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.

Conference Preview: The American Dream and the Spatial Imaginary

Today we continue our series of sneak peeks at the American Studies Graduate Student Conference with a look at another one of the great panels we have in store--"The American Dream and the Spatial Imaginary.""The American Dream and the Spatial Imaginary" is composed of papers that consider the relationship between space, place and literature, art, activism, and identity construction. This panel will take place on Thursday, April 4 from 2:15p.m. – 3:45p.m. in the Texas Union, 4.206 Chicano Culture Room.

• Vinh Nguyen & Alma Salcedo, “Post-Antebellum Spaces and Places at the University of Texas at Austin: From Lost Cause to Student Activism, Plot of the Land and Sites of Resistance”
• Paul Gansky, “Creosote and Electricity: Telecommunications, Art, and the United States”
• Julia Traylor, “‘I Wanted My Tiara, Damn It’: Drag Royalty in Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties”
• Valerie Henry, “Cattle or Wheat:  Spatial Imaginings and the Production of Local Knowledge in María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don”
• L.E. Neal, “The Music of Class Mobility:  Identity Construction in Emerging Western Swing and the Texas Centennial”

This conference is free and open to the public. Conference registration (and refreshments!) begin Thursday April 4 at 1:00p.m. in the Texas Union, 3.128 Sinclair Suite. Stay tuned for more sneak peeks!

Conference Preview: The Dream in Popular Media

Today our series of sneak peeks at the American Studies Graduate Student Conference continues with"The Dream in Popular Media," a panel that will feature commentary on the American Dream and representations of alternative pasts and hopeful futures as expressed in popular music and comedy."The Dream in Popular Media" panel will feature the following presenters and papers:

• Jen Rafferty, “‘If the South Woulda Won’: Reimagining the Southern Past in Contemporary Country Music”
• Sequoia Maner & Yvette DeChavez, “‘Build Your Fences, We Diggin’ Tunnels’: Remixing the American Dream”
• Carrie Andersen, “‘I Find Human Contact Repulsive’: The Pain of Political Discourse and Community in Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm"

This panel will take place on Friday, April 5 from 2:15p.m. – 3:45p.m. in the Texas Union,  4.206 Chicano Culture Room.

Conference Preview: American Homes, Consumer Dreams

Good morning, Austin and everywhere!This week on AMS:: ATX we are excited to feature a series of sneak peeks at the panels that will take place at the upcoming American Studies Graduate Student Conference on Thursday, April 4 and Friday, April 5 here at UT Austin. The theme for this year's conference is "Reimagining the American Dream," and we have an incredible line-up of grad student presenters and faculty moderators who will weigh in on everything from power lines and western swing to payday loans, refrigerators, and the zombie apocalypse.First up, we present to you a panel entitled "American Homes, Consumer Dreams," which takes on the complicated relationship between the American Dream and the domestic landscape of houses, appliances, waste, and work. This panel will take place on Friday, April 5 from 9:00a.m. – 10:30a.m. in the Texas Union, 4.206 Chicano Culture Room

• Natalie Zelt, “Self-Preservation: Identity, Food Politics and the American Dream in Mark Menjivar’s series ‘You Are What You Eat’”
• Laura Jacquelyn Simmons, “General Electric’s Monitor Top Refrigerator and the Impossible Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow”
• Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, “Trash Talk: Disposable Tableware and the American Dream”
• Sherri Sheu, “Salvaged Visions of the American Masculinity: Restoration Hardware, American Mythologies, and the Post-Fordist Economy”
• Jocelyn Wikle, “Cinderella and Cinderelliot: Gender Differences in Adolescent and Young Adult Housework”

This conference is free and open to the public. Conference registration (and breakfast!) begin on Friday, April 5 at 8:00a.m. in the Texas Union, 2.102 Eastwoods Room. Stay tuned all week for a look at the great panels coming to UT next Thursday and Friday!