Grad Research: PhD student featured on television series 'American Canvas'
We are thrilled to be able to draw your attention to the great work our graduate students do both on and off campus. PhD student Kirsten Ronald, who is writing a dissertation about social dance, gentrification, and cultural preservation, is featured in a segment that was recently filmed for the program American Canvas on the cable channel Ovation TV. The segment follows Ronald as she leads two-step dance lessons at The White Horse in Austin. The episode airs this Wednesday, March 18, at 9pm Central Time. You can find the channel number for your cable provider here.
Ronald shared the following with us about her research about and through dance:
Most of us in American Studies are lucky enough to study what we love, and I’m no exception – I’ve been an avid two-stepper almost since I set foot in Texas, and I research and write about social dance, gentrification, and cultural preservation in Austin. I also teach beginning two-step classes at a few bars around town. My co-teacher Houston Ritcheson and I were thrilled when the folks from American Canvas, a new cultural travel show on Ovation TV, asked if they could come film our class at The White Horse for their pilot, and now we’re super psyched to announce that the Austin episode is airing, and we’re in it! With fingers crossed that they made us look far cooler than we actually are, please check it out: March 18th at 9pm on Ovation.
Faculty Research: Randy Lewis' "The Compassion Manifesto"
The primary directive of AMS :: ATX is to provide a public showcase for research and work from various members of UT's American Studies department. Thus far, we've brought you interviews with faculty members, research updates, and announcements about the wonderful projects our colleagues have undertaken - but we haven't yet highlighted the more formal scholarly writing that academics typically do.Today, we bring you a brief excerpt of a piece by Dr. Randy Lewis from Flow, the online journal of the UT Radio-Television-Film department. He critiques the lack of visible compassion and charity on television, with references to such varied examples as The Wire, Oprah, and Louis C.K.
This is the first of three pieces he'll be writing for Flow this year, so check back here (and there, natch) to see more:
Think about it: when was the last time you saw an act of charity on TV? In the strictly for-profit world of corporate media that dominates our nightly viewing, caring for strangers has lost out to macho indifference, consumerist narcissism, and paranoid stranger-danger. Except in rare circumstances, we are not permitted to witness ongoing suffering nor those who tend to it. This omission is one of the defining facts of our contemporary mediascape.Let me be clear: I’m not talking about those periodic moments of telegenic ruin when Anderson Cooper choppers in for a few weeks of sober glances at the problem. I’m talking about the day-to-day shit through which people slog and activists struggle: unsafe water, inadequate food, abusive institutions, cruel economics, uncertain prospects, epic despair. Where do we bear witness to that pain in the age of the screen? When do we imagine ourselves in solidarity with those who suffer?
Definitely check out the full article here, and do comment with your thoughts on Dr. Lewis's argument - this is a discussion worth having in a virtual forum. A few questions to stoke the fires in your brain:Where else might we find compassion on TV, beyond Louie and Oprah and independent documentary? And is this ostensible dearth of charity really incubated primarily by corporate ownership and corporate directives? To what extent are we, as television consumers, also responsible, as we crave the 21st century freak show Jersey Shore and the gladiatorial match that is America's Got Talent with a primitive lust for blood? Why haven't we demanded better?