Announcement: PLEASE VOTE On Our Departmental Theme for 2013-2014!

Last year, the Department of American Studies launched its first annual departmental theme, "DREAM." The theme gives us a way to connect our diverse events (loosely) so that we have a year-long series of conversations. It will provide connection for undergrads across classes and across departmental events (if each class touches on the theme and you attend a movie screening and you see a lecture... then you see how intellectual ideas can cross-fertilize) and will provide creative informal writing, interview, conversational topics, or image production that can go on the blog, the webpage, and elsewhere.This past school year, our blog featured the ways that particular classes treated the DREAM theme, our graduate conference was entitled "Reimagining the American Dream" and explored conceptions of the rags-to-riches narrative within America, and we also offered a film series on the broad theme of public and private dreams.The time has come to select a new departmental theme, and WE NEED YOUR INPUT. Please fill out the form linked here to help us select a theme inspiring the coming year's conversations, events, social media, and classes. And spread the word! We would love to see what you folks are interested in.

Conference Preview: Keynote Address by Dr. Claire Jean Kim

Only one more day to wait! This Thursday and Friday, the American Studies Graduate Student Conference will take place at the Texas Union. Click here for a full schedule.Today we'd like to offer you a special invitation to our keynote address by Dr. Claire Jean Kim (Political Science and Asian American Studies, UC Irvine). Dr. Kim's address is entitled, "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Michael Vick" and will take place on Thursday, April 4 from 6:00p.m. - 7:30p.m. in NOA 1.124.Here's a little more on our keynote speaker:

Claire Jean Kim received her B.A. in Government from Harvard College and her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University.  She is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on racial politics, multiculturalism, social movements, and human-animal studies.  Dr. Kim’s first book, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City (Yale University Press, 2000) won two awards from the American Political Science Association: the Ralph Bunche Award for the Best Book on Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism and the Best Book Award from the Organized Section on Race and Ethnicity.  She is completing a second book, Multiculturalism On Edge: Contesting Race, Species, and Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which examines the intersection of race and species in impassioned disputes over how immigrants of color, racialized minorities, and Native people in the U.S. use animals in their cultural traditions. Dr. Kim has also written numerous journal articles and book chapters.  She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, and she has been a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and the University of California Humanities Research Institute.  Dr. Kim is an Associate Editor of American Quarterly and the co-guest editor with Carla Freccero of a special issue of American Quarterly entitled, Species/Race/Gender, forthcoming in September 2013.

Hope to see you there!

Conference Preview: American Nightmares

The conference is two short days away, and today we bring you our last post in a series of sneak peeks at the American Studies Graduate Student Conference: a panel entitled "American Nightmares."

• Sara O’Neill, “Longing for the Zombie Apocalypse: Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and Contemporary America”
• Susan Quesal, “The John Wayne Gacy House as Metaphor for America”
• David Juarez, “‘I was Gerard’: Saintliness, Sorrow, and Shame in Jack Kerouac’s Visions of Gerard"
• Kayla Rhidenour, “The Dream of a Soldier, The Promise of a Nation”
• Regina Mills, “The Indescribable and Undiscussable in George Washington Gómez: The Trauma of An American Dream”

This panel will be the final panel of the conference and will take place on Friday, April 5 from 4:00p.m. – 5:30p.m. in the Texas Union, 4.206 Chicano Culture Room. This is definitely one you don't want to miss!

Conference Preview: The American Dream and the Politics of Promise

Next up in our series of sneak peeks at the American Studies Graduate Student Conference is a panel entitled "The American Dream and the Politics of Promise." This panel will feature papers on political theory and rhetoric as they relate to the American Dream.

• Curt Yowell, “The Rhetoric of Poverty and Payday Loans”
• Joe Roberto Tafoya, “Watching and Learning From the Shadows: Political Sophistication of Latina/o Young Adults”
• Jeff Birdsell, “Advancing the Student as Investor Metaphor by Reconceptualizing the 'Career Student' to Advance the American Dream”
• Duncan Moench, “How Social Democrats can Change the American Dream: A Political Communication Perspective”

This panel will take place on Friday, April 5 from 10:45a.m. – 12:15p.m. in the Texas Union, 4.206 Chicano Culture Room.