American Studies Information Session
February 23, 2010 | 4:30-5:30 p.m.
PAST EVENTS
Watch the video of "Becoming Americans: Writing The Immigrant Experience"
Monday, March 23, 2009
Michael Pollan at Columbia From the Garden Onto the Plate:
One Writer's Path
Michael Pollan is the award-winning author of current bestseller In Defense of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
He has been called a "post-wilderness nature writer" for his articles and books about the messy places where the natural and human worlds intersect - places like the garden, buildings, domesticated plants and agriculture. In his talk, he will trace the path of his writing from his graduate school encounters (here at Columbia) with Thoreau and Emerson through his work on the ecology and politics of eating.
Sponsored by the American Studies Program at Columbia University.
Monday, March 23, 2009
6:00 p.m.
Low Rotunda
Columbia University
116 Street
& Broadway, New York City
Saturday, November 22, 2008 Leading Historians to Discuss and Debate the Legacy of Abraham Lincoln
Watch the symposium online! A video of Lincoln in His Time and Ours is available online so you can relive the morning, afternoon, and evening of the day. You must have RealPlayer to view the webcast. To download RealPlayer, click here.
Lincoln in His Time and Ours
A Public Symposium
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the American Studies Program and History Department of Columbia University have joined together to observe the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth in 1809 and to mark the publication of Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, edited by Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University (W.W. Norton & Company).
Participants include:
•
David W. Blight, Yale University
•
Christopher Leslie Brown, Columbia University
•
Richard Carwardine, University of Oxford
•
Catherine Clinton, Queen’s University Belfast
•
Andrew Delbanco, Columbia University
•
Eric Foner, Columbia University
•
Harold Holzer, Co-chair, U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
•
James McPherson, Princeton University
•
Mark Neely, Pennsylvania State University
•
James Oakes, City University of New York
•
Manisha Sinha, University of Massachusetts
•
Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
Topics will range from “Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Rights of Black Americans” to “Lincoln’s Religion” and “Abraham Lincoln, Commander in Chief.”
Saturday, November 22, 2008
10am – 5:30pm
Low Rotunda, Columbia University
116 Street
& Broadway
There is no charge for the symposium, but seats are limited. To reserve a place, please e-mail karavas@gilderlehrman.org or call 646-366-9666.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
C. Wright Mills and the Politics of Truth
A panel discussion with John H. Summers, Todd Gitlin, and Casey Nelson Blake
—John H. Summers is the author of Every Fury on Earth and a Visiting Scholar at the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
—Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He lectures frequently on culture and politics in the United States and abroad and is the author of twelve books.
—Casey Nelson Blake, professor, specializes in modern U.S. intellectual and cultural history and American studies, with an emphasis on topics at the intersection of modernist art and politics in the twentieth century. He is also a faculty member in the American Studies program.
The first collection of his writings to be published since 1963, The Politics of Truth contains 23 out-of-print and
hard-to-find writings which show his growth from academic
sociologist to an intellectual maestro in command of a
mature style, a dissenter who sought to inspire the public to oppose the drift toward permanent war. Given the political
deceptions of recent years, Mills's truth-telling is more relevant than ever.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
7 p.m.
Morningside Bookshop
(2915 Broadway at W. 114th Street)
Four
of the most
thoughtful, controversial,
and important voices
in the ongoing debate
over affirmative action,
race, and class
in a discussion of
The
Meaning of Diversity
in the University
November 14,
Wednesday
THE PLANETA
LECTURE: Spanish-Language Literary Voices and
the United States
a
distinguished panel of Latin American writers discussing
contemporary Spanish-language literature and the significance
of the U.S. in the global Hispanic cultural network
Jorge Franco (Colombia)
Pablo De Santis (Argentina)
Roberto Ampuero (Chile)
María Negroni (Argentina)
7-9
pm in the World Room
Columbia School of Journalism NOTE: please check http://hispanicnewyorkproject.blogspot.com/
,
where you can also find a link to videos on YouTube showing
the entire event,
as well as some photographs.
October
12, Friday
The
Hispanic New York Project of the American Studies Program
presents: A conversation
with
JORGE EDUARDO
BENAVIDES
"Literatura y Exilio:Islas
Canarias,
Nueva York y América Latina"
6-8 pm in 301
Philosophy Hall
[in Spanish]
JORGE EDUARDO
BENAVIDES, author of the novels Los años inútiles
(2002) and El año que rompí contigo (2003)
and the short story collection La noche de Morgana (2005), was
born in Arequipa, Perú. He has been based in Spain since
1991 (Tenerife 1991-2002, Madrid 2002), where he has worked
as a journalist and a writers workshop teacher.
September
27, Thursday
Sara
Blair
Harlem Crossroads:
Black Writers and the Photograph in the Twentieth Century
Co-sponsored by the American Studies Program & the Department
of English
SARA BLAIR teaches in the English Department and the
Program in American Culture at the University of Michigan.
Her work focuses on intersections between literary and visual
cultures, with special emphasis on race and visuality and
on the social histories that have informed them. In addition
to a wide range of essays and articles, Blair is the author
of Henry James and the Writing of Race and Nation (Cambridge,
2006) and of the just-released Harlem Crossroads: Black Writers
and the Photograph in the Twentieth Century (Princeton). That
work, from which her talk will be drawn, argues for the shared
histories of literature and the photograph in the US, and
for the importance of Harlem as a generative site for their
mutual mediation. Drawing on extensive archival evidence of
the photographic production and engagements of such figures
as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Lorraine
Hansberry, Blair's work educes the centrality of black writers
to cultural experimentation of the twentieth century. FLIER
—
SPRING 2007
March 21, 2007 Gish Jen
author of Typical American, Mona
in the Promised Land, and The Love Wife
READING & RECEPTION
6 pm in the
Graduate Lounge, 301 Philosophy Hall
April 9, 2007 Art Spiegelman
author of Maus
"On the Art of Comics"
7 pm at Low
Plaza
April 26, 2007 James Fisher
"Popular Front or Spiritual Front?
Communists v. Jesuits on the Waterfront, 1945-1954"
April 13, 2007
An American Studies Program conference on
The
Future of Undergraduate Education
A Conference on College: Who Goes? Who
Pays? and What Should Students Learn?
December 7, 2006 A conversation with Francisco Goldman,
author of The Divine Husband
"Rewriting the Narrative of the Americas"
December 2006 HISPANIC NEW
YORK Film Series in collaboration
with the Film Society of Lincoln Center According to the last Census, approximately
2.16 million people who define themselves as Hispanics live
in New York City—almost one third of its total population.
Of all the major urban conglomerates in the United States,
New York displays the widest spectrum of immigrants from all
over Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the vision of
four directors from very different personal and professional
backgrounds, this series attempts to cast a revealing light
into the rich complexity of Hispanic New York.
December 5:
"Real Women Have Curves"
(2002, 90m) Directed by Patricia Cardoso This film, winner of the Audience Award
at Sundance Festival, portrays the coming-of-age experiences
of Ana, a strong-willed first generation Mexican-American
from East Los Angeles. Ana obtains a full scholarship to Columbia
University, but her mother wants her to stay working at her
sister’s factory, a sweatshop that makes small-size formal
gowns for Bloomingdale’s. Spirited discussions about
exploitative labor conditions and body types lead to a painful
but inevitable awakening. (from New Directors/New Films Catalog). Screening at: Instituto Cervantes, 211 East 49th Street. Time: 6 p.m. (NO Q & A)
December
6: "Brincando El Charco: Portrait of a Puerto
Rican" (1994, 55m) Directed by Frances Negrón-Muntaner Co-sponsored by the Columbia University
Department of English and Comparative Literature,
Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives.
In a wonderful mix of fiction, archival footage, and soap-opera
drama, this film tells the story of Claudia Marin, a middle-class
light-skinned Puerto Rican photographer and videographer who
tries to make sense of her new experiences in the United States
and to find a meaningful community. Analyzing the notion of
identity through the prism of a life divided between two islands,
BRINCANDO EL CHARCO is a forceful meditation on class, race
and sexuality (from Women Make Movies catalog). Screening at: Room 517, Hamilton Hall, Columbia University,
116th Street and Broadway. Time: 7:30 p.m.
Guest Speaker: Frances Negrón-Muntaner.
Host and Q & A Moderator: Richard Peña, Columbia
University School of the Arts and Program Director of The
New York Film Festival, The Film Society of Lincoln Center.
December
13: "Cuban Roots / Bronx Stories" (2000, 57m) Directed by Pam Sporn
(Original Musical Score by Oscar Hernández) This film reconstructs the story of a black
Cuban family who came to the United States shortly after the
Bay of Pigs doomed invasion, in the early 1960s. When his
father returns to Cuba for the first time in more than thirty
years, Pablo decides to explore his Afro-Latino identity.
Through layers of archival material, verité footage
and the narrator’s own memories, CUBAN ROOTS/BRONX STORIES
weaves a complex narrative of personal and historical events
that challenges several racial and ethnic stereotypes. Screening at: Instituto Cervantes, 211 East 49th Street.
Guest Speaker: Pam Sporn. Time: 6 p.m.
Host and Q&A Moderator: Claudio Iván Remeseira,
The Hispanic New York Seminar of the American Studies Program,
Columbia University. December 20:
"The Suitor" (2001, 55m) Directed and Written by Julia Solomonoff
Based on a story by Julia Alvarez Yolanda Garcia’s American boyfriend
tags along when she visits her childhood hometown in the Dominican
Republic. He is fascinated by her stories of eccentric aunts
and sexy cousins, and anticipates a festive week of eating
and drinking, endless dancing, and topless beaches. But one
of Yolanda’s relatives is running for President—the
timing couldn’t be worse to introduce her live-in gringo
lover to her traditional Dominican family. Their relationship,
which made perfect sense in New York, turns upside down in
the unforgiving heat of the Caribbean. Screening at: Instituto Cervantes, 211 East 49th Street. Time: 6 p.m.
Guest Speaker: Rosa Arredondo, main actor of The Suitor.
Host and Q&A Moderator: Claudio Iván Remeseira,
The Hispanic New York Seminar of the American Studies Program,
Columbia University. This series has been co-programmed by
Marcela Goglio and Claudio Iván Remeseira.
November 2, 2006 Antonio Muņoz Molina
"Spanish Culture in New York: A Quixotic
Endeavor?"
Antonio Muņoz Molina, (Úbeda,
Spain, 1956) is one of Spain’s most important contemporary
writers, and, since 1995, a full member of the Royal Spanish
Academy. From 2004 to 2006, he was also the director of the
New York City’s branch of the Instituto Cervantes. He studied
art history at the University of Granada, and journalism in
Madrid. His first book, El Robinsón urbano, a collection
of his journalistic work, was published in 1984. Since then,
his columns have regularly appeared in mass-circulation dailies
such as El País (Spain) and Die Welt (Germany). In 1987,
he was awarded Spain's National Narrative Prize for El invierno
en Lisboa (Winter in Lisbon), a homage to film noir and jazz.
His novel El jinete polaco received the Planeta Prize in 1991
and, again, the National Narrative Prize, in 1992. Antonio Muñoz
Molina is also the author of Beatus ille (1986), Beltenebros
(1989), Los misterios de Madrid (1992), El dueño del
secreto (1994), Ventanas de Manhattan (2005) and El viento de
la luna (2006), among other books. Margaret Sayers Peden’s
English version of his novel Sepharad won the 2004 PEN/ Book-of-the-Month
Club Translation prize.
October 26, 2006 Eric Sundquist
"Mr. Styron's Planet: Americanizing
the Holocaust"
Eric Sundquist, UCLA Foundation Professor
of Literature, is one of the nation's preeminent scholars of
American literature and culture. Since 1979 he has edited or
authored a dozen books, including most recently To Wake the
Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature (1993), winner
of the Christian Gauss Award for most distinguished work in
the Humanities, and Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust
America (2005). Professor Sundquist has taught at Johns Hopkins,
UC Berkeley, Vanderbilt and Northwestern, where from 1997 through
2002 he served as Dean of Arts and Sciences. He is currently
working on a book in the Yale University Press American Icon
Series about Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream
Speech." Professor Sundquist will speak about William Styron,
whose controversial novels on race (The Confessions of Nat Turner)
and the Holocaust (Sophie's Choice) raise crucial questions
about the representation of blacks and Jews.
—
SPRING 2006
April 6, 2006 George Shulman
"Race, Prophecy, and Toni Morrison"
George Shulman teaches political theory
and American Studies at the Gallatin School of Individualized
Study at New York University. His second book, Race and Redemption:
Prophecy in American Political Culture, is forthcoming from
the University of Minnesota Press in 2007.
March 24, 2006 Christopher Looby
"Literary Sexuality and Charles Brockden
Brown’s ' thing of mere sex' "
Christopher Looby is Professor of
English at the University of California, Los Angeles and author
of Voicing America: Language, Literary Form, and the Origins
of the United States
February 10, 2006 RELIGION AND LIBERALISM
A Conference on Faith and Progressive
Politics in America
Professor of English and Director of American Studies, Stanford
University; Director of the International Initiative of the
American Studies Association; and Past President of the American
Studies Association
"Asian Crossroads:
The Transnational Turn in American Studies"
4-6 pm in 754 Schermerhorn Extension
Reception to follow. This event is free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the Dept. of English, the Center for the Study
of Women and Gender, and the Office of the Vice Provost for
Diversity Initiatives
September 30, 2005
"Whitman's Manhatta: A Walking Tour"
Step back in
time to the streets of Whitman's New York in this walk through
Manhattan's Civic Center and old Newspaper Row, across the Brooklyn
Bridge and down to the Fulton Ferry landing. Learn the histories
of enduring structures such as St. Paul's and the Croton Fountain,
as well as parts of old New York that survive only in memory
(like Barnum's American Museum and Fowler and Wells' Phrenological
Cabinet). Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" as we
take in the magnificent view of New York Harbor that inspired
Whitman 150 years ago, we end in Brooklyn, with pizza at Grimaldi's,
a delicious indulgence that certainly would have been approved
of by the 'poet of appetites'!
A tour led by Dr. Karen Karbiener, who received her Ph.D. in
English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University
and teaches at New York Unviersity. The poet Walt Whitman is
her critical focus; her edition of Leaves of Grass was published
by Barnes and Noble in 2005, as was her 14-lecture series for
Recorded Books entitled "Whitman and the Beginnings of
Modern American Poetry." Dr. Karbiener is curator of "Whitman
and the Promise of America, 1855-2005," which opened July
2005 at the South Street Seaport Museum.
—
FALL 2004
October 14, 2004
Arnold Rampersad
"Ralph Waldo Ellison,
New England, and Black American Culture"
523 Butler Library at 4:00 pm
Inaugural lecture in the Heimert Colloquium
Series
October 8, 2004
Phillip Lopate
"The Enigma of Waterfront Development"
Wood Auditorium Avery Hall at 12:30-2 pm
Sponsored by the American Studies Program and the Temple Hoyne
Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
April 11, 2008
