Announcement: Photography Workshop this Thursday!

Calling all AMS-ers! Join us this Thursday evening for an exciting workshop with Austin photographer Marshall Wright entitled, “Photography as Parallel Oral History Practice.” The workshop will take place on Thursday, May 3, from 6:00 – 7:00 pm in BUR 436A. The workshop is open to AMS grad students, AMS faculty, and Foodways Texas oral historians.

Photograph by Marshall Wright for Edible Austin

Here is what our very own Dr. Elizabeth Engelhardt has to say about Marshall Wright:

Marshall Wright, one of Austin’s most accomplished food photographers, a Foodways Texas member, and a generally gifted food writer, thinker, and artist, will be leading a workshop for the AMS community. How do you use your camera to tell a parallel story when conducting an interview or oral history? How do you do it even when you’re not a photographer? How could we use images to enrich AMS research more broadly? What might the visual add to our written and spoken texts in practice?

You can learn more about Marshall (and view some of his photography projects) here. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Questions? Email Elizabeth Engelhardt, e.engelhardt@austin.utexas.edu.

And don’t forget to check the AMS::ATX calendar for more great events!

Undergrad Research: Overview of Undergraduate Honors Symposium

Last week, the Department of American Studies had the pleasure of featuring the work of six exceptional undergraduates at the first annual Undergraduate Honors Symposium. The students presented their thesis projects, with topics ranging from resource extraction policy to the American coming-of-age narrative. These projects take the form of thesis papers as well as websites, documentary theater pieces, and novellas.

Presenters with their instructor, Dr. Janet Davis

The evening began with a presentation by Miriam Anderson on hydraulic fracturing. Miriam offered a charming and funny visual presentation on the natural gas industry and its detractors set to the words of Dr. Seuss‘ The Lorax.  Miriam also shared her website, which explains the economic and environmental impacts of the fracking process from multiple perspectives. Miriam was followed by Julie Reitzi, who discussed the drug war in Ciudad Juarez, focusing on the involvement and responses of women and youth. Julie’s presentation provided perspective on a much talked about issue, and she shared striking images of women and youth who are both implicated in and responding to the violence and poverty in the city, including Las Guerreras, a group of women on pink motorcycles who distribute food and other supplies to impoverished neighborhoods. Rounding out the first half of the night was Kelli Schultz, who described her ambitious documentary theater project, “Our TEKS,” which is a play based on the controversy surrounding recent changes to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills by the Texas Board of Education. Kelli discussed her process and inspiration for creating the play, which draws on circus imagery and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. For more information on Kelli’s production, check out our post last week, and head on over to the Winship building April 30 or May 1 at 8pm.

David Juarez presents on Jack Kerouac

The second half of the evening featured presentations by David Juarez, Alexandria Chambers, and Laci Thompson. David led off the second half with a description of his project on Jack Kerouac’s early years of devising fantasy sports games, which David reads as early writing exercises for the budding Beat writer. David shared a number of images and score sheets from these whimsical and impressively detailed games, illustrating the way that the young Kerouac exercised control over a life that was often depicted as lacking it. Alex Chambers followed David’s presentation with a discussion of American boy’s choir schools, focusing on two in particular: the St. Thomas Choir School in New York City and the American Boy Choir School in Princeton, New Jersey. Alex’s thesis project took the form of a novella that introduces the choirboy school upbringing into the American coming-of-age discourse, and she shared a wickedly funny selection from the beginning of her novella. The final speaker of the evening was Laci Thompson, whose eloquent presentation described the multiple representations of the night in Western thought and literature. Laci’s thesis centers on the unique contributions of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and Patti Smith to this discourse of the night, and Laci ended her presentation with a strong call for academics to own their passions and to “have more fun,” because that is what rock music like Patti Smith’s is, first and foremost, all about.

Laci Thompson presents on Patti Smith

The evening of presentations was a fabulous success. It was wonderful to be able to chat with the presenters in group discussion and in one-on-one conversations afterward. I was particularly struck by the range of topics and formats represented by these thesis projects. One of the particular strengths of American Studies scholarship is the way it encourages both innovative themes and innovative forms, and both were on display at this event. It is clear that these senior AMS students are headed toward greater and greater things, and the Department should be proud to call them alumni.

Stay tuned for more photographs from this event! And remember to follow us on Twitter for updates on new posts!

Announcement: Interview with Julie Reitzi, AMS Senior and Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Honorable Mention

We’re thrilled to share with you this interview with Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Honorable Mention and American Studies senior Julie Reitzi. Here, she shares her experiences in American Studies over the past four years. Congratulations, Julie!

What was, or is, your favorite class in American Studies?

It’s so hard for me to pick. I found something great, useful, and perspective changing about every course that I took. This department has really great professors and lecturers.

I think one of the classes that impacted me the most personally, though, was Professor Cordova’s Mexican American Cultural Studies. I came out of the class with a new way of thinking about myself. Both this class and Christina Garcia’s Ethnicity and Gender: La Chicana gave me an identity term that worked for me – Chicana. It embraces the complexity that can exist for people of Mexican descent living in the United States, and also has a political edge. I also came away with a deep sense of the importance of keeping ethnic studies programs alive. I was amazed at how much history I had never even heard about. Some of us were even angry that we had been denied that kind of education.

As far as other influential classes, both Professor Lieu’s Asian Americans in Popular Culture and John Cline’s Global Power of the Funk really helped me grasp cultural studies theory and the importance of deconstructing popular culture. Professor Engelhardt’s Masculinity and Femininity intro course gave me a new way of thinking about gender roles – how they really are something we all participate in shaping. I never imagined a room full of sinister, robed men deciding how gender would operate in the United States, but it was good for me to complicate my understanding of patriarchy, to see it as something less top-down than my earlier conception was.

Undergrad Research: “Our TEKS,” a Theatrical Production and AMS Senior Thesis

Today we share with you news about an upcoming theatrical production, “Our TEKS,” written by and directed by American Studies graduating senior Kelli Schultz.

As Kelli describes,

“Our TEKS” is a theatrical exploration of my American Studies/Plan II senior thesis. Over the past year, I have followed the Texas textbook controversy by conducting dozens of interviews with educators, government officials and textbook publishers. These interviews, along with transcripts of Board meetings and media coverage, were combined into a play, which explores the 2010 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). It’s Our Town meets Barnum & Bailey meets The Colbert Report.

And, in a bit more depth, here’s the official abstract for the project:

In 2010, the Texas State Board of Education drafted a list of over 100 amendments to the social studies curriculum, which explicitly defined what teachers must include in their K-12 classrooms. Some of the changes include replacing the term democracy with constitutional republic, emphasizing the religious foundations of our country and removing “Hip Hop” as a cultural art form. While the media charged the board with rewriting history, others would commend the elected officials for correcting an already liberal bias in the educational system. Utilizing a documentary-based style of devised theatre, we will explore the straight facts, pure fiction and implications surrounding the 2010 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

We were lucky enough to learn about the project from Kelli last week at the Undergraduate Honors Symposium (side note: expect a write-up and photographs from that wonderful event soon!) and, we must say, we’re very excited to see the production. If you have an interest in education, Texas, American history, theater, or the intersections between politics and artistic representation, you best not miss it.

The production will run two nights, April 30 and May 1, at WIN 2.180. Both shows begin at 8pm. More nitty-gritty details can be found here.

We are also told there will be cookies and balloon animals, so… there’s also that.

Undergrad Research: American Studies Honors Symposium Thursday, 4/19

Today, we continue our recent trend of featuring undergraduate excellence by sharing with you more details about the American Studies Honors Symposium this Thursday, April 19, from 5 – 7pm in Burdine 436A:

This symposium will showcase the remarkable research of our undergraduate honors thesis writers in the Department of American Studies. Part One–consisting of three papers–will explore diverse topics related to Texas and its borderlands, including research on hydraulic fracturing; state educational standards in the social studies curriculum; and  an analysis of the drug war in Mexico and local efforts to resist violence with art and social activism. Part Two–comprised of three papers–will examine various modes of creative expression, ranging from rock-and-roll and its unlikely alliance of Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, and Walt Whitman; boy choir schools and coming of age narratives in American culture;  and sport, Jack Kerouac and the creative process. Each presentation will be approximately ten to fifteen minutes in length. After each panel, there will be a discussion with the audience. There will be a short break between panels, as well as a reception after the panels are completed.

Presenters:

Kelli Schultz, “Our TEKS: A Theatrical Exploration of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills through Thornton Wilder’s Our Town”

Julie Reitzi, “Making Due and Making Change: Women and Youth of Ciudad Juarez Respond to the Drug War”

David Juarez, “Beating the Score: Jack Kerouac and the Sometimes Fantastical World of Baseball”

Miriam Anderson, “Just the Fracks: Hydraulic Fracturing in a Culture of Contradicting Proof”

Laci Thompson, “Always On a Tightrope: The Power of Contradiction and the Beauty of Rock Music as Seen Through the Work of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Patti Smith”

Alexandria Chambers, “Rob(b)ed Boys: Employing Fiction to Introduce the Choirboy School Upbringing into the American Coming-of-Age Discourse”

We hope to see you there!

Announcement: Interview with Kelli Schultz, AMS Senior and Dean’s Distinguished Graduate

Today, we’re pleased to share with you an interview with one of our undergraduates, Kelli Schultz, who was recently recognized as one of only twelve Dean’s Distinguished Graduates in the College of Liberal Arts at UT. Congratulations to Kelli on this very prestigious honor!

What was/is your favorite class in American Studies?

I loved Prof. Ware’s AMS 310: Intro to American Studies course. I have taken a lot of specialized AMS 370 courses which I loved but I’m intrigued by how each professor teaches the whole story of American History in one semester. Her underlying mission, it seemed, was to tell the untold accounts of US History, the ones you weren’t told in high school. We learned about the Carlisle Indian School, Japanese Internment and Coney Island. This was the first class I took in the Department and it sparked my interest in the pedagogy of social studies, which I ultimately ended up writing my honors thesis on.

Watch This: UT American Studies Departmental Video Released

Any American Studies student or scholar has likely encountered the following question in the non-academic wild: what is American Studies? With the answer so difficult to tease out – there’s a reason we ask our faculty members that very question in our “5 Questions” series! – we were thrilled to see the emergence of this new departmental video, the fruits of faculty and undergraduate labor. The video not only explores what the field is, but how students encounter the field here at UT.

Here’s what Dr. Randy Lewis had to say about the project’s inception and focus:

When I arrived here in 2009, I mentioned the idea of a departmental video to Steve Hoelscher, who was very supportive. However, finding funding and time was difficult—no other department in the college had done something like this. Fortunately, we had some good luck about a year ago when were working with Associate Dean Mark Music on a separate project, and we mentioned our desire to create a short video promo for American Studies. We sometimes feel like one of the undiscovered gems on campus, and a video seemed like one way to get out the word and attract more majors. So with the backing of the Associate Dean, Steve asked Cary Cordova and I to spearhead the creation of the video, working with some fine videographers and editors on campus. The first challenge was finding undergraduates who could convey the breadth and depth of what we do in the AMS classroom, but we were able to find a dozen stellar students who did a great job on camera. It’s very hard to make something that is institutional in nature without it seeming too bland. I guess I’m glad that I didn’t push some of my earlier, more colorful ideas beyond the brainstorming stage. I’m thinking about the dark comic vision I had of the AMS faculty in full-on Insane Clown Posse garb, sitting around talking about Melville in Juggalo lingo. I think that would have had a much more limited demographic appeal, mostly with bookish Ninjalos, of which there may not be many, but it would have been really funny.

Check the video out here to learn about the field, the American Studies community here at UT, and the usefulness of our interdisciplinary mode of inquiry beyond the classroom – all from the mouths of undergraduates in the program.

Maybe next year we’ll see the Juggalo sequel – stay tuned, y’all.