Faculty Research: Dr. Randy Lewis's Original Comedy, "My Dinner With Bambi," to Premiere in Austin

Although our university won't be back in session for several days yet, we couldn't wait to post this exciting news about one of our faculty members. Dr. Randy Lewis, who we've featured in the past for his expansive work on topics from surveillance to media studies to public scholarship, has penned an original play that will premiere in Austin later this month. We asked Dr. Lewis for a few words about his new work, and how it relates to his broad interests in all that American Studies has to offer...

So a funny thing happened on the way to the lectern—I wrote a play, a dark comedy called My Dinner with Bambi (A Shocking Comedy) that is now in rehearsals under my direction. Is it funny? Outrageous? Insightful? You be the judge when it opens on January 22 at Austin’s FronteraFest.The main character is a force of nature called Bambi Krill. She’s a media celebrity extraordinaire, a powerful woman with hints of Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Stephen Colbert, and Mephistopheles. The basic set-up is that she’s holding court with her two young acolytes, Sarah and Roger, one of whom is not yet converted to the dark side of big money punditry. Drinking heavily after a widely protested campus lecture, Bambi spars with her minions until an explosive encounter with Sarah’s parents brings deeper tensions to the surface. And no one—on the right or left—gets off unscathed. (I mean this quite literally: a real Taser is one of our central props).As anyone who knows me can deduce, Bambi is another version what I often talk about in the classroom. For instance, last fall I was working on Bambi while teaching undergrads how to make documentary theater out of Internet troll comments (talk about tragedy!). I love this overlap between my academic and creative work. For me, it all flows together—especially when I’m teaching courses with titles such as “The Politics of Creativity.” Bambi also has many literal connections to UT: we auditioned actors at night in a seminar room in Burdine, we ended up casting several alums and one faculty member, and we’re working with a consultant from UT’s Drama Department, which is something I really appreciate as a first-time director.We have an amazing cast and know that you’ll enjoy the show—especially if you have any connection to American Studies. After all, how many plays have jokes about Moby Dick, Thomas Kinkade, and turducken? (Not King Lear—I checked!). Even if you’re not part of the American Studies world, we hope you’ll come see Bambi in action starting January 22.

More information about the play can be found at its website and Facebook page, and tickets for all four performances are available here. We recommend you buy tickets in advance if you're interested in checking the show out - they'll sell out!

Announcement: Dr. Steve Hoelscher gives keynote lecture on photographer Elliott Erwitt

Last week, Dr. Steve Holescher presented a keynote lecture at the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s new exhibition of the photographs of Elliott Erwitt. Dr. Hoelscher also wrote the exhibition catalogue for the Erwitt show, which you can check out here.

The following information on the photographer and exhibition comes to us from the Boca Raton Museum of Art:

Elliott Erwitt is a renowned documentary photographer who melds substance and enchantment into his work. This exhibition features over 80 images hand selected by the artist himself.Born in Paris, Erwitt and his family fled Europe for the United States at the onset of World War II. Iconic images by Mr. Erwitt include John F. Kennedy, Che Guevara, and Marilyn Monroe with the skirt of her white dress wafting around her legs as she posed over a New York City subway grate. His spectacular sense of humor and joy is evident in his work that captures quotidian life in urban surroundings.

Graduate Research + Exhibition: Natalie Zelt on LaToya Ruby Frazier

Today, the first of two Austin-area exhibitions, both featuring the work of photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier and curated by the INGZ curatorial collective, opens at the UT Visual Arts Center, located in the ART building. INGZ's Z is AMS grad student Natalie Zelt, who wrote her master's report on Frazier. She elaborates on the project:

I had been familiar with Frazier's work for a while, but I have this problem where I tend to be extra skeptical of photographers working in the rustbelt who deal with deindustialization. It wasn't until I got to spend time in Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's exhibition "Witness" that I really got a sense of how her photographs work as both object and images on so many different registers. Seeing a solo exhibition really brings out the ways that she is conceptually using the history of photography as a tool in here work. That is part of why INGZ is bringing two exhibitions to Austin, both under the title "LaToya Ruby Frazier: Riveted."The black and white gelatin silver prints, the documentary style, her use of mostly analogue process and commitment to photography as an activist medium all harken to a history of photography that has been criticized for being aloof, marginalizing, and voyeuristic. Frazier is using this history and its criticisms when she makes these intensely personal and political images.But the study and engagement with her work begs to move beyond a masters project. Thats part of why the INGZ collective decided to bring two exhibitions to Austin. At a moment when the very city around us is experience industry driven growth, not all that unlike the boom in Braddock in the 1950s, it is important for people to bear witness to LaToya's experience.

The first exhibition is open at UTVAC until December 6th. Reservations for tours with the curators are available for classes and interested groups, please email info@ingzcollective.org for scheduling information. The second exhibition runs from January 15, 2015 to May 6, 2015 at ISESE Gallery in the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies (Jester A232A). 

Announcement: "The End of Austin" Named One of 2014's Best Publications

Every year, The Austin Chronicle solicits readers' and critics' assessments of Austin's best institutions: restaurants, bars, swimming holes, museums, publications, and more. This year, the publication lists the Department of American Studies' own The End of Austin as one of 2014's best publications, naming it the "Best Place to Rise Above the Old Austin vs. New Austin Fray."

Here's what The Austin Chronicle had to say about the project:"An online magazine originating in UT’s American Studies department, TEOA is an engaging mélange of written and visual material devoted to our city’s anxiety about itself. It’s also a hodgepodge of surprises: A meditation on the state surplus store and history of civic racism both suit it well. And while the quarterly's contributors emigrated mostly after 1995, they’re more invested in the mythology than earlier cranks – see expatriate professor Barry Shank’s corrective, “Cities Do Not Have Souls” – who rein in the nostalgia and validate newcomers. That makes it a most interesting place to drop in on the dialogue – which, like Barton Springs, is eternal."Congratulations to the members of the editorial board for this honor, and see The End of Austin to learn more about "our city's anxiety about itself."

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The End of Austin was founded in Fall 2011 as a pilot project within Dr. Randolph Lewis's "Documenting America" graduate seminar. The site relaunched as an extracurricular digital humanities project in Winter 2013 and is currently collecting submissions for its sixth issue. In addition to Dr. Lewis, members of the editorial board include American Studies graduate students Carrie Andersen, Sean Cashbaugh, Ashlyn Davis, Brendan Gaughen, Julie Kantor, and Emily Roehl. For more information about the project's development, see The End of Austin's press page.For more information, contact the editorial board at endofaustin@gmail.com.