Venice in Las Vegas: An American and European Auto-Socio-Biography, 1960s to 1980s

＂I left the USA several decades ago, yet I still love my homeland. I searched for dialog between Europe and America through the link between Venice and Las Vegas.＂

Through the mode of the auto-socio-biography, Shapiro’s ＂Venice in Las Vegas＂ examines the cultural, political, and technological events, and reaction of the media, that shaped the period of the 1960s through the 1980s across the United States and Europe. Shapiro weaves his personal experiences into the investigation, engaging with writers such as Baudrillard, Camus, Auster, and others, whose work is so intricately tied to his own memories of that time.

Alan N. Shapiro, media theorist, is the author of the books: Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance (2004), Software of the Future (2014), and Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction (2024). Alan taught at universities in Essen and Lucerne and currently teaches at the Bremen Art University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oldenburg.