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. What are your research interests? Any particular interests you were able to pursue in American Studies or elsewhere (in class or in extracurricular activities)?I have always been extremely interested in the history of History. How do we talk about our identity as Americans during different periods of time and who we associate ourselves with? Which stories do we leave out? Who do we choose to include? How do we tell their story? My honors thesis is called “Our TEKS” and is a theatrical exploration of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills through Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. It is a devised theatre piece about the controversial 2010 standards chosen by the Texas State Board of Education which was covered by the media internationally. Over the past year, I have watched hours of footage from Board meetings, followed the media’s response and interviewed educators and textbook publishers who are affected by these standards. My play incorporates all of this research in a documentary-style live performance on April 30 and May 1 in WIN 2.180 on the UT campus.Did your work inform or influence your post-graduate plans?My work absolutely informed my post-graduate plans. Next year, I will be venturing out to San Francisco, CA to join the 2012 Teach for America corps where I will be teaching English to high school students. Over the past year, I have learned innovative ways to talk about tough issues such as race, class and identity in the classroom. There is some extremely exciting research taking place using Theatre in Education techniques which help improve classroom participation and performance. Though I will not be applying these to Texas education standards (which my thesis covers), I will undoubtedly incorporate them into my teaching for the next two years.Why did you ultimately decide to study American Studies?I came into UT with two majors: Plan II and Theatre and Dance. I started my freshman year with a lot of credits from high school and had plans to graduate early. However, I had tested out of my US History credit and, when I was making my schedule for the first two semesters, I found that I really missed learning about American history. I took Professor Ware’s AMS 310: Intro to American Studies course and fell in love with the major, particularly because we focused less on dates and battles in history and were asked to look at currents of culture. We studied music, art, politics, philosophy and the changing thoughts of the country. In this way, we saw how these people lived at a particular moment in time and this method really spoke to me. I have never once regretted my decision to pick up this third major and am so thankful to Val for helping me find a way to complete it in 4 years!Kelli Schultz will be graduating this spring with a Bachelor of Arts in Plan II Honors, American Studies and Theatre and Dance. She chose the University of Texas as it allowed her to pursue all of her interests in just four years. Her Honors thesis is a performative analysis of the 2010 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. These state-wide standards sparked international controversy two years ago when the Texas State Board of Education was accused of rewriting US History with a conservative bias. Over the past year, Kelli has conducted interviews with educators and governmentofficials and poured over hours of footage from Board meetings and public testimony. These transcripts, along with media coverage, will be incorporated into a documentary-based theatre piece to be performed in May 2012.Over the past four years, Kelli has received substantial scholarships from both the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Fine Arts. She has been involved in numerous productions with the Department of Theatre and Dance including The Trojan Women, The Threepenny Opera, Br’er Wood and 360 (round dance). She has also starred in numerous shows in Austin including the original cast of A. John Boulanger’s House of Several Stories (now published in Samuel French) and ZACH Theater’s recent production of Next to Normal. When she isn’t in class or rehearsing for a production, Kelli serves as a student ambassador and tour guide for the University of Texas Visitors Center. Upon graduation, she will join the 2012 Teach for America corps in San Francisco, CA.
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. What are your research interests? Any particular interests you were able to pursue in American Studies or elsewhere (in class or in extracurricular activities)?I have always been extremely interested in the history of History. How do we talk about our identity as Americans during different periods of time and who we associate ourselves with? Which stories do we leave out? Who do we choose to include? How do we tell their story? My honors thesis is called “Our TEKS” and is a theatrical exploration of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills through Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. It is a devised theatre piece about the controversial 2010 standards chosen by the Texas State Board of Education which was covered by the media internationally. Over the past year, I have watched hours of footage from Board meetings, followed the media’s response and interviewed educators and textbook publishers who are affected by these standards. My play incorporates all of this research in a documentary-style live performance on April 30 and May 1 in WIN 2.180 on the UT campus.Did your work inform or influence your post-graduate plans?My work absolutely informed my post-graduate plans. Next year, I will be venturing out to San Francisco, CA to join the 2012 Teach for America corps where I will be teaching English to high school students. Over the past year, I have learned innovative ways to talk about tough issues such as race, class and identity in the classroom. There is some extremely exciting research taking place using Theatre in Education techniques which help improve classroom participation and performance. Though I will not be applying these to Texas education standards (which my thesis covers), I will undoubtedly incorporate them into my teaching for the next two years.Why did you ultimately decide to study American Studies?I came into UT with two majors: Plan II and Theatre and Dance. I started my freshman year with a lot of credits from high school and had plans to graduate early. However, I had tested out of my US History credit and, when I was making my schedule for the first two semesters, I found that I really missed learning about American history. I took Professor Ware’s AMS 310: Intro to American Studies course and fell in love with the major, particularly because we focused less on dates and battles in history and were asked to look at currents of culture. We studied music, art, politics, philosophy and the changing thoughts of the country. In this way, we saw how these people lived at a particular moment in time and this method really spoke to me. I have never once regretted my decision to pick up this third major and am so thankful to Val for helping me find a way to complete it in 4 years!Kelli Schultz will be graduating this spring with a Bachelor of Arts in Plan II Honors, American Studies and Theatre and Dance. She chose the University of Texas as it allowed her to pursue all of her interests in just four years. Her Honors thesis is a performative analysis of the 2010 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. These state-wide standards sparked international controversy two years ago when the Texas State Board of Education was accused of rewriting US History with a conservative bias. Over the past year, Kelli has conducted interviews with educators and governmentofficials and poured over hours of footage from Board meetings and public testimony. These transcripts, along with media coverage, will be incorporated into a documentary-based theatre piece to be performed in May 2012.Over the past four years, Kelli has received substantial scholarships from both the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Fine Arts. She has been involved in numerous productions with the Department of Theatre and Dance including The Trojan Women, The Threepenny Opera, Br’er Wood and 360 (round dance). She has also starred in numerous shows in Austin including the original cast of A. John Boulanger’s House of Several Stories (now published in Samuel French) and ZACH Theater’s recent production of Next to Normal. When she isn’t in class or rehearsing for a production, Kelli serves as a student ambassador and tour guide for the University of Texas Visitors Center. Upon graduation, she will join the 2012 Teach for America corps in San Francisco, CA.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.
Grad Research: Absurdity and Authenticity in Comedy at SXSW
Today, we're sharing a piece by one of our contributing writers, Carrie Andersen, who recently wrote about her experiences watching and reviewing comedy shows at South by Southwest. The full piece can be found at Humor in America, a blog dedicated to comedy and humor in America that was founded by UT American Studies alum Tracy Wuster.
This year, South by Southwest’s comic offerings highlighted a variety of styles which were bookended with pure absurdism and unadulterated rawness. The full range of humor left audiences on their toes, but it’s the latter form that I am continually drawn to and that speaks to some broader compulsion to excavate authenticity wherever we can find it.I think we’ve seen a rise in raw, authentic, deeply personal – and sometimes cringe-inducing – comedy in the past ten years. We’ve been blessed with shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm andLouie; comics like Marc Maron, Louis C.K., Mike Birbiglia, Doug Stanhope; movies like Borat.These examples point to the integration of the personal in the comic narrative. Louie, for example, is funny in part because the title character is an extension of the real Louis C.K. As C.K.told Terry Gross, “The guy I am in the show is definitely me without anything I’ve learned. It’s just me making horrible mistakes that I don’t make in real life, but that are inside of me. They’re the things I would do if I didn’t think for a second.” Louie is the id to C.K.’s superego.
Check out the full piece here.