Grad Research: Josephine Hill on Communism and Hybrid Corn

Congratulations to UT AMS grad student Josephine Hill, who recently published an article called "Sowing the Seeds of Communism: Corn Wars in the USA" on Not Even Past, the blog of the UT History department. You can read the article here, and we've included an excerpt below.

Today we often associate hybrid or genetically modified corn with agricultural monopolies, big business, and capitalism, in the early Cold War some feared that the rise of hybrid corn would sow the seeds of Communism in the United States. Daniel Robert Fitzpatrick’s editorial cartoon, “Alien Corn,” published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 28, 1948, shows Henry A. Wallace grinning at a corn plant, whose leaves bear hammers and sickles and whose tassel sports a Soviet star –- the fruits of Communism. Wallace was the founder of the Hi-Bred Corn Company (today owned by the Dupont Corporation). He was also vice president to Franklin Roosevelt, Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940), Secretary of Commerce (1945-1946), and 1948 presidential nominee of the Progressive Party. Appearing during the 1948 election season, the cartoon most directly reflects contemporary suspicions about Wallace’s possible Communist sympathies, which were fueled by his endorsement from the U.S. Communist Party, his progressive platform that included universal health care, voting rights for African-Americans, and an end to segregation, and his interest in Eastern religions. Here, the fear of the “alien” seems to have stronger political than environmental implications, yet this title presciently describes the many ways in which these two concerns would become more and more closely intertwined.

Grad Research: Julie Kantor in the LARB

Congratulations to UT AMS graduate student Julie Kantor, who recently had some of the poems from her chapbook Land published in the "No Crisis" issue of the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly. We spoke to Julie about her work when Land came out last spring, and we're excited to able to share a selection with you, below.

Grad Research: Kirsten Ronald and the Public History of the Red River District

UT AMS grad student Kirsten Ronald (pictured in the archive, above) has been taking her teaching out of the classroom and onto the streets of Austin in a project she's been developing with local organization Preservation Austin. Kirsten has been working with high school students, teaching them to do oral history and archival research focusing on Austin's Red River cultural district. Kirsten sez:

Austin's vibrant Red River Cultural District is currently being threatened by encroaching development and rising rents, so Preservation Austin is working with the Vandegrift High School FFA chapter to raise awareness about the historic and cultural importance of the area and its buildings.  The stretch of Red River Street between 6th and 10th Streets is home to  iconic bars and music venues like Stubb's, Elysium, Mohawk and the now-shuttered Emo's, all of which have helped make Austin the "Live Music Capital of the World."  With many properties dating back to the mid-1800s, the District can also provide valuable insight into what makes Austin tick.  I'm excited to be teaching a new generation of preservationists and oral historians that while growth, development, and change are important components of any living city, the forms they take are not inevitable.

The website for the project is now live and the work that the students do producing an audio tour of the area will eventually be featured on Preservation Austin's app.

Grad Research: Come See UT AMS at MLA 2016 in Austin

This year's Modern Languages Association conference begins today, right here in Austin, and a couple of UT AMS grad students will be participating.Joshua Abraham Kopin will be presenting a paper called "Lost Causes: Jack Jackson's Underground Comics as Underground History" as part of the roundtable The Counterpublic of Underground Comix, at 5:15 PM on Thursday, January 7.Christine Capetola will be giving a presentation entitled "'We Got Love Too Good to Throw Away': Frankie Knuckles, House Music, and Black Queer Diaspora," as part of the panel Sound, Activism and Protest, at 5:15 PM on Friday, January 8.We hope to see you there!