American Studies

Author: Laura Spautz

American Studies Spring Conference, May 4, 2023 – Women’s Faculty Club

TWICE TOLD TALES Thursday, May 4, 2018 Women’s Faculty Club Lucy Ward Stebbins Lounge, UC Berkeley   10:00 AM  Coffee and Informal Welcome 10:40 Brandi Summers (Geography) / “Black City Futures” 11:20 Mark Brilliant (History) / “Gilded State: California and the Origins of America’s New Gilded Age, 1966-1983” (Excerpt) Noon-2:00 Break 2:00 PM Mary Ryan (History) / “Searching for Democracy along the Pacific Shore of North America between 1775 and 1848” 2:40 Alexander Craghead (American Studies) / “Railroads, Power, and Technological Stories in California” 3:20 Michael Cohen (American Studies) / […]

American Studies Alumnus Calvin Nguyen Awarded the 2023 Tompkins Fellowship

Calvin Nguyen

The Society of Architectural Historians is pleased to name Calvin Nguyen, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, as the 2023 HABS-SAH Sally Kress Tompkins Fellow. The Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, a joint program of SAH and the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), permits a graduate student in architectural history or a related field the opportunity to work on a 12-week HABS history project. Nguyen’s fellowship project will focus on Los Angeles’s Chinatown. Nguyen will graduate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation, MSHP program in […]

American Studies Senior Thesis Showcase: Wednesday May 3, 2023, 10 am – 3 pm 3335 Dwinelle

The American Studies Senior Thesis Showcase is a celebration of the fantastic research and writing conducted by UC Berkeley’s American Studies majors this year! The Showcase will feature short presentations from thirteen senior thesis students, as well as an afternoon Q&A roundtable with presenters. Join us to see a range of what’s possible in a thesis, learn more about the process, get advice, and most of all congratulate our American Studies majors and minors. Whether you are a major, a minor, an alumnus, or are just curious about the senior […]

American Studies Majors Win Haas and SURF Scholarships

OURS logo

We are pleased to announce that….. Cassandra Branch is a new Haas Scholar. Her research project is “Silver Screen Sex Work: The Spectacular Mythology of ‘Prostitution’ in 1960s American Cinema.” Diana Choi is the Adam Z. Rice SURF recipient. Also, the following students will receive SURF support this summer for their research projects: Scott Underwood: “Black Roots of Bluegrass” Maddy Keo: “Dialogues of Courage: Personal Narratives and Problem-Posing Education” Marisela Tanori: “Halfway There: Housing and Reintegration of Formerly Incarcerated Individuals” Cat Stoehr: “The Dancer as Worker: Histories of Labor in […]

UC Berkeley professor Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers wins world-renowned Dan David Prize

Excerpted from The Berkeleyan, 3/21/23   Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Professor of History, recently won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her research that focuses on women and slavery. This global recognition for outstanding work in the study of the human past is given annually to up to nine recipients and recognizes emerging scholars whose work “illuminates the past in bold and creative ways.” “Our winners represent a new generation of historians,” said Ariel David, a Dan David Prize board member. “They are changing our understanding of the past by […]

Elisa Tamarkin Wins 2023 Distinguished Teaching Award – Berkeleyan Article/Ceremony on April 26, 2023

Please see news 3/20/23 article in The Berkeleyan.    The Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching cordially invites you to the 63rd Annual Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA), a ceremony and reception to honor five faculty recognized this year for their inspiring and transformational teaching. Wednesday, April 26, 2023 Ceremony 5-6:30 p.m. followed by an open reception Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center Recognizing: Laleh Behbehanian, Sociology Abigail De Kosnik, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Daniel Hoffmann, French Joshua Hug, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Elisa Tamarkin, English The extraordinary expertise, curiosity, inclusiveness, […]

NEWS FOR STUDENTS: New Fellowship – Farmlink FIELD Project

From American Studies graduate Claire Rider: I’m reaching out because I want to share what I’ve been working on: an immersive fellowship in the food industry. I work full-time at The Farmlink Project now, and have been focused on increasing our social impact in the food space. For the past couple months, I’ve been working to leverage our relationships with food banks, farmers, and logistic organizations to create opportunities for students to get hands-on interaction with food system stakeholders. I’ve developed a fellowship program with a 10 week introductory curriculum and a 10 […]

New book by David Henkin: The Week – A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are

An investigation into the evolution of the seven-day week and how our attachment to its rhythms influences how we live. “[Henkin] scours American literature, diaries, periodicals, menus and other ephemera from as far back as the seventeenth century to unearth fascinating evidence of the stickiness of the seven-day cycle.”—Melissa Holbrook Pierson, Wall Street Journal We take the seven-day week for granted, rarely asking what anchors it or what it does to us. Yet weeks are not dictated by the natural order. They are, in fact, an artificial construction of the modern […]