2006

Caren Kaplan

  • Associate Professor
  • University of California, Davis
Picture of Caren Kaplan

Project

Precision Targets: US Consumer GPS and the Politics of Location in an Era of Technoscience and Global Restructuring

Program

ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships

Department

Women and Gender Studies

Abstract

This project explores the links between popular culture, militarization, and identity politics in the US during the first Gulf War and its aftermath. An electronic representation animates the argument that location technologies and marketing techniques produce subjects of precision. Throughout the period between the end of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, the quest for increased precision in weaponry, marketing, and identification processes emphasized increasingly specific identities or "targets." A web-based narrative guides users through three schemas to explore the military, entertainment, and marketing aspects of precision in the US during the 1990s.