3/13/19 3/13/19

15): Black Studies @ 50 Conference at UT

The second biennial Black Studies at UT conference kicks off tomorrow, Thursday, March 14th, at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. This year's conference, organized around the theme Black Studies @ 50: 1968/1969, explores the legacy of the first Black Studies programs, including the Afro-American Studies and Research Center established at UT in 1969. On-site registration begins at 2pm on Thursday. The opening keynote address, featuring award-winning author and MacArthur Fellow, Edwidge Danticat, begins at 6:30 pm. Please see the conference website for a full schedule of events.

3/8/19 3/8/19

UT AMS Introduces Students to the Fun of American Studies at Explore UT

On March 2nd, students, parents, teachers and community members from across the state came to campus for Explore UT, an annual event that invites Texans to experience the university and encourages elementary through high school students to pursue higher education. Despite the cold, rainy weather, members of the UT AMS community had a blast introducing the next generation to the exciting world of American Studies.Thank you to all the organizers and volunteers who made this such a successful (and fun!) event.

3/6/19 3/6/19

This Friday (3/8): UT AMS Faculty to Present at Humanities Research Symposium

The Humanities Research Award grants three years of funding to faculty to support the completion of a research project in the Humanities. Every two years, the College of Liberal Arts sponsors an all-day event where faculty recipients present their scholarship to the University community. This Friday, March 8th, three UT AMS faculty members, Dr. Shirley Thompson, Dr. Lauren Gutterman, and Dr. Janet Davis will present their recent work. We can't wait to hear more about these exciting projects!Please see the event page for speaker times and a full schedule of events.

3/4/19 3/4/19

New Episode of Dr. Lauren Gutterman's "Sexing History" Podcast: "Sherri"

The Sexing History podcast, co-written and co-hosted by UT AMS Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Gutterman, as well as Dr. Gillian Frank, has a new episode: "Sherri." Dr. Gutterman and Dr. Frank tell the story of Sherri Chessen whose highly publicized 1962 abortion helped to shift Americans'attitudes toward abortion. You can listen to the episode here.In August of 1962, Sherri boarded a flight to Sweden in order to getan abortion after she was unable to obtain one in the United States. Sherri had accidentally taken medicine containing thalidomide, a drug that caused children to be born with internal injuries and shortened limbs. Thalidomide also caused women to miscarry, deliver stillborn babies, or have children who died during their infancy. Her decision to terminate this risky pregnancy and her journey abroad attracted international attention fromjournalists, politicians, and religious leaders. Sherri's ordeal made public what countless American women experienced when they sought to terminate their pregnancies. Her widely shared story changed the way many Americans thought about abortion laws and even about abortion itself.

3/1/19 3/1/19

Tuesday, March 5th: "Before 13th: The Origin of Convict Leasing" with Dr. Michael Ralph

Please join the Department of American Studies and the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies for "Before 13th: The Origin of Convict Leasing," a lecture and conversation with Dr. Michael Ralph, associate professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. The talk takes place Tuesday, March 5th from 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm in RLP 1.302B. We hope to see you there!

2/26/19 2/26/19

Fugitive Futures: Graduate Students of Color Un-Settling the University (This Friday and Saturday!)

This Friday and Saturday (March 1st & 2nd), UT-Austin will play host to the 18th Annual Sequels Symposium, co-organized by the Ethnic and Third World Literatures and Global South Collective graduate student groups. The symposium, entitled "Fugitive Futures: Graduate Students of Color Un-Settling the University," will feature two days of graduate student panels as well as a keynote speech by Dr. Saidiya Hartman on Friday morning (9:30 A.M., Prothro Theater, Harry Ransom Center).

All participants will be presenting work, academic or otherwise, that takes up the general question: "how might we negotiate our precarious positions in the university, and what are the stakes of articulating ourselves as 'fugitives' in relation to the academy?"All details for the event can be found at the event website: https://www.ut-sequels.com/

2/18/19 2/18/19

Wednesday, February 20th: American Studies Film Club Screening of "Taxi Driver"

This Wednesday, February 20th, the American Studies Film Club presents a screening of Taxi Driver (1976). A discussion of the film's important themes and their relationship to American life and culture will follow the screening.The event takes place in RLP 0.126 from 5 pm - 8 pm. Snacks provided. We hope to see you there! Screen Shot 2019-02-13 at 3.30.21 PM.png

2/14/19 2/14/19

This Friday, February 15: "Losing Ground" Film Screening and Conversation at the Bullock Museum

This Friday, February 15th, The Bullock Museum will screen Kathleen Collins's film Losing Ground as a part of their Reel Women in Film series. The evening's events also include a Q&A with UT Austin Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, Dr. Lisa B. Thompson, and a screening of Lisa Donato's short film, Foxy Trot.The event takes place from 7 pm - 9:30 pm in the Texas Spirit Theater. losing-ground-poster

2/7/19 2/7/19

Go See "Fugitive Findings" at the Harry Ransom Center

featuredImage600x600-whiteframe-fugitive-findings This February, the Harry Ransom Center celebrates Black History Month with the display Fugitive Findings: How Artists of Color Survive in the Archives. Fugitive Findings highlights the accomplishments of creators of color, while also acknowledging the diversity of challenges these creators had to overcome to make art and achieve recognition. Featuring the works of Harriet Ann Jacobs, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, and Adrienne Kennedy, the materials represent the trajectory of African American artistic production, from the Antebellum period to the present.

The display was curated by Diana Leite and UT AMS doctoral student Gaila Sims. You can see the Ransom Center Magazine's description of the display here.

On view from February 1 to March 29, visitors can see the display in front of the Ransom Center's Reading and Viewing Room, on the second floor. The display will be on view concurrently with the 18th Annual Sequels Symposium, Fugitive Futures: Graduate Students of Color Un-settling the University (Feb. 28 - Mar. 2).

2/4/19 2/4/19

Catch Genevieve Gaignard's "In Passing" at the Christian-Green Gallery

From now through May 4th, the Christian-Green Gallery in Jester Hall plays host to Genevieve Gaignard's In Passing, encompassing photographic self-portraits and vernacular installations commenting on the artist's "ever-evolving performance of identity." The exhibition is part of UT-Austin's Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS). The exhibition is curated by Ashlyn Davis (M.A. in American Studies, UT-Austin), Executive Director and Curator at the Houston Center for Photography.You can visit AGBS' homepage for In Passing here, and read their description of the exhibition below:"In Passing brings together several bodies of work made since 2016 by Los Angeles-based artist Genevieve Gaignard. The work maps the artist’s ever-evolving performance of identity through large-format self-portraits and vernacular installations. Inhabiting an array of campy stereotypes that confront viewers with some of the historical ways in which racialized female identity has been prescribed—as a suburban discount shopper, a Creole woman in her tignon, or a “ghetto girl” staring confidently into the camera—Gaignard interrogates her own intersectional identity as a biracial woman. She pictures the difficult, often murky terrain of race, class, and gender in contemporary culture. Interwoven throughout the photographs are installations of quotidian objects that create the interior, often domestic settings in which identity is constructed.The malleability of the artist’s own physicality points to the nature of race and gender themselves—as roles derived from a shifting collection of social constructs that, for some, can be put on and inhabited. The seemingly apolitical aspects of Gaignard’s work belie the deeply engaged process the artist takes on by redefining and reckoning with contemporary constructions of identity and access. Gaignard’s defacto family of women shows us where we’ve come from while it points to a future in which a single person can be seen as multitudes: both black and white, demure and provocative, made up or down, and with the same access to agency as anyone else. On one level, In Passing allows viewers to see the artist looking at herself as she navigates what it means to “pass” and on another it challenges us to investigate ourselves, both in the way that we conform to certain societal standards as well as the judgments we make about others in passing."