American Indian and Indigenous Education in Texas: A 2019 “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” Forum (Monday, 10/14)
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On Monday, October 14th, join the UT American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program for "American Indian and Indigenous Education in Texas: A 2019 Indigenous Peoples' Day Forum." The event will start at 4 pm in RLP 1.302B. Guest speakers include Peggy Larney (Choctaw Educator, founder of “Indian Citizens Against Racial Exploitation” and the American Indian Heritage Day in Texas) and María Rocha (Miakan-Garza Band; Executive Director of the Indigenous Cultures Institute, San Marcos). The discussion will be moderated by Aaron Pyle (Choctaw; Graduate Student) with the participation of UT Professors, Luis Urrieta (P'urhépecha; Curriculum and Instruction) and Angela Valenzuela (Educational Leadership and Policy).The event is open to the public with a ceremony and reception to follow.
A Conversation with Angie Maxwell (PhD 2008), author of "The Long Southern Strategy" (2019)
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Dr. Angie Maxwell (UT AMS PhD, 2008) recently published her second academic monograph, The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics(Oxford, 2019). AMS :: ATX spoke with Maxwell about the new project, interdisciplinary research on Southern politics, and the importance of paying attention to white women voters in the South. Dr. Maxwell is Director for the Diane D. Blair Center for Southern Politics & Society, Associate Professor of Political Science, and Diane D. Blair Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Arkansas.
Can you tell us about your book, The Long Southern Strategy, and how you came to the project? I started this book long before “nasty women” and “bad hombres” became part of our political vernacular. But as I watched the events of those elections unfold, I realized that the central question of this book—how did we get here?—was more important to answer than ever. Political scientists will tell you that the realignment of the South from solidly Democrat to Republican is the single greatest partisan transformation in all of American history. Yet the explanation that we give—the explanation that we accept—seemed too simple to me, especially now. I wanted to figure out what we had missed? What dots had we not connected? To that end, rather than shining a spotlight on a single election, this book is a panned-out, mixed-methods, backward glance at the Republican Party’s decision, in the post-Civil Rights era, to court southern white voters. It turns out it wasn’t a decision, but a series of decisions—not just on the federal government’s role in ensuring racial equality, but also on equality for women and on the separation of church and state. It took a Long Southern Strategy to flip the South from blue to red, the result of which changed out national politics across the board.
What projects or people have inspired your work?Lillian Smith’s writing has influenced me profoundly. Her book, Killers of the Dream, published in 1949, set me on this research path. She was able to critique the social constructions that she lived in all of their complexity—how white supremacy and patriarchy and authoritarian religion were intimately and deliberately intertwined, mutually reinforcing each other until they became a gravitational-like force that held everything and everyone in their place.
How does your background in American Studies impact your writing, teaching, and your career in general?There has been very little research on the gendered aspects of political realignment, and even less on the political behavior of southern white women. Those dynamics play a critical role in the GOP’s efforts to win southern white voters and cut a new path to an Electoral College victory. The GOP’s decision to drop the ERA from its platform in 1980 is a lynchpin in the political realignment of the region, winning the South back after Democrat Jimmy Carter turns it blue again in 1976. And the anti-ERA movement gave the GOP its “family values” mantra that catalyzed the party’s campaign to convert religious evangelical and fundamentalist Christian voters. In order to understand why anti-feminism played so well in the white South, I had to pull from literary criticism, archival material, and scholarship in sociology, legal studies, gender studies, cultural anthropology, etc., and merge it with the quantitative polling data that underscores the book’s major arguments. I could not have done that without my training in American Studies.
What advice do you have for students in our department about getting the most out of their experience at UT?Read across disciplines. Take classes across disciplines, even across colleges. There is so much rich ground to till in the overlap between the humanities and social sciences. Quantitative methods can enrich American Studies scholarship, and American Studies scholars can help, for example, political scientists ask better polling questions.
What projects are you excited to work on in the future?I’m definitely planning to write more about the politics of southern white women—how they defy the national Gender Gap. For example, though journalists and pundits often report that Hillary Clinton lost white women in the 2016 election, they do not disaggregate the vote by region. Hillary Clinton won white women living outside of the South, 52 to 48. However, in the South, Trump wins the southern white female vote by almost 30 points. I’m also pursuing a project on the history of anti-feminism in America, particularly among women. But right now, I’m co-editing an edition of James Agee’s short fiction. I wrote my master’s thesis in American Studies on James Agee, and I’m thrilled to return to one of the first subjects that sparked my intellectual curiosity.
Five Questions with First-Years Returns! An Interview with Coyote Shook
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It’s October, which means it’s time to introduce the newest cohort of UT AMS doctoral students! We asked all five incoming students about their academic backgrounds, their intellectual interests, and projects they plan to pursue here at UT. Today we bring you Coyote Shook. Coyote comes to UT with a background in Gender Studies and research interests in comics, the American Spiritualist movement, and death/dying (but Coyote promises that they're an "otherwise normal person.") Read on to learn more about Coyote and their plans as a doctoral student UT!
What is your background, academic or otherwise, and how does it motivate your teaching and research?I did most of my undergraduate research in American Studies (particularly looking at death and dying in Civil War culture). I went to Wisconsin for an MA in Gender Studies where I researched prosthetic limb fundraisers after the Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888. It was during this time that I started to experiment with comics as a medium for presenting research. It stuck. Outside of the academic world, I was a high school English teacher for three years and completed a Fulbright in Poland in 2014-2015.
Why did you decide to come to AMS at UT for your graduate work?The department offered me the one thing I can't resist: funding. In all seriousness, I appreciated the supportive tone from faculty during the application process. They seemed genuinely curious and engaged with the concept of comics as research in a way that no other department quite matched. I felt this was a space where I could be challenged as a student, but also grow as a scholar who uses nontraditional mediums for research purposes. Plus I was drawn to Austin's alluring margarita culture.
What projects or people have inspired your work?I draw very heavily from queer/crip historians and scholars. Alison Kafer, Eli Clare, Ellen Samuels, Jasbir Puar, and Lee Edelman have all been really influential on my work. I also draw a lot from Marxist feminists and labor theorists such as Heidi Hartmaan, Lauren Berlant, and Sylvia Federici.In terms of projects, I'm really drawn to cartoonists who have used creative nonfiction. Cartoonists who inspire my work include Lynda Barry, Isabel Greenberg, Allison Bechdel, David Small, Edward Gorey, Art Spiegelman, Tove Jansson, and Joe Sacco.
What projects do you see yourself working on at UT?I'm currently focusing on the American Spiritualist movement and its intersections with disability and dark tourism. I'm currently working on research about diet and food in spiritualist culture and seances. I'm also working on a paper about Mary Todd Lincoln's relationship with spiritualism and her transgressions in Victorian grief culture that contributed to the sexist and ableist caricature we are left with in modern representations. Honestly, my research since I was in undergrad has focused on sickness and death, so I'd be surprised if it deviates from that. However, I'd like to emphasize that I'm an otherwise normal person who just happens to have macabre research tastes.
What are your goals for graduate school? What do you see yourself doing after you graduate?I plan on marrying a very, very rich man and not worrying about future employment.Also, if that doesn't work, probably museum work around public history education and history curriculum design for public schools. But I really, really need option A to pan out.
Bonus Question: In your own words, what is American Studies?American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines history and culture in the United States and/or the impact of American empire on global events...y'know what? I'm gonna just stop myself there. I fail.
UPDATE: Event Postponed to Spring 2020: Dr. Alicia Schmidt-Camacho to give Paredes Distinguished Lecture
This Wednesday, October 2nd*, Dr. Alicia Schmidt-Camacho, Chair of the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program at Yale, will give the 2019 Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture. Dr. Schmidt-Camacho will speak on the need to defend Ethnic Studies and the high-profile strike she lead amongst ERM faculty at Yale.The lecture will take place at 6 pm in the Harry Ransom Center's Prothro Theater. *Editor's note: The Paredes Distinguished Lecture has been postponed to Spring 2020. Stay tuned!
Monday (9/30): Dr. Helena Woodard to Discuss new book, "Slave Sites on Display"
This Monday, September 30, Dr. Helena Woodard (UT Austin Department of English) will be in conversation about her new book, Slave Sites On Display: Reflecting Slavery's Legacy through Contemporary "Flash" Moments, with Dr. Sheila Smith McKoy (Holy Names University).The event begins at 2:30 pm in GWB 2.206. We'll see you there!
September 26-28: Prison Abolition, Human Rights, and Penal Reform Conference at UT Austin School of Law
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From September 26-29, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights at the UT Austin School of Law will host "Prison Abolition, Human Rights, and Penal Reform: From the Local to the Global."This interdisciplinary conference will consider the relationships among the human rights, prison abolition, and penal reform movements. Do they share the same goals? Should they collaborate? If so, in what ways?Ruth Wilson Gilmore will deliver the keynote address, “Meanwhile: Making Abolitionist Geographies,” on Thursday, September 26, as the fifth annual Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecturer in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights. Gilmore, a renowned activist and public scholar known for her work on prison abolition, is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and American Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she also directs the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. A poetry reading with Dwayne Betts and Natalie Diazwill precede the lecture. A reception will follow.Please see the event page and conference website for more information.
Tonight (9/20): "Triptych (Eyes of One on Another)" at Bass Concert Hall
Tonight, Friday, September 20th at 7:30 pm, Texas Performing Arts presents Triptych (Eyes of One on Another), a performance piece inspired by the work and legacy of Robert Mapplethorpe. The event is open to the public with tickets beginning at $10 for students and $20 for UT faculty and staff.
Here's a description from the event page:Thirty years after photographer and visual artist Robert Mapplethorpe’s untimely death, it’s difficult to turn away from the compelling emotional complexity of his influential body of work. In this new performance piece, music, poetry, and photography come together in a theatrical context, exploring the impact Mapplethorpe’s work had on the lives and careers of composer Bryce Dessner (The National) and librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle. This major collaboration with director Kaneza Schaal, features the poetry of Tuttle, Essex Hemphill, Patti Smith, and others as well as the choral group Roomful of Teeth. It revisits the formative impact of Mapplethorpe’s work, inviting the audience to simultaneously experience Dessner’s music against some of the most captivating and divisive words and images the world has ever known. Through music and large-scale projection of Mapplethorpe’s images, this extraordinary work allows the audience to peer inside Mapplethorpe’s bold, insatiable view of how human beings look, touch, feel, hurt, and love one another.
This Friday (9/20): "A Conversation with My Golem"
This Friday, September 20th, Los Angeles-based media artist Julie Weitz and dance scholar Dr. Hannah Schwadron (FSU) team up for a performative presentation about Jewish representational politics and revisionist rituals in Weitz’s portrayal of My Golem. The event is free and open to the public as part of the Performance as Public Practice program's "Fridays@2" series. The performance and conversation will take place from 2-3:30 pm at the Glickman Conference Center (RLP 1.302E). 
PhD Student Holly Genovese featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education
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UT AMS PhD student Holly Genovese recently published her article, "How to Get Started in Freelance Writing," in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In the piece, Genovese gives advice on entering the world of freelance writing and provides tips for turning academic interests into public facing work. Check it out here!
Today: Movie Screening and Panel Discussion of "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am"
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Join the John L. Warfield Center today, Wednesday, September 11, for a free screening of Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Helena Woodard, Stephen Marshall, Ya'Ke Smith, and Lisa Thompson honoring the legacy of Toni Morrison. Warfield Center Associate Director, Jennifer Wilks, will moderate the discussion.The screening will start at 5:15 pm in BMC 2.10. We hope to see you there!