AMS Student Spotlight Feature—PhD Candidate Taylor Johnson Karahan
Name: Taylor Johnson Karahan
Pronouns: she/they
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): My research interests currently are in ancestral remains and sites of unburial. I work on how and why certain people are remembered and memorialized while others are silenced and forgotten by mainstream narratives.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: When I was a senior in my undergraduate studies and mentioned wanting to get a doctorate, my advisor asked me what my favorite things I read and studied were. When I answered Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism, and referenced the prison abolitionist projects I was a part of with her, she directed me toward American Studies.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: Conceptualizing a politics of unburial at three sites in Texas, I ask what it means for human beings to be kept in the basements and warehouses of major universities, buried unremarked upon on the grounds of symbolic monuments, and found in unmarked graves at construction sites. I trace epistemological and cultural structures which muster some human beings out of their graves to tell particular stories and lead to the unmarked burials of others, how such structures manifest at these sites and in Texas history, and what a Texas-specific historical focus can illuminate about how narrative power operates in the building and expansion of empire. Attending to archeological evidence, counter-memories, and routinely silenced historical archives, my work unpacks the tenuous boundary between past and present and invokes the possibility of more just futures.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: Working in American Studies at UT allows me to also situate my research at the intersections of Black Studies, Indigenous Studies, Mexican American Studies, Texas History, Geography, Ethnography, Archeology, Cultural Studies, Carceral Studies, and Public History. By rooting my work in American Studies, I can take an interdisciplinary approach to analyze how power operates in historical productions about unburied ancestors and across ostensibly distinct sites.
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT?
A: My favorite thing about AMS is the tight-knit and supportive community – especially among the graduate students. From maintaining a close relationship with a visiting Fulbright scholar even though she’s back across the Atlantic Ocean to sharing puppy photos with the sibling of a professor I rode home from the airport with, the connections I’ve made in this department have really supported me through some of the more difficult parts of life and graduate schooling. I have met the most talented, passionate, thoughtful, funny, and generous people here, and I will cherish every one of them for the rest of my life.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
I’m not sure if it’s altogether that fun of a fact (and a particularly contradictory one for an abolitionist), but I have seen every single episode of Law-and-Order Special Victims Unit – most of them several times. I can alarmingly recite the intro with perfect timing, and I can place Mariska Hargitay by season based solely on her hairstyle. If you need a walking SVU encyclopedia – call me.
Dr. Randy Lewis’ Psychedelic Cities
Did you know that the chair of American Studies, Dr. Randy Lewis, is a documentary filmmaker?
If you didn't, please be sure to check out his latest short here: Psychedelic Cities
The documentary is an 18 minute film that analyzes the re-emerging of psychedelics such as "magic" mushrooms and dispensaries in Vancouver BC and -legal- ketamine clinics RIGHT HERE IN AUSTIN, TEXAS.
Dr. Lewis stated that he views "these videos as an extension of my teaching + research in the American Studies Dept at UT-Austin---I shoot on GoPro’s, edit on my laptop, compose and record the soundtrack, and share it on Youtube. I hope you enjoy!"
Be sure to check it out & let us know what you think!
AMS Student Spotlight—PhD Student Henrik Jaron Schneider
Name: Henrik Jaron Schneider
Pronouns: he/him
Contact Information: henrik_schneider@utexas.edu
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): Dinosaurs and the environment. Like most boys, I was indoctrinated by Jurassic Park to be obsessed with prehistoric reptiles. In addition, I was a boy scout for over a decade, which helped me to develop a deep appreciation for nature and taught me that birch wood is highly flammable even when wet (I don’t know what to do with that information but it’s in my brain and now it’s in yours, too. You’re welcome). At UT Austin, I combine my fascination with natural and built environments with my interest in prehistory to explore the intersection of paleontology, extractivism, and dinosaurs as cultural icons. I’m also a hobby meteorologist. So, besides wasting my time gazing at clouds and checking numerical weather prediction models four times a day (without any theoretical knowledge on the matter—but they’re colorful, which I like 🌈), I hope I will be able to integrate my obsession with the atmosphere into my research on the cultural histories of our planet’s geosphere.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: I started college as an environmental science major with a minor in climatology at the University of Freiburg. During a lecture on edaphology and pedology, I decided to change my major and university and applied to a film and communications program at the University of Mainz. I don’t have an explanation for this radical shift other than the fact that I was an erratic 19-year-old Gemini. After two more years, I decided to switch from film to American studies. What attracted me to the field were the creative methods and approaches to transnational cultural histories. Therefore, it’s not so much a question of how I found my path to American studies as a discipline as it is a convoluted journey to making my way to American studies as a method/habit of mind.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your current work align within American Studies at UT?
A: In the past, I’ve mostly utilized critical media analysis, queer theory, and cultural discourse analysis. For my bachelor’s degree, I wrote a thesis on racial stereotypes in Disney movies. My master’s thesis was an analysis of the intersection of technology, gender, and sexuality in the Jurassic franchise through a queer theory lens. While I’m still interested in pop culture and representations of prehistory, my methodological approach has shifted as a Ph.D. student in the American studies department at UT. In addition to the methods, I utilized as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Mainz, several classes I took at UT pointed me toward the material histories of dispossession and how they intersect with the dinosaur as a cultural icon. Thus, my time at UT made me aware of the cultural work of the dinosaur and the ways in which ideas about prehistory are intertwined with racial capitalism, land use politics, and environmental history.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: I just finished my orals exam, so my main project at the moment is to feel like a real human again. Other than that, I’m working on my prospectus and a paper I will present in March at the conference of the American Society of Environmental History in Boston.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: The diverse interests and backgrounds of our faculty profoundly informed my understanding of methodology in the context of my research. In addition, UT provided me with opportunities to further develop as a scholar, such as writing reviews for E3W and supporting the department as a member of the graduate student conference committee.
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT.
My cohort. Starting a Ph.D. program as an international student from Germany during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was highly anxiety-inducing. Amanda and Stephanie have always supported me with their compassion, friendship, and advice <3.
Bonus Question: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: I was on German reality TV. Good luck finding the evidence.
AMS Student Spotlight—Shara Henderson
Name: Shara Henderson
Pronouns: They/she
Contact information: hendersonshara@utexas.edu
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): If my academic and non-academic interests were put into a Venn diagram, it would probably look like a circle that’s constantly expanding and consolidating. My core interests in abolition, Indigeneity, neurodiversity, and the city of Austin have guided me through countless research inquiries, ranging from K-12 curriculum censorship to the history of substance use and anti-drug rhetoric. I’m also into astrology, which isn’t something I’ve had the opportunity to encounter yet within academia…but I’m getting there.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: I had very little exposure to American Studies as a field prior to coming to UT, but once I read up on it, it felt very familiar. My interests as an undergraduate were primarily in sexual violence, settler colonialism, and disability justice, which I was hoping I could continue learning about after two years of not using my degree. After looking through several programs, I was most intrigued by this particular department because of its expansive, interdisciplinary approach as well as the innovative work that has come out of it.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your current work align within American Studies at UT?
A: As someone who’s had their fair share of struggles with academia, I try to take off my “scholar” hat whenever I can and approach my interests simply as a person–as a born-and-raised Austinite when I’m looking at gentrification, as a neurodivergent individual when I’m imagining new means of accessibility, etc.–and I look at all of these things put together to show a bigger picture of who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I’m going. I want for my work to not just be a reflection of myself but also of my friends, family, and community, most of whom live outside the ivory tower. As I’m in my first year of coursework, I haven’t had the opportunity to develop a particular set of methods, but I know that in the future I’d like to find imaginative, emotional means of bringing unheard stories to light.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: Nothing is set in stone since I’m primarily focused on my classes and TA duties, but I am potentially going to be working with Austin Justice Coalition as well as some other UT students to increase civilian oversight over the procurement of APD’s surveillance technology and provide education on the harm they produce. I’m also regularly coming up with project ideas I don’t have the time to work on, the most recent being a m(app)ing project that highlights all the spaces in between the man-made landmarks that Google maps documents. There could be filters to look at the flora and fauna of Austin, track the movement of different groups of people over time, allow users to submit location-specific stories to create a library of affective geographies of the city, etc. This is definitely ambitious and probably won’t end up actually happening, but if you know about app design and/or mapping and need a project idea, let me know.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: After being here for a little over a semester, I’ve been fortunate to encounter several brilliant minds that have taught me about topics I wasn’t even aware I didn’t know about. American Studies stretches your mind in all directions, which is both scary and exhausting, but also incredibly rewarding. My cohort, fellow students, professors, and staff have of course provided me with academic support and laughter to get me through these challenges.
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT?
A: Although the “What is American Studies?” question from outsiders got old quickly, I do think it’s pretty cool to be in a sort of mysterious field where people think they know what it is but they ask you just to be sure only for you to tell them you also don’t quite know. It’s very queer to me. American Studies is whatever you want it to be, and I feel like that’s how academia should be–unburdened by the need to fit within one disciplinary structure.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: For all of my childhood/teenage years I was 100% sure I would be some kind of scientist when I grew up. I was really into astronomy for a while, then switched over to wanting to be in the medical field. My change in direction towards what I’m doing now was mostly thanks to one great professor and one toxic professor in my first year as an undergrad.
AMS Student Spotlight--Lillian Nagengast
Name: Lillian Nagengast
Pronouns: She/Her
Title: PhD Student
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): Broadly, my research explores the cultural history of gender in the rural United States. I’m interested in how rural women understand their identities and communities. I interrogate this field by engaging with a variety of sources, such as country music, memoir, and feminist zines. More recently, I’ve become interested in how rural women participate in their local economies. Some of my most generative research that came out of my coursework this fall was my final paper for Dr. Beasley’s U.S. Capitalism & Culture course. In that essay, I traced the emergence of multi-level marketing companies in the United States and their long history among rural women. Throughout my time at in American Studies at UT, I hope to continue researching these and other rural women’s economies.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: I majored in English as an undergraduate, and I have my Master’s degree in English. However, especially in my MA program, I felt that I had outgrown the discipline’s focus on “traditional” literature. I found myself gravitating toward professors whose work pushed the boundaries of the English discipline and whose research explored ideas that affect our daily lives. During my MA program, I also realized that my interests were not represented in canonical literature. I turned to other sources, like television, country music, and memoir. When I began researching doctoral programs, I realized that the professors whose research I admired—as well as my own interests—fell under the discipline of American Studies.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your current work align with American Studies?
A: Although I’m only in my first year in the program, I feel as though my research has become much richer and layered because of the freedom of not being wedded to a particular method. I draw on a variety of methods in my research, but I engage in quite a bit of close reading of archival sources. This past semester, I conducted several oral history interviews which was new and exciting. Because my research is informed by my personal experiences growing up in rural Nebraska, I think ethnography could be very generative in my future research.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: I’m excited to share that my essay,“‘Mamas, If Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Cowboys, So What?’: Women Refiguring Rurality and Class in Country Music,” was recently published in the Journal of Working-Class Studies—my first publication! I’m currently gearing up for my next—and final—semester of course work. I’m working on my presentation for the American Society for Environmental Histories Conference in March, “Representing Rural Environmental Histories in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Behn Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.”
In terms of nonacademic projects, I’m collaborating with a group of rural undergraduate and graduate students to plan a virtual conference for rural students this February (follow me on Twitter @LMNagengast for updates).
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: Although I’ve been in the program for less than a year, I’ve grown tremendously as a researcher, writer, and person. Every faculty member I’ve interacted with in AMS has furthered my research in some way, and I think that is unique to the department. American Studies at UT does not force me to fit my research into a box and encourages me to think broadly across methods and disciplines.
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT?
A: In American Studies at UT, I feel as if I have the support of the entire department. Because we have faculty and graduate students with such diverse interests, I learn something new from every conversation. I’m tremendously grateful to belong to such a kind, welcoming, and congenial cohort.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: I’m taking crochet classes this semester! If anyone is interested in setting up an ongoing crochet session, let me know :) .
AMS Graduate Student Spotlight—Jonathan Newby
Name: Jonathan Alexander Newby
Pronouns: He/They
Optional—contact information: janewby@utexas.edu, @JonNewbyA (Twitter)
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): I have many, many different areas of interest! But there are five that I typically cite: digital studies (specifically social media and video gaming), Black and Queer studies, the history and policies of the modern university, urban studies and planning, and the politics and cultures of the Christian Right.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: When I first entered undergrad at William & Mary, I was set on becoming a sociology and philosophy double major, but we weren’t allowed to declare a major till our second year, and on top of that, I didn’t get into any SOCL or PHIL courses my first semester. I did, however, get into an American Studies seminar as part of my scholar program, which was taught by then-chair Leisa Meyer—Intro to LGBTQIA Studies. After connecting with Dr. Meyer throughout the course and expressing all of my different interests, she thought I would be perfect for American Studies, and she was right! I quickly fell in love, and never looked back. By the way, never did get around to taking a SOCL or PHIL class, but they were still part of my AMST classes in some interdisciplinary way.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your current work align within American Studies?
A: I considered myself pretty big on ethnography and engaging with community knowledge directly, so I learned a fair bit about interviewing and community archives and, as part of my broader academic mission, making marginalized studies front and center in my work. I did an honors thesis on Black Queer history in America, an independent study on the impact of indie video games to the digital humanities and promoting the creativity of people of marginalized identities, and also a digital ethnography on Black Queer Twitter influencers and organizations. I take those lessons with me into UT AMS in emphasizing the work of the communities that I am studying—"nothing about us without us” sticks with me every day as a research motto to live by, for both my own communities and in doing justice to others wherever possible.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: I am working on a couple conference proposals! I have never presented at an outside conference before, and since I am on fellowship this year, I figured this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at writing proposals and (hopefully) presenting them to my peers across the country. I proposed a paper on the importance of technology and social traditions (specifically alcohol consumption) in a video game, The Red Strings Club, to the Popular Culture Association (shout-out to Dr. Randy Lewis for turning me onto that opportunity!) which got approved! So, I will be presenting "Cybernetics, Humanity, and the Bar in The Red Strings Club" in San Antonio this spring! And I am currently working to propose to the Cultural Studies Association a paper on the possibilities of Afrofuturism and Black engagement with technology in understanding Black history and current Black movements for justice.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: UT AMS makes this work possible because, on a personal level, it is engaging and challenging in a productive way. Even though I am just starting out, I still feel that I am being challenged to do more and be more to advance myself as a scholar. It remains an adjustment, but one I am happy to engage with every day, because there is real growth to be had here, and a wide support network to help me in that self-improvement. Many thanks to the AMS professors I’ve had the fortune of meeting or taking courses with thus far, and extra love to my cohort that I’ve gotten to know well and can’t wait to collaborate with more in the semesters to come!
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT.
A: It has to be the environment! There are a lot of different conceptions of what grad school is like, but from the first time I stepped foot in Burdine, it felt real in the best way possible. I knew this could be a department and a university where I could thrive as a student and a person. Everyone has been so supportive of me through the ups and the downs, and I can say so definitively that this was the right choice for me, because the community that I am now a part of is truly a rock for me even as I am still transitioning and coming into myself, from the older cohorts to the professors I see in passing, if there’s a family to be had in academia, UT AMS is as close as they come.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: I’m actually really proud of this one, but I have a (very amateurish) photography Instagram (@jonphotonewby)! I made it sort of on a whim at a friend’s suggestion and made a New Year’s Resolution to get 100 photos on there in 2022, which I managed to exceed! You’ll find a copious number of shots of the UT Tower, Downtown Austin, and Burdine Hall on my page, so if that suits your fancy, give it a look!
AMS Faculty Spotlight—Dr. Lina Chhun!
Dr. Lina Chhun, Assistant Professor (she/her)
Contact information: lina.chhun@austin.utexas.edu
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun!?
Answer (A): It’s funny because no matter how many times I’m asked this question, I still find it difficult to answer—regarding my research interests. They’re incredibly varied and constantly shifting (which is one of the main reasons I love being situated in American Studies). I’m interested in historical and cultural memory, in transnational forms of knowledge production, in popular culture, in technologies of subjectification (how we come to understand ourselves as subjects moving, living, being in the world), in feminist approaches that move beyond liberal understandings of reparation, freedom, and desire… I also have a somewhat unhealthy addiction to reality television, a kind of love/hate relationship with Bravo TV, in particular (I know, terrible but fascinating). I think I’m probably pretty basic when it comes to my “nonacademic” interests, actually. There are so many courses I’d like to teach here at UT but one I’d like to resurrect from my time as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford is called “All Things Basic,” which is essentially a grab bag of topics loosely related to popular culture trends.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects (academically or otherwise), and if so tell us about them!
A: I’m currently working on my first book manuscript Walking with the Ghost (subtitle continually changes, currently it’s: Silences, Memory, and Cambodian American Histories of Violence), which is something of a deconstruction and reconstruction of my doctoral dissertation, which itself began as a critique of my master’s thesis. Partly due to the nature of return and revision integral to the project, I’m thinking of the book as a methodological intervention… an imperfect exercise in feminist reflexivity necessary to the process of doing research on violence. The book began as a set of oral history interviews conducted over a decade ago with members of my immediate and extended family regarding the Cambodian Holocaust of 1975-1979 and has shifted to become an inquiry into why and how violence registers—in personal narratives, inter- and trans-generationally, in historical, collective, national, and transnational narratives, within archival collections and institutions, and across space and time. I’ve also become especially interested in manifestations of Cold War orientalism—initially in relation to the narrativization of Cambodian history—but also in mainstream cultural productions like the film Eat, Pray, Love and within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Dr. Chhun in Cambodia conducting research!
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your work align with American Studies at UT?
A: I think the nature of my work… is multi-methodological and necessarily interdisciplinary, largely due to my academic training. I utilize a range of methods from autoethnography and other ethnographic methods to archival frameworks to close readings of visual and material cultures. I think this kind of capacious approach to theory and method aligns well with American Studies at UT where folks are doing an amazing range of work, both utilizing and reorienting traditional disciplinary approaches to doing research.
Q: How did you come to American Studies as a discipline?
A: I came to American Studies as a discipline in a highly roundabout way and perhaps like Dr. Steve Hoelscher articulated, somewhat serendipitously. I actually began my doctoral career in Social Psychology, where I first conducted oral history interviews with my family… this too, after shifting from a more policy-focused research trajectory and switching advisors. At the time, I was highly reluctant to do research so explicitly situated at the intersection of the personal, political, and historical… but I was fortunate to encounter some really amazing feminist mentors who were highly supportive of the work, at my first graduate institution and then at UCLA, where I eventually received my PhD in Gender Studies. I came to American Studies during my second round on the academic job market... I had not received formal training in American Studies as an undergraduate or graduate student but drew heavily from American Studies scholarship, especially American cultural studies scholarship, in my own work.
The academic job market was… well, that’s a much longer conversation for another time, perhaps… and the situation has changed somewhat as well, but at the time, part of my struggle was making my work legible to different academic audiences. I was told once when I was a graduate student, that in my transnational feminist approach to Cambodian and Cambodian American Studies, that I was something of a unicorn… and it felt a little bit like that while on the market, especially because of my treatment of gender as an analytic rather than an identity category in the dissertation project. And then I encountered this job posting from UT, with appointments in American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Asian American Studies, and it seemed too good to be true, but here I am.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: In so many ways, one of the most significant reflected in my previously narrated experience of the academic job market… American Studies at UT makes my work possible. There’s a real investment in interdisciplinarity and openness to reaching across traditional disciplinary boundaries in the department and a kind of collegial complementarity in terms of methods and training. We have a wonderful intellectual community here.
Q: Favorite thing about AMS at UT?
A: My favorite thing about AMS at UT… I love working with students, in an individual advising capacity but also within the context of the classroom. My own work and thinking always changes and shifts as a result of the conversations and discussions we have, and in graduate seminars especially, when I oftentimes assign texts that are new to me too, there’s a collaborative quality to the knowledge we produce that’s really exciting to me.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and students to know about you?
A: I love thrifting, for myself as well as my dog, Ivy. One of my favorite things to do is to visit Goodwill and find half-off graphic tee-shirts and sweaters in the children’s section to add to Ivy’s growing wardrobe.
Batman (left) and Ivy (right) wearing their new shirts! Batman is Dr. Chhun’s sisters dog!
AMS Graduate Student Spotlight—Kameron Dunn
Name: Kameron Dunn
Pronouns: he/him
Question (Q): What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
Answer (A): I research the relation between mass consumption, intimacy, and the internet, focusing on how web-based cultures forge new roads to each other to find love and connection. At the center right now is the furry fandom: a spread-out collective of folks interested in anthropomorphic animal art and role-play. I show how furries use fandom-based means like cosplay, convention-going, and visual productions to negotiate self and collective identity among one another and in the broader world.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: My background and primary methods involve literary studies, so I found my way into the field wanting a broader grasp on the cultural-historical and economic forces that undergird my analyses.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your work align with American Studies?
A: My work involves a mix of online participant observation, textual analysis, and autoethnography, along with some cultural-historical work, too, which aligns with the interdisciplinary mission of many American Studies scholars.
Kameron Dunn presenting “Fur-gone Con-clusions: Furry Conventions and Transformation, Broadly Speaking” at the American Studies Association conference in New Orleans, November, 2022.
Q: Are you currently working on any other projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: My dissertation, entitled “Cringe Utopia: The Furry Fandom, Vernacular Aesthetics, and the Intimacy of Mass Consumption.” I’m also a freelance culture writer focusing on rural, small-town Texas events, sports, and history.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: The faculty support along with a nurturing graduate student community and the general flexibility of this program has enabled a lot of experimentation that has helped shape my work and make timely completion possible.
Q: What was your favorite thing about AMS at UT.
I love seeing everyone’s projects grow!
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: I make a mean pitcher of sweet tea.
AMS Faculty Spotlight--Stiles Professor in American Studies Emeritus Dr. Jeff Meikle
Q: What are you research interests, both academic and for fun!?
I continue to be intrigued by the impact of new technologies, the changing shapes and meanings of the material world as people become more absorbed in the virtual and digital, and the pursuit of authenticity through artificial media. Now that I'm retired and no longer teaching, I have time to indulge a wide range of interests outside my main areas of research--such as Iain Sinclair's obsessive forays into psychogeography and Orhan Pamuk's deep dives into Turkish history and culture.
Serving as specialist in product design at Design USA, a U.S. government exhibition that toured the Soviet Union, in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan, July 1990. Exhibit guide Clint O'Brien is at left.
Q: Are you currently working on any projects (academically or otherwise), and if so tell us about them!
I'm redefining the scope of an ongoing book project on neo-Beats (artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other cultural producers who appropriated themes and techniques from writers of the Beat generation). With archival research completed on people ranging from Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs to Laurie Anderson, Paul Auster, and Robert Wilson, and articles already published on Anderson, Tom Waits, and on directors such as Wim Wenders and Aki Kaurismäki who made Euro-American road movies, the subject is expanding too much. I'm now downsizing the project so I can complete a manuscript in the next couple years. I'm also trying to recast the project so there may actually be an audience for it. If not, I may veer in some new direction (maybe fiction involving the Aaron Burr conspiracy). I'm also scanning favorite images from thousands of 35mm slides I've taken over the years. Sometimes I wish digital photography was around before I started taking pictures.
Celebrating Vappu (May Day) with Professors Markku Henriksson and Ritva Levo-Henriksson while serving as Bicentennial Fulbright Professor of North American Studies, Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland, 2003-04.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your work align with American Studies at UT?
I devoured theory in the 90s while teaching a seminar on postmodern culture and still enjoy reading the occasional dense tome, but my work is best described as old-fashioned pre-theoretical cultural history. Before writing about a topic, I read everything I can find that's remotely related, both primary and secondary sources, until there's nothing left to look at. I take copious notes along the way. Back in the day I wrote on 5x8 note cards, one card for each fact, brief topic, short source, or long quotation. Later I added comments, questions, and directions using colored markers. After reading and taking notes for a project, a process that would take years for a book, I organized the mountain of cards, added more comments on them, shuffled them around, and made lists of topics to cover. Now I type notes into a Word file for each article or book that I've read, eventually copy-pasting and printing out the stuff I really need. Bottom line is that I do all the reading and note taking before I write a single word. Then I start with chapter one and work through to the end. Theory comes in, when needed, as I organize and write, and is mostly relegated to endnotes. If a general reader interested in the subject can't read and enjoy what I've written, then I've failed.
Q: How did you come to American Studies as a discipline?
When I was a sophomore at Brown University in the late 60s, I took a year-long survey course on American literature from Barton St. Armand, a young English professor who organized everything through his own quirky myth-and-symbol categories: the apocalyptic and the transcendental. He happened to be director of Brown's American Civilization program, and I realized in that program I could major in American literature and culture without having to read Chaucer or Spenser, so I did. Later I discovered a more historical but equally open and freewheeling approach studying with Bill Goetzmann, who ran UT's American Studies program during the 1970s. As with so many experiences that turn out to have been formative, American Studies was something I just happened into.
Meeting with Azat Akimbek, an expert on Uighur antiques and decorative arts, in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan, July 1990, while serving as specialist in product design at Design USA, a U.S. government exhibition that toured the Soviet Union. Graphic designer Mimi Carroll is at left.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
During my 40 years on the UT AMS faculty, I was able to teach, research, and write about whatever I wanted. There were no disciplinary borders and sanctions I had to obey. That openness has pros and cons. One of the latter was having very few people around, other than undergrad students taking specialized lecture courses and seminars, to discuss my work with. I think the freedom then provided by American studies outweighed that.
Fourth from left at UT AMS 75th anniversary celebration in November 2016, along with (left to right) the late David Wharton, Tim Davis, Donn Rogosin, Jonathan Silverman, Alicia Barber, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Ray Sapirstein, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Angie Maxwell, Shirley Thompson, Kimberly Hamlin, Joel Dinerstein, Cary Cordova, and Steve Hoelscher. With the exception of Steve, Shirley, and Shelley (who is former faculty), everyone received a Ph.D. from UT Austin.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and students to know about you?
My birthday is July 2, the actual Independence Day, the date the Continental Congress definitively voted to declare the United States separate from and independent of Great Britain. July 4 is the day the written statement was adopted.
AMS Graduate Student Spotlight—Holly Genovese
Name: Holly Genovese, PhD Candidate
Pronouns: she/they
Contact information: holly.genovese@gmail.com, you can read & subscribe to my substack here: What Is Much?, and to view more thorough & in depth information about my work visit my website!
Q: What are your research interests, both academic and for fun, while in American Studies at UT!?
A: My academic interests are primarily in the ways that aesthetic work reacts and resists the carceral state. My dissertation focuses on cultural production (visual art, memoir, poetry, and hip hop) that is resistant to the carceral state in the Black South (which may or may not be an excuse to listen to Outkast constantly). But I am also working on an anthology of academic and creative work about American Girl Dolls, a memoir, and have taught a class on haunting which I adored.
Q: How did you make your way to American Studies as a discipline?
A: So I was a History and Political Science major as an undergrad and got my MA in American History as well. But more and more I wanted to stretch the bounds of academic history (which I do love) by writing about literature, art, and music in ways that American Studies allowed for and encouraged.
Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your current work align with American Studies?
A: So I feel like every chapter of my dissertation project has a different method. I wish I was joking. But I am primarily working in literary criticism, visual culture studies, and popular music studies with influences from ethno-musicology, art history, ethnography, Black studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. I do still have a bit of that archival impulse as well and am currently (digitally) sifting through the Angela Davis papers. My work feels in tune with the field as a whole–it is very much centered on my ideology as a prison abolitionist, my passion for art and literature, and an interest n centering Black studies in my work, all things that I see in the field now (especially with the most recent theme and Keynote at ASA).
Q: Are you currently working on any projects, and if so tell us about them!
A: Well, my dissertation. I am working on this anthology on American Girl Dolls. I am writing a memoir in essays. And I am revising an article on The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia. I am working on bringing a documentary on incarceration to UT and trying to figure out how to integrate haunting into my academic and creative work. I am trying to needlepoint a tiny strawberry.
Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?
A: American Studies at UT allowed me to explore all of my academic interests. I got to explore my interests in courses within the department but was also encouraged to go outside of the department to English, AADS, CWGS and to join organizations like E3W. I was encouraged to volunteer with TPEI, which allows me to teach at a women’s prison, a goal I have had since undergrad. And I was encouraged to read everything. My co-advisors Dr. Shirley Thompson and Dr. Samantha Pinto (English) have truly allowed me to embrace my varied and sometimes unmanageable interests.
Q: What is your favorite thing about AMS at UT?
MY FRIENDS DUH. And the sense of community that permeates the department and also the brilliance of all of my fellow students and the faculty.
Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and/or students to know about you?
A: My best quality is actually just being my cat Petunia’s human.
