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Regional Chapters Committee
Report from the Regional Chapters Committee 2001
Membership
New members who will serve through June 2004 (replacing those whose terms ended June 2001) are: Cristine Levenduski, Emory University (Southern ASA) and Mark Helbling (June 2004). Linda J. Borish, Western Michigan University (Great Lakes ASA), was serving a replacement term and has now been elected to serve through 2004. Eric Porter, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (Rocky Mountain ASA) relocated to a different region and thus resigned his position.
Gena Caponi-Tabery, (University of Texas, San Antonio) from the Texas ASA chapter continues to chair the Committee through 2003.
Regional Chapter Revivals-Updates
The New York Metro ASA (revived in 1996) and the Middle Atlantic ASA (revived in 1998) Chapters continue to thrive. The Rocky Mountain ASA has recently elected officers and is rebuilding membership in the region.
The Chesapeake Regional Chapter has become active again with its first conference in over a decade on April 6th and 7th at the University of Maryland. The theme of the conference, “Constructing Cyberculture(s): Performance, Pedagogy, and Politics in Online Spaces,” A 2002 regional conference is planned at the University of Maryland, College Park. And the CHASA is sponsoring a panel at this year’s national conference.
Intercommittee Activity
At our 2000 committee meeting, Michael Frisch expressed a hope for increased communication among ASA standing committees. At the same meeting, the Students’ Committee asked for contact information and updates on regional chapter activities. The Regional Chapters Committee has relayed such information to the Students Committee and issued an invitation to graduate students in the ASA March 2000 newsletter and directly. Many chapters—Chesapeake, Mid-America, New England, Southern, and Texas among them—offer monetary prizes to the best student papers presented, hoping to stimulate graduate students participation. Finally, the Chesapeake chapter is offering a reception for graduate students at the national conference in Washington D.C.
From the March 2000 ASA Newsletter: An Invitation to Graduate Students
Members of the ASA Regional Chapters’ Committee invite and encourage all graduate students to participate in regional chapter activities and conferences. Regional chapter conferences offer an important venue for scholarly exchange and create opportunities for professional development and for collegial relations with faculty in American Studies and related programs. At regional conferences, students seeking careers in American Studies can develop collegial and scholarly relationships with faculty and graduate students outside their home institutions and even outside the chapter region. Such relations can be inspiring and helpful to one’s scholarship and professional development. Graduate students will find that the quality of scholarship at regional meetings can be on a par with national meetings, yet the setting is more intimate. Keynote speakers and presenters for these conferences can include past presidents of ASA, Officers in ASA, and well-established scholars in interdisciplinary work. The smaller size of regional meetings means that graduate students get to spend more time with other participants and scholars at all levels of professional activity. Graduate students can also learn from scholars in their chapters through peer review of paper abstracts, feedback on works in progress, and participation in such sessions as vitae-writing workshops, mock interviews, publishing strategies, and the job application process. Many regional chapters reduce costs for graduate students, or in some cases, waive registration fees for graduate students whose abstracts are accepted for presentation. Such assistance is further measure of the regional chapters’ commitment to the development of future scholars of American Studies.
Regional Chapters’ Annual Conferences, 2002
Several regional chapters have announced upcoming annual conferences, and calls for papers for the Fall 2001 and Spring 2002 conferences have appeared in the June and September ASA Newsletters. Regions will distribute conference/call for papers flyers in Washington, D.C.
Chesapeake ASA’s 2002 regional conference will take place March 8-10 at the University of Maryland, College Park. The theme of the conference is “Crossroads: Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, Place, and Life Histories.” Great Lakes ASA has announced its 2002 conference: “Reading Region: Cultures, Histories, Literatures, Landscapes, and Maps,” to be held at Ohio University, Athens. The Middle Atlantic ASA will hold its annual conference in the historic district of Philadelphia, March 22-23, 2002. The theme for the conference is “The Measure of America: Social and Humanistic Perspectives.” The Mid-America ASA’s annual meeting will take place April 5-6, 2002 in St. Louis, with the conference theme “Americans Study Their Environments.” The New England ASA invites papers and panels on the conference theme “‘The Tyranny of Facts’: Cultural Institutions and the Authority of Evidence” for its conference in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 26-28, 2002. New York Metro ASA will hold its annual conference at the Museum of the City of New York, beginning October 20, on the topic “Field/Work: American Studies and Museum Studies in Conversation.” The Pacific Northwest ASA will hold its annual conference in Spokane, Washington, April 18-20, with this theme: “Affirmative Actions.” Emory University hosted the Southern ASA’s biennial conference February 22-25, 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia. The SASA is planning for its 2003 conference in Tallahassee, Florida, hosted by Florida State University. “Crossroads in America, in Texas and the Southwest, and in American Studies” is the title of the Texas ASA’s 45th Annual Meeting, November 15-17, 2001.
ASA Regional Chapters’ Exhibit Booth
The ASA Regional Chapters’ Committee will sponsor an Exhibit Booth in the Book Exhibit at the Washington, D.C. conference—the fourth annual conference for this booth. The Committee organized a Sub-committee (chaired by Jeffrey Miller of the Mid-America ASA) and publicized the booth prior to the conference in the September ASA Newsletter, on the ASA Regional Chapters’ home page on Crossroads, and on H-AMSTDY. Participation from the regional chapters has been high: regional chapters will staff the booth during the 2001 conference, and, as in the past, will send materials to illustrate chapter activities, from annual conferences to newsletters to journals. The following announcement distributed through the above channels illustrates the goals of the exhibit booth:
The ASA Regional Chapters Committee will sponsor a booth in the book exhibit at the 2001 Annual Meeting where you can see how these organizations add to the life of American Studies. At the booth, you will find journals (from American Studies to Border States to the Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas); information about books published from conference proceedings; chapter newsletters and brochures; calls for papers for upcoming conferences; and information about many other regional chapter activities. Throughout the annual meeting, representatives from the various chapters will be present at the booth to talk about chapter activities and ways to become involved. At a time when American Quarterly and the national ASA convention programs are overflowing with riches, the Regional Chapters offer productive environments for sharing scholarship, for talking about teaching, and for localized collegiality. Stop by and see how the grassroots grow!
ASA Regional Chapters’ Homepage on Crossroads, “ASA Regional Chapter News” in the ASA Newsletter, and “Handbook for Regional Chapters of the American Studies Association”
With the help of ASA staff, the Regional Chapters Committee will try to streamline the process of updating regional chapters’ information on the web. We hope to create a new Regional Chapters’ Web Page, on the ASA Home Page, featuring the following:
- A Directory of Chapter Officers
- The Regional Chapters’ Committee Handbook
- Links to the on-line Regional Chapters’ Column from the ASA Newsletter
- Links to the regional chapter web-pages
The Regional Chapters’ Committee will compile a directory of chapter officers at its annual business meeting. Any changes during the year can be sent to the Chair or to the ASA staff. All current news about your chapter-including Calls for Papers, Conferences, and Chapter Activities will be sent to the Chair for inclusion in the on-line version of the Committee’s news column.
The web-page itself will not contain time-sensitive information, but it will contain links to the Newsletter and to Regional Chapter webpages, which will be updated by each chapter’s webmaster.
Since chapters report their activities on the web and in the ASA Newsletter, at the 2000 Regional Chapters’ business meeting, the Regional Chapters’ Committee decided to update the Handbook on a three-year basis. The committee will appoint a task force at this year’s meeting to oversee Handbook revisions. Items considered essential for the Handbook are sample chapter constitutions, annual business meeting minutes, and summary updates on individual regional chapter activities. The Handbook will be available via the Committee’s homepage.
Session Sponsored by the Chesapeake Chapter of the ASA
For the second year, the local regional chapter will sponsor a panel at the national conference. This year’s panel, sponsored by the Chesapeake Chapter of the ASA, is
LEARNING FROM THE LOCAL: PEDAGOGY AND PUBLIC SPACE IN THE CHESAPEAKE REGION.
Chair: WARREN BELASCO, American Studies Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Papers:
BRETT WILLIAMS, Department of Anthropology, American University “Washington, D.C.: The City as Text”
ED ORSER, American Studies Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County “If All Politics are Local, Then All Local Projects are Political”
KELLY QUINN, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, and Mary Sies, Maryland, College Park “Civic Domesticity/Multiple Publics: Learning From Langston Terrace and Virtual Greenbelt”
Comment: WARREN BELASCO
Regional-National Coordination Efforts
The Regional Chapters Committee appreciates the recent dedication of ASA to regional chapters. The Pre-Convention Collaboratives from ASA’s 2000 Detroit meeting increased participation Great Lakes ASA members at the ASA. It is felt that some members who would not have otherwise have submitted papers or proposals were thus encouraged to attend. Some of the PCCs have yielded ongoing discussions and interest in collaborations with fellow colleagues in academe, public institutions, secondary education, and have proved to be sources of information for teaching and research interests.
Other examples of recent efforts include the conversations with regions about the ASA boycott of states with anti-affirmative action legislation, the visits that George Sánchez has made to regional chapters conferences and meetings, and the theme for the 2002 Houston conference, which specifically highlights local and regional questions.
Texas ASA chapter has begun internal discussion about collaboration with the ASA for the Houston conference, and will continue the discussion officially at its annual meeting in November. Current officers and council members of New England ASA (NEASA) have begun preliminary conversations about coordination of planning pre-convention collaboratives for the 2003 ASA convention.
Respectfully Submitted,
Gena Caponi-Tabery, Chair
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