 222-234.

Bednar, Robert M. 2011. “How I Wrote This Essay,” in Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader (eds.), The World is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts, 4th Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), pp. 235-238.

Bednar, Robert M. 2009. “Roadside Memorials and the Public Health,” in Sarah Earle, Caroline Bartholomew and Carol Komaromy (eds.), Making Sense of Death, Dying and Bereavement: An Anthology (Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press), pp. 22-23.

Bednar, Robert M. 2009. “Making Space on the Side of the Road: Towards a Cultural Study of Roadside Car Crash Shrines,” in Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader (eds.), The World is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts, 3rd Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), pp. 497-508.

Bednar, Robert M. 2006. “Caught Looking: Problems With Taking Pictures of People Taking Pictures at an Exhibition,” in Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader (eds.), The World is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts 2^nd Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), pp. 206-210.

Bednar, Robert M. 2003. “Caught Looking: Problems With Taking Pictures of People Taking Pictures at an Exhibition,” In Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader (eds.), The World is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), pp. 224-229.

Popular Media Publications Based on Scholarly Work

Bednar, Robert M. 2013. “Roadside Memorials: A Search for Meaning,” Austin-American Statesman, March 31, 2013.

Bednar, Robert M. 2013. “Between the Windshield and the Rearview,” The End of Austin: An Exploration of Urban Identity in the Middle of Texas, January 2013. Located at URL: http://endofaustin.com/2013/01/10/between-the-windshield-and-the-rearview/