Natalie Fulton - Art, Imagery and Identity in the U.S.
After graduating, Natalie moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the Democratic National Committee. Following the 2022 midterms, she worked as a research assistant focusing on voting rights, civil rights, and democracy defense. Currently, Natalie works for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and lives in Los Angeles. She spends the entirety of her free time fostering her intellectual curiosity by reading as much fiction, non-fiction, and theory as she can, finding joy, purpose, and identity as a lifelong American Studies scholar.
Area of Concentration Courses
Rhetoric 167 - The Law of Thinking
Rhetoric 136 - Art and Authorship - Theory of the Copy
American Studies C111E - American Culture in the Age of Obama
American Studies H110 - Standing in a Crooked Room Speaking God's Language: Memory, Creation, and Fiction
Sociology 111AC- Sociology of the Family
Thesis
Barbie, Balmain, and the Blockchain: Understanding BalmainXBarbie Through a Lens of Escape, Nostalgia, and Futurism
Natalie’s honors thesis explores the cultural, political, and technological consequences of the BalmainXBarbie collection, which was released by the French fashion house in partnership with Mattel in 2022. The collection—complete with a ready-to-wear clothing line, expansive campaign imagery, and three Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs)—serves as a vehicle to explore the tension between nostalgia and futurism. BalmainXBarbie functions as a framework to consider the real and imagined implications of the metaverse at the intersection of gender, race, and property. At its core, the 2022 collaboration demonstrates the boundaries of the hyperreal and material culture while asking after the implications of the public and private fantasies of power, access, and popular culture during the dawn of blockchain technology.
