From the October 2014 edition of Desktop News | A book documenting the link between contamination from a major chemical company and Anniston’s extensive civil rights history recently won an award for contributing to the history of public health. Dr. Ellen Spears, an assistant professor in New College and the Department of American Studies, is the 2014 recipient of the Arthur J. Viseltear prize given by the American Public Health Association’s Medical Care Section. The award recognized Spears’ book, Baptized […]
Tag: Department of American Studies
Summer Reading List
What are you reading this summer? Here are eight books by College faculty — plus the latest by distinguished scientist and UA alumnus Dr. Edward O. Wilson. These books by faculty members in the College’s humanities and social sciences departments represent a tiny sampling of the hundreds of publications produced by A&S faculty each academic year. Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town, Ellen Spears In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Ala., began a legal fight against the […]
Anniston PCB Pollution Focus of New Book
From the April 2014 Desktop News | With Anniston as the backdrop, Dr. Ellen Spears, assistant professor in New College and the Department of American Studies, explores environmental justice in her new book, Baptized in PCBs, which was released April 7. Though focused on the 1990s legal battle between Anniston residents and the agrochemical company Monsanto, which dumped cancer-causing chemicals into the city’s working-class west side, Spears also addresses broader topics, such as significant themes in the social history of […]
Professor Takes on Lead Role with MLA
From the February 2014 Desktop News | Dr. Jolene Hubbs, assistant professor in the Department of American Studies, was elected to the Modern Language Association’s executive committee of the Discussion Group on Southern Literature. As an executive committee member, Hubbs will help ensure the association stays abreast of current trends in research done by Southern literary scholars. The Modern Language Association is the chief professional organization for scholars of language and literature with nearly 30,000 members in more than 100 countries. […]
Shakespeare in American Integration
From the November 2013 Desktop News | “Shakespeare and American Integration,” a two-day symposium to be held November 15-16, will discuss integration in Shakespeare’s works. The event is part of “Through the Doors,” the yearlong series of events commemorating the 50th anniversary of desegregation at UA. Dr. Sharon O’Dair, director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies and a professor in the Department of English, envisioned the symposium first through a musical connection. “I knew that trombonist Defeayo Marsalis had […]
Cultural Arts Center Gallery Unveils Next Exhibition
The next exhibition in The University of Alabama Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, “Wash by Margaret Wrinkle: Seeing Across the Divide,” features a series of photographs taken by Wrinkle at slavery-related sites throughout the South while researching her critically acclaimed novel, “Wash.” Published by Grove/Atlantic, Wrinkle’s novel “Wash” reexamines American slavery in ways that challenge many contemporary assumptions about race, power, history, and healing as it carries the reader from the American South to West Africa. Wrinkle paired each of her […]
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Bracero Exhibit Highlights Immigrant Issues
Smithsonian Guest Worker Exhibit Displayed at UA From the 2013 Celebrating Excellence | Immigration has been on the minds of many in Alabama since the passage of Alabama’s House Bill 56, regarded as the nation’s strictest anti-illegal immigration legislation. In the discipline of American studies, however, immigration is an enduring theme and, in the College’s Department of American Studies, Latino immigration and culture is a particular academic strength. Because of that strength, the department and UA became one of only two sites […]
Event Showcases Faculty Research
Researchers, Scholars Will Present Work at April 23 Conference College of Arts and Sciences faculty will present their work on a variety of research and scholarly topics at the College of Arts and Sciences 2013 Academies Conference, Tuesday, April 23, from 1 to 4:30 p.m. in the Birmingham Room of the Bryant Conference Center, 40 Paul W Bryant Dr., adjacent to the UA campus. The presentations focus on research that has received funding from the College of Arts and Sciences Academy […]
Johnson Awarded Memorial Scholarship for Advocacy Work
From the March 2013 Desktop News | Kaylyn Johnson, a junior majoring in English and American Studies, was recently awarded the 2013 Elliot Jackson Jones Memorial Scholarship for her work as an advocate of diversity at The University of Alabama. She received the award from Capstone Alliance, UA’s affiliation group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered faculty, staff, and students and their allies. The scholarship recognizes a UA student, at any level, who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to improving the campus climate for […]
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Smithsonian Exhibit on Bracero Guest Worker Program Hosted by American Studies
The Smithsonian Institute has selected the Department of American Studies to be a host for its exhibit “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-1964.” The exhibit, which tells the story of Hispanic “bracero” workers, who were part of the largest guest worker program in U.S. history, will be at UA February 16-April 28 in the J. Wray and Joan Billingsley Pearce Foyer in Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library on the UA campus. The program was named for the Spanish term bracero, “strong-arm,” and […]
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