Dean Ernest J. Wilson III welcomed communication professor Sarah Banet-Weiser, director of the Norman Lear Center's BrandSpace, for a discussion of contemporary brand culture. BrandSpace is an interdisciplinary project, steered by a faculty working group from across USC's campus that examines the way in which new practices, imaginations and politics are being created within the parameters of commercial brand culture. The group discusses youth culture, commodity activism, new forms of marketing, new media and branding, among other things, and Banet-Weiser discussed these issues in relation to her current research on brand culture and political possibility.