News and Events

March 28, 2013 - Lecture by Tina Campt

2013-03-19T10:04:25Z

The German and Africana Studies Departments are hosting Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Africana Studies Program Tina Campt of Barnard College/Columbia University next Thursday. Professor Campt will be giving a lecture titled "Racing the Family Narrative: Black German Family Photography and the Stories Pictures (Won't) Tell…" on Thursday, March 28 at 5 pm in Althouse 106. Professor Campt's visit is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Office of Diversity Initiatives, the Women's Center, American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Joyce Bylander, Special Assistant to the President for Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, and the Max Kade Foundation.

"Racing the Family Narrative: Black German Family Photography and the Stories Pictures (Won't) Tell…"
What historical 'truths' can we read in the visual archive of the African Diaspora in Germany? What narratives of nation, place and belonging do family photographs tell? What narratives do they challenge, dislodge or retell? This presentation uses family photography of Black Germans in the early twentieth century to tell an alternate narrative of race, nation and diaspora for the Black German community. In the process, it asks what we can learn by engaging the multiple truths of still images, and images of dwelling in diaspora.

2013 American Studies Senior Research Symposium

2013-03-18T14:02:07Z

Senior theses highlight cultural phenomena, often with personal ties

March 2, 2013 - Senior Research Symposium

2013-02-26T11:29:14Z

The 2013 American Studies Senior Research Symposium will be held on Saturday, March 2nd in the Stern Center Great Room. American Studies seniors will present their research projects.

Panel 1:    9:30 to 10:45am - Gender and Representation
                Ashley Davis: Cosmopolitan Magazine: The Male Issue
                Alexandra Boorse: Miss America: Constructing the American Ideal of Womanhood
                Melissa Canu: From the 'Dream House' to the White House: Barbie, Femininity, and Power in the United States
                Julie Elias: Radical Laughter?: Bridesmaids and the Limits of Gender Subversion in Film Comedy
Mary Sullivan: Tanning Temptations in the United States

Panel 2:    10:45am to 12:00pm - Agency and Action
                 Ivan Gutierrez: Hegemonic Masculinity: Way of Life or Racial Boundry?
   Sarah Gray: Queer Women Artists and the Implications of the Gaze: Activism, Sexuality, and the Body
   Samantha Fertel: Challenging Rape Culture: Can Student Activism Effectively Change a College Campus?
   Alexis Kuzma: Empowering or Subjugating?: A Feminist Analysis of the Hot Mom Trend

Panel 3: 1:00 to 2:00pm - Race, Culture, and Resistance
                Christopher Szymanski: Forget Fly, I Am Fashion
Leah Silver: A Romanticized Reality: The Fallacy of the American Dream for African Americans in the United States
Teddy Malley: Chinese Immigration: Chinatown in New York and San Francisco in the Early 1900s
Andrew Hill: LeBron James & The Infrapolitics of a Working Class Athlete

Panel 4: 2:00 to 3:00pm - Popular Culture and Mass Media
   Laura Garbarino: Alcoholism and Binge Drinking in Hollywood Films
   Nina Boyd: Large and Not in Charge: A Critical Analysis of "The Biggest Loser" and U.S. Ideas of Bodily Citizenship
   Emily Magida: Sensationalism in Cable Television News: The Blurred Line Between News and Entertainment
   Brian Schwartz: The Power of the News Media
   Alison Snyder: Deviant Possession: Hoarding and its Participation in Unveiling the Processes of Capitalism, Consumerism and Citizenship

Panel 5: 3:00 to 4:00pm - Power, Symbol, and Nation
   Laura Bartell: Who Are We?: A Critical Analysis of the Family in the Display of Bumper Stickers
   Marcy Isaacson: Patriotic Fervor and the Symbol of the American Flag in a Post-9/11 America
   Connor Sheehan: The Use of Mental Illness to Safeguard Consent in the Extended 1950s (1947-1963)
   Molly Welch: The Dissemination of Fat Discrimination in America

Smoking Hot: The Synergistic Rise of Cigarettes and Jazz fromt he U.S. to China

2013-02-07T09:43:15Z

The American Studies department presents the 2013 Bud Shaw Lecture on Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 5:00pm in Althouse 106.

Nan Enstad, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison will discuss how cigarettes came to have a global reputation as sexy and a little bit bad. How did their circulation intersect with jazz, the U.S. empire, and the triumph of the multi-national corporation? This talk explores the creation of cigarettes' affective appeal by tracking its association with jazz and global race in the 1920s and '30s in marketing, radio, and the live jazz club of Shanghai and Reidsville, North Carolina.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

For further information

2013 Spring Course Offerings

2012-10-19T14:32:46Z

2013 Spring Course Offerings and Information for the American Studies Major

The Hunger Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches - May 1, 2012

2012-04-18T15:14:49Z

Are we living in Panem? The book or the movie? Is Katniss a feminist? How does race work in fandom? Is hunger a virtue?

Come join us on Tuesday, May 1st for a lively multidisciplinary panel discussion on The Hunger Games franchise. Panelists include Professors Vanessa Tyson (Political Science), Siobhan Phillips (English), Toby Reiner (Political Science), and Perin Gurel (American Studies) with Professor Sharon O’Brien (American Studies) as chair. Remarks from panelists will be followed by an open discussion and q & a.

Light refreshments will be served – squirrel availability TBD.

This event is organized by the department of American Studies and generously co-sponsored by the departments of English, Political Science, and the Center for Sustainability Education at Dickinson College.

Arena: Stafford Auditorium, Rector Science Center - 6:00pm Capitol Time

Focus on Faculty Cotten Seiler

2012-03-29T09:12:53Z

Associate professor of American studies, Cotten Seiler, discusses his scholarly interests and musical side and explains why it's no fun to watch television with his students.

Focus on Faculty Cotten Seiler

March 3, 2012 - Senior Research Symposium

2012-03-01T10:03:00Z

The 2012 American Studies Senior Research Symposium will be held on Saturday, March 3rd in the Stern Center Great Room.
American Studies seniors will present their research projects.

Panel 1: 10:15am to 11:15am - Imagined Communities: Identity Formation Beyond the Self
               Kaitlyn Hoza: Bring the Battle Home: The Unseen Wounds of PTSD in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans
               David Torres: Social Networking and Privacy
               Aigail Sharaf: Dating, Dining, and Dancing: Popular Social Etiquette on College Campuses During the Great Depression
               Kathryn Mersky: Housewife Culture: A Contemporary Look into the Franchise, the Women, and the Viewer Response of Bravo TV's The Real Housewives

Panel 2: 11:15am to 12:15pm - Making Otherness: Imperialism and Race
               William Perry: Deconstructing the MLB: Neocolonialist Practices and Latino Baseball Players
               Melissa Gurdon: Rap Musicians as Organic Intellectuals: Re-Educating America from the 1990's to the Present
               Abigail Tufts: Jewish Whiteness: Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, and Assimilation through Sports
               Laura Kassen: Oy Vey: Gertrude Berg and Representations of Jewishness on The Goldbergs

Panel 3: 1:15pm to 2:30pm - Representations: Art, Media, Commodity
               Caroline Dukmejian: Ain't We Lucky We Got 'Em? An Analysis of the Situation Comedy Good Times and African American Representation in the 1970s
               Katharine Weintraub: 'In the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes': Andy Warhol and the Commodification of Celebrity
               Jonathan Baez: Community vs. Commodity: Gentrification and Resistance in Spanish Harlem
               Juliani Acosta: Smoke: Redefining Women in the '20s through Cigarette Consumption
               Morgan Ross: Law and Order SVU and Representations of Sexual Violence in the Media

Panel 4: 2:30pm-4:30pm - Acts of Conscience: Moral Issues in the Contemporary U.S.
               Molly Heus: The Christian Diet Industry: Sin, Morality, and the Perpetuation of Fat Stigma
               Gaven Trinidad: The Millennium Approaches: Mainstream American Theater's Role in the Normalization of HIV/AIDS and Gay and Lesbian Cultures
               Jossie Munoz: The Inclusion of Minorities in Higher Education
               Alexandra Gerstley: The History of Imprisonment in Carlisle

American Studies Professor Farrell appears on Colbert Report

2011-06-03T16:23:24Z

Professor Amy Farrell discusses her new book Fat Shame on the Colbert Report.