Register
Register here for the annual meeting and to begin or renew an ASA membership
Register here to submit a proposal through the ASA's 2012 submission site.
Register here for JHU Press and ASA membership services, including online access to American Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online.Register here to join an ASA community. Only current ASA members may contribute to the community blogs. Registration is not required to submit display or text ads or news and events or to view many pages. We will refuse posts that are not of professional interest to ASA members.
Click here for membership FAQ's
Events
Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
Jun. 30 | 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies Teaching, Advising, and Program Development due
Oct. 1 | Travel Grants for Graduate Students
For submission guidelines, click here
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
By University | By Year
Zuber, Sharon. "Re-shaping Documentary Expectations: New Journalism and Direct Cinema," American Studies, College of William and Mary, March 2004.
New Journalism and Direct Cinema reflect a unique conjoined moment in the evolution of nonfiction writing and filmmaking in the United States. I argue that these movements developed as a specific response to the shift from a modern to a postmodern aesthetic, a shift away from faith in a coherent reality at a historical moment in the United States, the 1960s. In an attempt to capture reality using new methods that would raise the status of nonfiction, writers and filmmakers in these movements call attention to process and style. At first glance, these experiments with new styles appear radical; instead, New Journalism and Direct Cinema in opposition to their revolutionary reputations function to conserve traditional views of reality. Ultimately, I claim, their innovative narrative style and emphasis on process undermine their attempt to reinforce a correspondent relationship between print and film language and the real material world. However, the innovative methods of writers like Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote and filmmakers like Robert Drew, Albert and David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin sparked a discussion about genre, language, and representation that established specific expectations about nonfiction that continue to define documentary for readers and viewers into the twenty-first century.
Quick Links
American Quarterly [official journal site]
American Quarterly [editorial site]
Encyclopedia of American Studies
Encyclopedia of American Studies [editorial site]