Postcards of Downtown Reno:

Intermedial and Cultural Assemblages

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.45.040

Keywords:

Assemblage, Intermediality, American Culture, Tourism

Abstract

The article examines tourist postcards depicting downtown Reno from the 1930s to the 1940s. The article adopts the notion of assemblage to understand these postcards as intermedial cultural objects and identify tensions and resonances between colors, techniques, and materials, media (including cinema), public imagination of Reno in the literary novels and films, and the cinematic experience of the city and expectation of the postcard’s affective and effective representation. Moreover, the article shows how the postcards served as cultural agents in the reformulation and envisioning of Reno as “The Biggest Little City in the World” and a haven of white “American” culture.

Author Biography

Juan Carlos Guerrero Hernández, Department of Art. University of Nevada, Art, Art History, and Design Department

Is an assistant professor of Art History. His research of contemporary art at the intersection of moving images, photography, performance, collective memory, and decoloniality has been supported by several grants and been published in journals such as TDR/The Drama Review, Photographies, Revista de Estudios Sociales, and Photography and Culture, and books such as Walking with the Enemy: The Art of Subversive Mimicry in the Post-Truth Era (Manchester University Press, 2026), Pop Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), and Ventriloquism, Performance, and Contemporary Art (Routledge, 2023).

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Published

30-11-2025

How to Cite

Guerrero Hernández, J. C. (2025). Postcards of Downtown Reno: : Intermedial and Cultural Assemblages. uadernos e istoria el rte, (45), 242–270. https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.45.040