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
Rubin, Rachel Lee. "Reading, Writing and the Rackets: Jewish Gangsters in Interwar Narrative," American Studies Program, Yale University, September 1995.
“Reading, Writing and the Rackets” examines the Jewish gangster as a figuration of social and literary transgression in the works of Michael Gold, Isaac Babel, Samuel Ornitz, Daniel Fuchs, and others. Writing in the midst of sweeping social and aesthetic changes, many writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, found a congenial chaos within the fluid identity of the Jewish gangster, whose violence, social transgressiveness, and ongoing internal contest establish him as a ready symbol of modernity. This dissertation examines the cultural work performed by the gangster as this simultaneously marginalized and heroic figure provides an occasion to craft a virile Jewish masculinity, to consider the role of the vernacular in literature, to interrogate the function of popular culture, and to explore the fate of Jewishness in the New World.
Quick Links
American Quarterly [official journal site]
American Quarterly [editorial site]
Encyclopedia of American Studies
Encyclopedia of American Studies [editorial site]