Announcement: American Studies and Foodways Texas Featured in Austin-American Statesman

The American Studies department has its hands in several projects beyond the sphere of the classroom, and one of those fascinating collaborations was featured in the Austin American-Statesman. One of the department's graduate seminars collaborated last spring with Foodways Texas and the Texas Restaurant Association to create oral histories with notable Texan restauranteurs, which were then presented at the annual symposium in Austin. Take a look at this extensive write-up of the project: the full article can be found here, and an excerpt is pasted below -

Last year, the statewide nonprofit, which was established in 2010 to preserve the state’s many unique food cultures and relies on membership dues and events for funding, teamed with the Texas Restaurant Association and the University of Texas’ American Studies department to preserve the stories behind some of the state’s most iconic restaurants through oral histories, long-form interviews that record history from the perspective of those closest to the business.The iconic restaurant project is part of Foodways Texas’ larger mission to document the many components of Texas’ food culture through both oral histories and documentaries, says Marvin Bendele, the organization’s Austin-based executive director.“We’re trying to preserve those stories that might not be around much longer,” he says, no matter if it’s from a sorghum farmer in South Texas, the head baker at Earl Abel’s in San Antonio or the family that runs Kim Son, one of Houston’s best-known Vietnamese restaurants.The idea to focus on restaurants has roots in an oral history project about barbecue that University of Texas professor and Foodways Texas founding board member Elizabeth Engelhardt coordinated about six years ago. Eleven graduate students, including Bendele, who was a student at the time, interviewed everyone from pitmasters to ranchers to find out the stories behind that stack of fatty brisket you’ll find served on butcher paper across Central Texas.

Recent Grad Research: John Cline's "Arterial America"

Our graduates do amazing things. Like this: recent Ph.D. John Cline is preparing to walk from New Orleans to Chicago for a project entitled "Arterial America."  He is raising funds through Kickstarter to support the trip, and there are a mere 24 hours to go! Check out his description of the project:

The original idea behind Arterial America (www.arterialamerica.com) was simple enough: get from New Orleans to Chicago. As a music historian—I graduated with a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas last May—the pathway between those two cities is of enormous significance: it’s the distance between Louis Armstrong and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, or between Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. But as this project shifted from idle thought to actual plan, it became clear that the way north has historically consisted of many routes, exceeding the bounds of a “Blues Trail” or even of an African American “Great Migration.” They go back to before Columbus, when American Indians followed what we now call the “Natchez Trace” across the states of Mississippi and Tennessee. That same trail was followed by boatmen from before the time of Mark Twain, hoofing it back to their hometowns after floating a raft full of goods to the port of New Orleans, returning with what coin remained in their pockets after the temptations of the Crescent City. The way north consists, too, of railways and roadways, and, of course, boats. And so, the plan is to walk from New Orleans to Memphis, following the back roads and bits of the Trace and Highway 61, catch a towboat from Memphis to St. Louis, and finally hop a train from St. Louis to Chicago. At the same time, I cannot travel the routes that I’m traveling and expect to find the “last of the Mississippi bluesmen.” Rather, what’s important at the outset is to keep my ears and eyes open to contemporary life.

John has raised 72% of his goal and has until Tuesday, January 15, 12:54pm EST to reach 100%. Check out the Kickstarter here and follow John on his project blog here.

Announcement: Ph.D. Alum Jessica Grogan to Speak at BookPeople

After a long and delightfully restful hiatus over winter break, AMS :: ATX is back in action! We're kicking off the semester with an announcement about Ph.D. alum Jessica Grogan, who will be speaking about and signing her new book, Encountering America: Humanistic Psychology, Sixties Culture,  and the Shaping of the Modern Self, at Austin's own BookPeople (603 N. Lamar) on January 16 at 7pm. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.Here are some more details about Grogan's book from BookPeople's announcement:

The expectation that our careers and personal lives should be expressions of our authentic selves, the belief that our relationships should be defined by openness and understanding, the idea that therapy can help us reach our fullest potential—these ideas have become so familiar that it's impossible to imagine our world without them.In Encountering America, cultural historian Jessica Grogan reveals how these ideas stormed the barricades of our culture through the humanistic psychology movement—the work of a handful of maverick psychologists who revolutionized American culture in the 1960s and '70s. Profiling thought leaders including Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Timothy Leary, Grogan draws on untapped primary sources to explore how these minds and the changing cultural atmosphere combined to create a widely influential movement. From the group of ideas that became known as New Age to perennial American anxieties about wellness, identity, and purpose, Grogan traces how humanistic psychology continues to define the way we understand ourselves.

Grogan is also blogging regularly at Psychology Today about the book and related topics.

Happy Holidays from AMS :: ATX!

The staff at AMS :: ATX would like to wish the happiest of holidays to all of you dear readers.

The snow falls on every wood and field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the river and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts, and the birds sit upon their perches this peaceful hour. There is not so much sound as in fair weather, but silently and gradually every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. - Thoreau, "A Winter Walk"

In the spirit of Thoreau, AMS :: ATX will be going silent for our winter break, but we'll be back in January with new content and features.