News
Solidarity Hours & Artist Talk/Music Event ft. Damon Locks
American Studies Majors are invited to join our off-campus solidarity hours/study hall time followed by a music event featuring Damon Locks.
When: Thursday, December 8, 3-5 PM (music event starts at 5 PM)
Where: Visible Records, 1740 Broadway St., Charlottesville VA
Rising Scholar Postdoctoral Fellowship, Department of American Studies
In consort with the Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Mellon Foundation, the UVA Department of American Studies hopes to provide a departmental home to a Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies. We seek a rising scholar (candidates who received (or will receive) their Ph.D. degree between August 24, 2020 and August 24, 2023). We will consider all qualified applications whose scholarship advances American Studies. We welcome antiracist, feminist, queer, transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial theoretical perspectives on any topic. For example, approaches to scholarship may include, but are not limited to: carceral studies; race and the environment; disability justice; place-making; and/or rural studies.
We see this 2-year postdoctoral fellowship as part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ mission to further our understanding of the legacies of racial inequity and to enhance the career trajectory of an underrepresented scholar whose work focuses on interdisciplinary inquiry into questions related to the Race, Justice and Equity.
Possible specializations include but are not limited to:
- North American Indigenous Studies.
- Native American Studies.
- Pacific Islander Studies.
- Native Hawaiian Studies.
- Black and Indigenous Studies.
- Black and Latinx Studies.
- Indigenous and Latinx Studies.
- Afro-Latinidades Studies.
- Afro-Indigenous Studies.
Please contact Lisa Cacho (lmc8mc@virginia.edu) or Penny Von Eschen (pmv3c@virginia.edu), Department Chair, with any questions.
Prof. Lamas Receives Outstanding Book Award
AMST faculty Carmen Lamas won the Latin American Studies Association's Latinx Section's Outstanding Book Award for 2022 for her book, The Latino Continuum and the Nineteenth-Century Americas: Literature, Translation, and Historiography (Oxford University Press, 2021). This is a highly competitive award that is only awarded every other year. Congratulations, Carmen!
Prof. Jernigan and others to direct programming for new Black & Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $616,670 grant to the University of Virginia to create a research institute for interdisciplinary scholarship, teaching and cultural projects related to the intersection of feminist Black and Indigenous Studies.
Tiffany King, an incoming associate professor in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Kasey Jernigan, assistant professor of American Studies and Anthropology; and anthropology professor Sonia Alconini will direct programming for the new Black & Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute (BFFI). The BIFFI also will serve as an institutional hub for cultivating new relationships and strengthening existing ones among scholars, artists and organizers working at the intersection of Black and Indigenous life. More
Prof. Hamilton reviews the new Kanye Documentary on Netflix
Read Prof. Jack Hamilton's latest article for Slate here: https://slate.com/culture/2022/02/kanye-west-documentary-jeen-yuhs-netflix-movie-review.html?curator=MediaREDEF
Grace Hale is awarded for best book on Georgia history
As featured in UVAToday: Prof. Hale (American Studies, History) is honored with the 2021 Malcolm Bell Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell Award for her book "Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture". Read the full article here.
Prof. Hamilton Dissects the ‘Fab Four’ as New Beatles Documentary Drops
As featured on UVAToday: Prof. Jack Hamilton breaks down the history of the Beatles and their impact on rock 'n' roll. Read the full article here.
Read Prof. Daut's article "Resurrecting A Lost Palace of Haiti" published in Harper's Bazaar
Marlene Daut (Carter G. Woodson Institute, American Studies) wrote an article for Harper’s Bazaar on the lost Haitian palace of Sans Souci and what the castle’s ruins mean during a turbulent year in Haitian history: Resurrecting A Lost Palace of Haiti
Read Prof. Jack Hamilton's latest article in Slate
Jack Hamilton (Media Studies, American Studies) wrote a column last month for Slate about Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving's refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine: What Exactly Does Kyrie Irving Think He's Doing?
American Studies & English Welcome New Rising Scholar Postdoc: Janet Kong-Chow
As featured on UVAToday: American Studies is excited to welcome postdoctoral fellow Janet Kong-Chow. Janet comes to UVA as part of the Rising Scholar Postdoctoral Fellowship. In addition to expanding her research, Janet will teach courses for both English and American Studies including a course on Racial Geographies & Environmental Crisis offered Spring 2022. Read more about Janet and the Postdoctoral Fellowship here.
Read Prof. Goff's Latest Article on Confederate Statue Removal
"For years before the July removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, I envisioned what the event might look like." Continue reading here.
AMST student Alexi White interned for new PBS digital series
As Featured on UVAToday: American Studies fourth year, Alexi White, participated in an eight week internship working on an episode for the PBS "American Masters" digital series. Read more about Alexi's work here.
Profs. Shukla & Hedstrom on the Cultural Impact of 9/11
As featured on UVA Today: Prof. Shukla and Prof. Hedstrom reflect on the literary and religious impact of 9/11 in America.
Panel hosts Prof. Sylvia Chong to discuss COVID-19 impact on APIDA community
Read the full Cavalier Daily article here.
Teach-In on Anti-Asian Violence
Read Cavalier Daily's coverage of the event here. Friday, April 9th American Studies professor & Director of the Asian Pacific American Studies minor, Sylvia Chong, organized a teach-in on anti-Asian violence. The event was attended by approximately 60 people including faculty, students, and community members.
Read Prof. Daut's latest article in the New York Times
Napoleon Isn’t a Hero to Celebrate
Read the full article here. By Marlene Daut, Professor of African Diaspora Studies (AAS/AMST)
‘A Race So Different’: Asians and Asian Americans in UVA’s History
As featured on UVAToday: American Studies faculty, Sylvia Chong, explores the Asian and Asian American experience at UVA. Read full article here.
New American Studies Major Requirements
American Studies is changing the requirements for its major effective August, 2020. Students and faculty can view the new requirements here. Students who declared the major prior to August, 2020 can choose whether to complete the major in the new structure or via the previous concentration-based structure.
New Faculty Member Dr. Kasey Jernigan Joins American Studies
The American Studies Program is pleased to welcome Dr. Kasey Jernigan to our faculty. Dr. Jernigan will be starting as an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology, with a joint appointment in both programs, in Fall 2019. Her hire was in the field of Contemporary Native North American Studies, and was part of a cluster hire on Race and Inequality sponsored by the Provost's Office.
Previously, Kasey Jernigan was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Native American Studies at Wesleyan University in the American Studies Department. Her work focuses on obesity, identity, and cultural uses of food among Oklahoma tribes. Using collaborative and participatory research methods, her research examines the socio-cultural, economic, political, and historical influences of health, while centering tribal citizens’ personal stories and meaning-making in these processes. In her current manuscript project, Embodied Heritage: Commod Bods and Indian Identities, Dr. Jernigan examines the ways shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs have shaped Indigenous foodways; how these foodways are linked to Indigenous bodies and health; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with structural violence, identity, and heritage. Dr. Jernigan’s research has received support from numerous institutions, including the Ford Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the USDA’s Economic Research Service through Purdue University’s RIDGE Center for Targeted Studies, and the Northwest Native American Research Center for Health funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She received her PhD in Medical Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a Graduate Certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies. She also holds an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and completed the NIH Native Researchers’ Certificate Program at Oregon Health & Sciences University. She is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
A Roundtable on the Past, Present, and Futures of Latinx Studies
Frances Aparicio, Professor Emerita of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University, will join UVA AMST professors Camilla Fojas and Carmen Lamas in a roundtable discussion on the Past, Present, and Futures of Latinx Studies tomorrow, Thursday, Feburary 28th, in Wilson 142, from 4-6 PM. Refreshments will be served.
Gabriel Rosenberg, Duke University - No Scrubs: Livestock Breeding, State Power, and Eugenic Knowledge in the Early 20th Century United States
The American Studies Program presents a talk by Gabriel Rosenberg, Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University: No Scrubs: Livestock Breeding, State Power, and Eugenic Knowledge in the Early 20th Century United States. The talk will be held Wednesday, March 20th, from 12:00-1:30 PM in 117 Wilson Hall. Lunch will be provided; please RSVP to AMST administrative coordinator Aida Barnes-May (amb7hh) before March 15.
The event is co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, the Power, Violence, and Inequality Collective, and the Food Collaborative.
Faculty Accolades
Hearty congratulations to several members of our faculty for assorted achievements:
- Prof. Carmen Lamas's essay, "Father Félix Varela and the Emergence of an Organized Latina/o Minority in Early Nineteenth-Century New York City" appears in the Cambridge History of Latina/o American Literature, which was named a 2018 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association.
- Prof. Sandhya Shukla has won the 2018 American Studies Association Critical Ethnic Studies award for her essay, "The Visual and Textual Lives of Harlem Solidarity: Yuri Kochiyama's Relation to Malcolm X." The committee chair writes: "The prize committee was especially impressed by [Prof. Shukla's] nuanced consideration of Kochiyama in relation to 'revolutionary Blackness' and Harlem's historic cosmopolitanism."
- Prof. Jessica Sewell published an entry entitled "Public Space in the American City" in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.
- Prof. David Singerman's article, "Science, Commodities, and Corruption in the Gilded Age," won the inaugural 1500 Penn Prize of the Treasury Historical Association. He will be presenting a talk at the U.S. Department of the Treasury next month. UVAToday has more on Prof. Singerman's achievement here.
Canadian Supreme Court Rules in Favor of AMST Postdoctoral Fellow Gill Frank
Our very own Prof. Gill Frank has had his voting rights restored to him, thanks to a decision of the Canadian Supreme Court which reversed a law that previously forbade expatriate Canadians from voting. UVAToday has more on this story here. Many congratulations to Prof. Frank!
AMST Student Athletes Featured in UVAToday
American Studies majors Kyle Guy, De'Andre Hunter, and Ty Jerome were among the students interviewed for a recent issue of UVAToday, featuring a Q&A with UVA men's basketball players. Kyle called Prof. Carmenita Higginbotham's Disney course his favorite class and discussed how he chose to major in American Studies, and De'Andre and Ty spoke to other aspects of the student athlete experience.
Photo credit to Matt Riley, UVA Athletics.