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Events

Apr. 7 | MAASA Joint Conference—April, 2011
Joint conference on material culture, April 7-11, 2011, UW-Madison

From the Editors

Results of the 2010 ASA Election

The voting in the 2010 ASA Election is now completed. The following members have been elected to three-year terms that shall last from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2013.

President-Elect: Priscilla Wald, Duke University

Council:

Evelyn Alsultany, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Jennifer Doyle, University of California, Riverside
Robert Lee, Brown University
Nayan Shah, University of California, San Diego
Cynthia Young, Boston College

Student Councilor: Sarah Melton, Emory University

Nominating Committee:

Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Meredith Raimondo , Oberlin College

The Council extends its appreciation to all those who agreed to run for office, congratulates the new leaders of the Association, and wishes them success in their undertakings over the next three years.

The Council also extends its gratitude to those who are completing their term of service.

The councilors whose terms expire on June 30, 2010 include Carolyn T. de la Peña, University of California, Davis; Philip J. Deloria, past president, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Roderick Ferguson, University of Minnesota; Alvina Quintana, University of Delaware; Carisa Worden, student councilor, New York University; and Henry Yu, University of British Columbia.

The Nominating Committee members whose terms expire on June 30, 2010 are María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York University and John Howard, King’s College, University of London.

Published on March 18, 2010 by John F Stephens.

Welcome to Crossroads!

As Crossroads celebrates more than a decade of online innovation and collaboration, the Crossroads team has redesigned the site to better reflect the range of resources and information available to students and educators of American Studies. We hope you enjoy the changes.

http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/

Published on May 26, 2010 by John F Stephens.

ASA Distinguished Speaker’s Bureau

Submit a speaker request | Community Partnership Grant Program

The American Studies Association is pleased to announce the scholars participating in its Distinguished Speaker’s Bureau.. Speaking on a wide range of topics, the ASA Distinguished Speakers’ Bureau brings leading scholars to your institution.

Speakers listed below are willing to give at least one lecture in the academic year on behalf of the ASA. Speakers donate their time to the ASA in order to participate. Host institutions pay a $1,000 speaker’s fee directly to the ASA, in addition to the speaker’s travel and lodging expenses.

All speakers’ fees are deposited into the ASA’s Community Partnership Fund. The Community Partnership Fund supports a competitive grants program open to members of the American Studies Association. The Fund encourages projects developed in collaboration with community-based organizations, school districts, public libraries, local historical societies, community museums, and other non-profit entities.

If you or an institution you know would like to arrange a lecture or need further information, please contact the Distinguished Speakers’ Bureau Coordinator at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). In some cases the scholars may be willing to speak on topics other than those listed here. The earlier arrangements are made the better chance you have of obtaining the speaker of your choice. Please do not contact lecturers directly.

The following individuals are available to lecture.

Randy Bass, Georgetown University
Joanne Braxton, College of William and Mary
Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland, College Park
Paul Buhle, Brown University
George Chauncey, Yale University
Arlene Davila, New York University
Carolyn de la Pena, University of California, Davis
Philip J. Deloria, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Gina Dent, University of California, Santa Cruz
Julie Ellison, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ann Fabian, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Kevin Gaines, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, University of Southern California
Inderpal Grewal, University of California, Irvine
Karen Halttunen, University of Southern California
Amy Kaplan, University of Pennsylvania
Mary Kelley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University
Paul Lauter, Trinity College
Eric Lott, University of Virginia
Susan Manning, Northwestern University
Tara McPherson, University of Southern California
Gary Y. Okihiro, Columbia University
Donald Pease, Dartmouth College
Rafael Pérez-Torres, University of California, Los Angeles
Carla L. Peterson, University of Maryland, College Park
Paula Rabinowitz, University of Minnesota
Janice Radway, Northwestern University
David Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Vicki L. Ruiz, University of California, Irvine
George J. Sánchez, University of Southern California
Stephen H. Sumida, University of Washington
Patricia A. Turner, University of California at Davis
Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia

Published on May 26, 2010 by John F Stephens.

ACLS Humanities E-Book

The American Studies Association is a member of the American Council of Learned Societies. The ACLS offers individual annual subscriptions to ACLS Humanities E-Book to current American Studies Association members. By early 2010 HEB will be offering unlimited access to nearly 3,000 full-text, cross-searchable titles across the humanities and social sciences, from the 1880s through the present.

Individual subscriptions are an attractive option for those whose institutions don’t already have a subscription to HEB or for American Studies Association members who might not be affiliated with a subscribing institution. Individual annual subscriptions are $35.00. Please visit http://www.humanitiesebook.org/subscribinginsts.html to see if your institution subscribes.

You may purchase an individual subscription to HEB at http://www.humanitiesebook.org/subscription_purchase.html. Please choose American Studies Association from the “Society Affiliation” pull-down menu and, in the space that says “Society Membership Number,” provide your American Studies Association membership number. If you do not know your membership number, you may request it here http://asa.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/member_number_lookup.cgi

You may also call the Johns Hopkins University Press at 1-800-548-1784 for your membership number, or email JHUP Customer Service at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For inquiries about HEB, please e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Published on May 26, 2010 by John F Stephens.

Statement on Standards in Graduate Education

The statement that follows was approved by the American Studies Association National Council on November 3, 2005. This statement builds upon the standards advocated by the American Association of University Professors in their Statement on Graduate Students, but has been modified to address the more specific conditions of graduate study in American Studies and related fields.

Preamble

As the largest professional organization in its discipline and as an organization with broad interdisciplinary reach, the American Studies Association has a unique responsibility to establish the standards of professional conduct and institutional support in graduate programs in American Studies and related fields.as been formulated to address the complex reality of graduate study and to foster sound academic policies in graduate programs in American Studies and related fields.

The following statement sets forth recommended standards that pertain to graduate students in their roles as advanced students, future colleagues, and teachers within the university. Graduate students are not only engaged in an advanced course of study, they are often also in programs of professional academic training and hold teaching and research assistantships. As graduate assistants, they carry out many of the functions of faculty members and receive compensation for these duties. The statement that follows has been formulated to address the complex reality of graduate study and to foster sound academic policies in graduate programs in American Studies and related fields.

The responsibility to secure and respect the conditions conducive to graduate study is shared by all members of the university community. Every department of American Studies and every college or university has a duty to develop policies and procedures that safeguard against the infringement of the rights of graduate students as outlined in this statement. These standards will not only enhance the educational and professional development of graduate students, but will support the freedom of thought and expression so vital to the intellectual life of the university.

Each program in American Studies has a responsibility to make these standards available to continuing and prospective graduate students and to all faculty members either by inclusion in the program description or by public posting in the department.

General Standards:

1. Graduate Students have the right to academic freedom. While graduate students are responsible for learning the content of any course of study for which they are enrolled, they should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and should be encouraged by faculty to exercise their freedom of discussion, inquiry and expression. Graduate students’ freedom of inquiry is necessarily qualified by their still being learners in the profession; nonetheless, their faculty mentors should afford them latitude and respect as they decide how they will engage in research and teaching.

2. Graduate students have the right to be free from illegal or unconstitutional discrimination, or discrimination according to, but not limited to, age, gender, disability, race, religion, political affiliation, national origin, marital status, or sexual orientation, in admissions and throughout their education, employment, and placement. This right extends not only to discrimination in admissions and hiring, but also in the right to study and work in an environment free of intimidation and harassment.

3. Graduate Students are to be considered members of an academic community, and as such, they have the right to collegial and respectful treatment by faculty members and other students alike.

4. Graduate Students are entitled to the protection of their intellectual property rights, including recognition of their participation in supervised research and their research with faculty, consistent with the standards of attribution and acknowledgement relevant to the field of study. This includes the right to co-authorship in publications involving significant contributions of ideas from the student. The student should receive first authorship for publications which are comprised primarily of the creative research and writing of the student when consistent with the conventions of the field.

5. Graduate students have the right to confidentiality in their communications with faculty and administrators of their program. Discussion of the students’ performance among faculty should be of a professional nature and should be limited to the students’ academic performance and fitness as a graduate student and graduate instructor.

6. Graduate students should be free of reprisal for exercising any of these rights.

Standards Pertaining to Program and Institutional Support:

7. Prospective and current graduate students should be fully informed on degree and program requirements. This includes a clear and regularly updated written statement on program requirements, as well as a clear and consistent articulation of the recommended preparations and procedures necessary for fulfilling those requirements. These requirements should be consistently applied, and if degree requirements are changed, students admitted under the old rules should be allowed to continue under those rules. If the program is discontinued, graduate students already admitted in the program should be allowed to complete their degrees. Students should also be told of acceptance and attrition rates in their program, funding possibilities, employment prospects, and the normative and average time of degree completion.

8. Graduate students should be assisted with the progress of their degrees through periodic assessments, appropriate and timely course offerings, faculty advisors in every step of their degree program, and adequate dissertation supervision.

9. Graduate students should be provided with a realistic assessment of funding opportunities by their program and institution upon admission and periodically thereafter as necessary. Programs should have clearly written policies regarding the distribution of financial and resource support, and these policies should be made public or be readily available upon request.

10. Graduate students should be allowed to participate in institutional governance at the program, department, college, graduate school, and university levels, and should be able to voice their opinions in matters of their interest.

11. Programs and departments are encouraged to support the professional development of graduate students through information on professionalization and the provision of conference and research expenses.

12. Graduate students have a right to mentorship and should be offered a fair notice of discontinuation of adviser relationship. If a graduate student’s dissertation or thesis supervisor departs from the institution, whenever possible, the student should be allowed to keep on working with that supervisor. If this is not possible, the program should make every effort to assist the student in finding alternative supervision.

13. Programs are encouraged to provide graduate students, especially those involved in instruction, with offices and work-spaces, computing and printing equipment, as well as access to copiers, subject to appropriate budgetary limits.

14. Graduate students should have access to their files and placement dossiers. If access is denied, graduate students should be able to ask a faculty member of their choice to examine their files and receive a redacted account, at the discretion of said faculty member. Graduate students should have the right to direct the addition or removal of materials from their placement dossiers.

15. Graduate students have the right to refuse duties and tasks irrelevant to their academic or professional program. This includes the right to request more appropriate assignments without jeopardizing financial aid, or teaching and research appointments.

16. American Studies and similar interdisciplinary programs are responsible for preparing their students for the risks and opportunities involved in obtaining interdisciplinary degrees. Such programs should also enhance their students’ placement opportunities by providing information and guidance in the relevant application procedures and professional standards of related disciplines.

Standards Pertaining to Teaching:

17. Teaching assistants, faculty fellows, and research assistants should have the right to organize and bargain collectively. Administrations should honor majority requests by graduate students for union representation anywhere state legislation permits such activity. Graduate students should not suffer retaliation from administrators or faculty because of their activity and position on collective bargaining.

18. Graduate students should be furnished with terms of appointment and with clear guidelines of terms and conditions of their graduate student employment. Graduate students should have the right to grievance procedures in their program and institution that include impartial hearing committees.

19. The time that graduate students spend in teaching, grading, researching, or other graduate employment should be kept to the standard maximum of about twenty hours per week. Programs and institutions should offer compensation so that graduate student employees are not obligated to seek substantial employment elsewhere. Health and dental benefits should be included in any teaching, grading, research, or fellowship package.

20. Graduate Programs have the responsibility to train and properly supervise graduate student instructors in pedagogical methods. Graduate Student Instructors should have access to seminars on pedagogy and university teaching, and have the right to request that a member of the faculty observe, evaluate, and provide guidance on their teaching.

21. As a service to their own graduate students but also their profession, programs should recognize the adverse effects of relying on adjunct faculty. Although adjunct appointments can add significant dimensions to curricula and some individuals prefer adjunct appointments because of other commitments, the practice of hiring numerous adjunct faculty members year after year to teach the core courses of a program of undergraduate study undermines professional and educational standards and academic freedom. It is recommended that departments should establish an appropriate limit on the number of adjunct faculty members in relation to the number of tenured or tenure-track faculty members and of graduate student instructors.ii

Notes
i American Association of University Professors, “Statement on Graduate Students,” Policy Documents and Reports, 9th edition (Washington D.C., 2001) 268-270.

ii Modern Language Association, “MLA Statement on the Use of Part-Time and Full-Time Adjunct Faculty,” The MLA Guide to the Job Search: A Handbook for Departments and for PhDs and PhD Candidates in English and Foreign Languages, English Showalter, et al. (New York: The Modern Language Association, 1996) 138-9.

Published on May 29, 2010 by John F Stephens.

American Studies Journals: A Directory of Worldwide Resources

http://www.theasa.net/journals

This website provides scholars with a one-stop shop for the latest research published in American studies journals throughout the world. Organized by the International Initiative of the American Studies Association and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this site is the outcome of a collaboration between numerous journal editors around the world.

Published on June 15, 2010 by John F Stephens.

Doctoral Dissertations in American Studies and American Ethnic Studies

Doctoral Dissertation Abstracts (since 1986)

The American Studies Association publishes an online registry of American Studies and American Ethnic Studies doctoral dissertation abstracts. American Studies and American Ethnic Studies graduate programs and their recent Ph.D.s may submit entries. These abstracts are added to the ASA website on a continuing basis. This list is now comprised of abstracts of doctoral dissertations written in the United States since 1986. Click here to access the abstracts, sorted by author’s last name, or click here to submit your abstract using our online form.

Doctoral Recipients’ Employment and Career Survey

Each year, the ASA conducts a survey of recent Ph.D. recipients’ immediate employment and career plans. Doctoral degree recipients are invited to participate in the survey as well as submit abstracts of their dissertations. This survey has been recorded since 1996-1997, and encompasses sources of funding received, time taken to completion, short-term and long-term employment and career plans. For past survey reports, please visit the following web page, or click here to submit your survey response using our online form.

Doctoral Dissertations Bibliography

Doctoral Dissertations in American Studies and American Ethnic Studies is an annual, online bibliography of completed doctoral dissertations in American Studies and American Ethnic Studies. We now invite graduate departments and programs that offer the Ph.D. in American Studies or American Ethnic Studies to submit on or before July 1, 2010 the list of doctoral dissertations completed or expected to be completed under their auspices between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010 to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Published on June 15, 2010 by John F Stephens.

Search the Program

American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Crisis, Chains, and Change: American Studies for the 21st Century,” November 18-21, 2010, San Antonio, TX

Click on Search the Program in the left hand column of the linked page http://convention3.allacademic.com/one/theasa/theasa10/ to view the schedule. No log in is required. Click on the events calendar box at the top right of the page, and then click on a day to view all of the events. The session and paper titles are hot-buttoned so you can view abstracts. There are, however, no session abstracts for panels constructed of individual papers.

This is the final schedule. We have, as you can imagine, a number of people presenting at the 2010 conference, each with their own particular preferences and each with last-minute if not ongoing requests to change times, dates, etc. We cannot change the time of any panel.

Participants must be registered in order to be listed in the final program.

Register for the 2010 Annual Meeting
Hotel Reservations
Celebration of ASA Authors
Future Annual Meetings
Anzaldua Award for Independent Scholars and Contingent Faculty
Comparative Ethnic Studies Prize
Travel Grants for Graduate Students

No-Shows

The ASA reminds participants of their professional and ethical obligation to appear in person at their session at the annual meeting. No-shows are conspicuous in their absence. They inconvenience the chair and fellow presenters, as well as those attending their session. The American Studies Association defines a no-show as someone on the program who is not physically present at her/his session at the annual meeting and either (1) has not notified ASA in advance that s/he cannot attend the meeting by October 1, 2010, or (2) has not submitted a presentation to be read by the chair or another person at the meeting by October 1, 2010. No-shows will not be considered for the following year’s program. If you notify ASA in advance or submit a presentation to be made by someone else at your session, you will not be penalized. You are responsible for finding your own alternative presenter.

Published on August 20, 2010 by John F Stephens.

Encyclopedia of American Studies Online

http://eas-ref.press.jhu.edu/

The term American studies encompasses a vast range of disciplines, all of which, in one way or another, are trying to describe the cultures of the United States. In recent years American studies has also incorporated comparative studies of Canada and Latin America; and indeed a transnational, global perspective on American culture has become one of the leading currents in the field as we begin the twenty-first century. Where, after all, do the borders of America stop, when its influence was, throughout the twentieth century, so pervasive on world cultures?

This month’s featured articles include Fans and Groupies; Anna May Wong

The EAS FORUM features periodic online discussions of topics relating American Studies, public scholarship, and teaching. We begin with a discussion on “Encyclopedias and American Studies,” with Simon Bronner, Michael Cowan. David Gerstner, and Miles Orvell.

Members of the ASA have access to the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online as a membership benefit. Register here at the Johns Hopkins University Press website for free access to American Quarterly and the Encyclopedia (current ASA members only). Simply enter the member log in and password that you create or have already created for the JHU website to gain access to the EAS.

If you have questions about your membership or difficulties logging in to AQ or EAS online, please contact the customer service dept of the Johns Hopkins University Press at (410) 516-6987 or 1-800-548-1784, or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Many of you have a user name and password for the JHUP site and are trying to use those here at the ASA website (or vice versa). To do so, you must create the same user name and password at both sites.

Published on August 24, 2010 by John F Stephens.

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