Announcement: ILASSA Student Conference This Weekend

Today and Saturday, the 33rd Annual ILASSA Student Conference is taking place at the  Benson Latin American Collection and the Texas Union.Here is a description of the organization and event:

The Student Conference on Latin America, organized by the Institute of Latin American Studies Student Association (ILASSA) at The University of Texas at Austin, is an interdisciplinary forum for students involved in Latin American research topics. The conference provides students with the opportunity to present research activities, develop presentational skills, exchange ideas and information, and meet other scholars from around the world. The conference, now in its thirty-third year, is the oldest and largest student conference in the field of Latin American Studies.

You can access the full conference program here.

Announcement: Dr. Michael Omi Talk Tonight!

Happy Monday!Today we invite you to a very exciting talk from Dr. Michael Omi (UC Berkeley) entitled, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Situating Asian Americans." The talk will take place this evening from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM in the Avaya Auditorium (ACE 2.302).

Michael Omi is an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Associate Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Equitable Society at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Associate Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, a multi-campus research program. He is the co-author of Racial Formation in the United States.This talk is hosted by the Center for Asian American Studies. Full details here.

Announcement: 'The End of Austin,' Digital Humanities Project, Now Live

Back in October 2012, we posted a call for contributors to The End of Austin, a digital humanities project spearheaded by American Studies faculty member Dr. Randy Lewis and a small group of graduate students. We're pleased to share the news today that the site has officially launched with sixteen fascinating submissions from movers and shakers in the Austin community.At once a testament to the city's seductive appeal and its anxious growth, The End of Austin addresses our perpetual concern with Austin's past and present. Says Lewis, "Austinites are always afraid of losing what we love about the city: the vibe of a particular neighborhood, the murmur of the so-called creative class, the beauty and health of Barton Springs. The end of Austin, or at least some beloved facet of it, always seems around the corner." The stories about these endings told at The End of Austin take the form of a variety of media: music, photography, fiction, nonfiction, sound, animation, and everything in between.Carrie Andersen, a doctoral student in the department and member of the editorial board, notes, "Compared to other places I've lived in within the past ten years, Austin is remarkably and self-consciously lovely, weird, and anxious about its morphing identity, so I've been thrilled to learn more about the city through the work of residents past and present. And it's so exciting that so many rich and evocative stories have found their home at The End of Austin, particularly since a central goal was to provide an open and accessible space for different forms of creative expression."This multi-faceted collage of Austin life has also provided a space for experimenting in creative work beyond the scope of traditional academic scholarship. Sean Cashbaugh, a doctoral student in the American Studies department and member of the editorial board, notes, "For me, The End of Austin was an opportunity to do some important creative and intellectual work in a space outside traditional academic venues, ones that are becoming increasingly important.  In this project, we've been able to bring ideas and people together that otherwise might never have come into contact with one another. I think that will let us talk about things like urban identity, politics and creativity, and of course Austin's end, in a new way, one that avoids the cliche nostalgia conversations like these often evoke and depend upon. Publishing online is a key part of this:  as a digital humanities project, we can reach a large audience, meaning the discussion we're having here can spread throughout Austin and beyond the city itself, incorporating other voices and hopefully jump-starting new conversations and projects."Take a look at these stories and voices at endofaustin.com, and feel free to share your own stories in the comments there, too.

Announcement: American Studies and Foodways Texas Featured in Austin-American Statesman

The American Studies department has its hands in several projects beyond the sphere of the classroom, and one of those fascinating collaborations was featured in the Austin American-Statesman. One of the department's graduate seminars collaborated last spring with Foodways Texas and the Texas Restaurant Association to create oral histories with notable Texan restauranteurs, which were then presented at the annual symposium in Austin. Take a look at this extensive write-up of the project: the full article can be found here, and an excerpt is pasted below -

Last year, the statewide nonprofit, which was established in 2010 to preserve the state’s many unique food cultures and relies on membership dues and events for funding, teamed with the Texas Restaurant Association and the University of Texas’ American Studies department to preserve the stories behind some of the state’s most iconic restaurants through oral histories, long-form interviews that record history from the perspective of those closest to the business.The iconic restaurant project is part of Foodways Texas’ larger mission to document the many components of Texas’ food culture through both oral histories and documentaries, says Marvin Bendele, the organization’s Austin-based executive director.“We’re trying to preserve those stories that might not be around much longer,” he says, no matter if it’s from a sorghum farmer in South Texas, the head baker at Earl Abel’s in San Antonio or the family that runs Kim Son, one of Houston’s best-known Vietnamese restaurants.The idea to focus on restaurants has roots in an oral history project about barbecue that University of Texas professor and Foodways Texas founding board member Elizabeth Engelhardt coordinated about six years ago. Eleven graduate students, including Bendele, who was a student at the time, interviewed everyone from pitmasters to ranchers to find out the stories behind that stack of fatty brisket you’ll find served on butcher paper across Central Texas.