Fordham American Studies Blog

Why is there no Wikipedia today?

2012-01-18T01:21:00.002-05:00

If you try to go to Wikipedia, or dozens of the most popular sites out there, you're going to find them blacked out today (Wednesday, January 18, 2012). If you don't know why--and you don't know what SOPA or PIPA mean--you should find out. Many are saying that these bills in the Senate and House would, if passed, put an end to what's left of the free and open Internet, and even open the door to

Long Interview on Occupy Wall Street With a Humorous Slant

2011-12-21T07:42:00.001-05:00

Occupy Wall Street Interview - Professor Mark Naison ... - YouTube 5 days ago – Matt Sky Interviews Professor Mark D. Naison at Fordham University about the Occupy Wall Street movement, its future and global ...

OWS brings it home....

2011-12-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a vivid story describing OWS's next move after its eviction from public spaces: occupying homes that have been foreclosed upon by banks and have been sitting vacant ever since. My gut reaction is that it's very smart, in that it brings home the consequences of not only the financial meltdown but also the decades-long upward redistribution of wealth that has been the consequence of many

Fabulous thesis presentations!

2011-12-13T23:00:00.004-05:00

I'd like to interrupt the ongoing discussion of OWS just to rave about the American Studies thesis presentations that took place today. The creativity and hard work of the students was visible at every moment, and the large and lively audience of faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students provided a supportive and collaborative environment. Congratulations to the seniors of the class of 2012

Occupy Wall Street Not Fading

2011-12-07T16:22:00.001-05:00

Occupy Wall Street is, rather than fading, slowly embedding itself into the lives of working class and middle class New Yorkers. Consider the following- yesterday, OWS protesters occupied a foreclosed home inn the East New York Section of Brooklyn; tonight Occupy the Bronx and supporters around the city will be packing a meeitng of the 40 Precinct Community Council to protest the illegal arrest

The Art of OWS

2011-12-06T09:43:00.001-05:00

As if in answer to an earlier call for American studies scholars to look at the proliferation of images coming out of OWS, here's a link to an op-ed piece by two American studies professors, Michele Elam and Jennifer DeVere Brody, in which they discuss how we might start to talk about images like this one:

Organizing Principles for 99 Percent Clubs

2011-11-30T10:51:00.001-05:00

99 Percent Clubs can be organized at your school, at your workplace, in your home, at your neighborhood community or senior center or in your church, synagogue or mosque, Here are four simple organizing principles for these clubs1. To disseminate accurate information about the Occupy movements in the US and around the world.2. To provide material support ( which may in the form of food and

A Crusade to Destroy a Conversation

2011-11-24T14:08:00.003-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street People's Library prior to the November 15th midnight raid. Last week Mayor Bloomberg sent hundreds of police officers in the dead of night to Zuccotti Park to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters as they slept peaceful in their tents. The sleepy protesters were ordered to leave immediately or face arrest. Many were, of course, arrested. Others gathered whatever

OWS Espanol

2011-11-21T23:22:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share an article that appeared in the Observer (10/31/11) by a student, Emmanuel Pardilla, in my Introduction to Anthropology class about his activity with OWS Espanol: I volunteer within the overall movement of Occupy Wall Street. But I am more focused on "Occupy Wall Street en Espanol." Some of our members along with the translation working group help translate the "Occupy

It’s Time to Start “ 99 Percent Clubs” at Your School or in Your Neighborhood to Support the Occupations

2011-11-21T19:28:00.001-05:00

If you are part of the large and growing number of Americans who support the Occupy movement, but may or may not be able to “Occupy” yourself, you might want to form a 99 Percent Club at your school, your workplace or in your neighborhood, to organize financial, legal and political support for the Occupy movement and educate people in your community about what it stands for. The idea for these

November 17th Day of action

2011-11-17T08:32:00.001-05:00

OWS is calling for a national day of direct action and celebration to mark two months since the start of the Occupy movement. It began this morning with a march at Wall St. at 7am, and is continuing with "Occupy the Subways" actions at 3pm--including the Fordham Road station in the Bronx and several in Manhattan. For those interested in knowing what's planned, here's a link. On a more

Berkeley and Penn State

2011-11-10T22:02:00.001-05:00

I've been trying to come up with a good way of articulating my intuition that there's something significant about the fact that the police violence against Occupy Cal (on the UC Berkeley campus) and the pro-Paterno riots (on the Penn State campus) happened on the same day...but I haven't really found a way of doing so that doesn't come across as stunned outrage. My best draft of a posting started

New York City Students in Support of Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-10T10:11:00.000-05:00

There is a sizeable group of New York City students who are organizing in support of Occupy Wall Street. I recently received this information from a colleague at another institution in the city: The NYC all-student assembly meets on Saturdays in Washington Square Park at noon and is composed of students (high school, college, and postgraduate) from NYC and universities in NJ, PA, CT, VT, etc.

Fordham and the Bronx

2011-11-07T09:46:00.003-05:00

Why is it that there is only ONE student from the Bronx among the 45 students in my Rock and Roll to Hip Hop class? Shouldn't Fordham be working harder to recruit students from the working class and immigrant neighborhoods outside the gates of it's Bronx campus? Should Fordham adopt Roosevelt High School and the 5 academies inside it and do intensive programs with its students to assure that at

Does it matter how you're taught...economics?

2011-11-06T17:14:00.002-05:00

Here's a link to a story about a group of students at Harvard making a connection between the way they're taught introductory economics courses and the economic policies that led to our current economic problems. Student readers of this blog: are you being taught in ways that help you understand the ongoing crisis? Or do you feel, like these Harvard students, that you're being taught, without

Police State, or the Halloween State of Exception

2011-11-06T13:43:00.001-05:00

Last week my downtown neighborhood geared up for the the annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. Usually that entails a couple of police barricades along Sixth Avenue for crowd control, a number of parade vehicles staging on side streets, and an influx of ghosts, goblins, and vampires. But this year was different. This year whole streets were blocked off hours and hours before the parade

Occupying Manhattan's Public Spaces, 1776 and today

2011-11-05T20:31:00.001-04:00

An interesting historical commentary from the New-York Historical Society blog, noting that the Sons of Liberty struggled with British authorities for control of public spaces. As Eric Robinson notes on the blog, one of those battles culminated with the rebels tearing down and decapitating a statue of the King. Interestingly (to me) the head ended up on a stake "just outside Fort Washington in

Historical Amnesia and the Aesthetics of Antisemitism

2011-11-04T17:07:00.002-04:00

Who could not identify with their anger at the unfairness of it all – of an economic order that favors the rich; of politics that is utterly unresponsive to the needs of the citizenry; of a culture that celebrates the trivial at the expense of serious engagements in the affairs of our time. More than anything, the protests in American cities, and similar protests in many other cities all over

Why Police Violence Has Contributed to the Growing Strength and Diversity of Occupy Movements

2011-11-04T03:05:00.002-04:00

The reason police brutality has become such a major issue in Occupy movements across the nation and has helped those movements to grow is that it forges a powerful connection between the white, largely middle class youth, who have been the bulwark of every Occupation movement thus far, and Black and Latino working class youth who are a sizable portion of the population of almost every city where

Leaderless Movements and Democracy

2011-11-03T21:31:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to post two OpEds I wrote for the Washington Post about the leaderless aspect of OWS and issues related to the elections and democracy. Let me know what you think!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/what-is-occupy-wall-street-the-history-of-leaderless-movements/2011/10/10/gIQAwkFjaL_story.html AND http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/

Fordham faculty discuss Occupy Wall Street and its repercussions

2011-11-03T16:12:00.001-04:00

This afternoon I wrote to all Fordham American Studies faculty asking if anyone was interested in joining a conversation, on this blog, about the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon and its national and international repercussions. The response has been great: in just the first couple of hours, six faculty members have volunteered to participate: Robin Andersen (Communications and Media Studies) Doron

What is a general strike?

2011-11-03T01:06:00.001-04:00

Occupy Oakland called for a general strike on Thursday, and the most recent news shows that they succeeded in persuading many businesses in the city to remain closed, and then effectively shut down the port of Oakland--a major west coast port--by taking it over with thousands of people. To ask American Studies questions: what is a general strike? And what is the history of general strikes in the

Political Dissent in a Time of (Economic) Crisis

2011-10-23T10:19:00.000-04:00

The following statement was adopted by the council of the American Studies Association, which is the nation's oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history. The council met this weekend during the national conference in Baltimore, and the statement was read aloud by the association's president-elect, Matthew Frye Jacobson, to 500+ ASA

Graduate School Now!

2011-10-06T22:22:00.001-04:00

Next Friday Fordham American Studies is co-sponsoring an event organized by the Comparative Literature Program for anyone who might be interested in applying to graduate school in the future. It's a panel made up of recent Fordham graduates who have gone on to M.A. and Ph.D. programs in a variety of fields. They will give brief talks about their experience getting into graduate school and will

Call for "Occupy Wall Street" photos

2011-10-06T22:14:00.004-04:00

Matthew Frye Jacobson, Chair of American Studies at Yale, has for the past several years been curating the online project "Historian's Eye," a crowdsourced collection of cellphone photographs of our historical moment. Right now he's especially interested in images of the "Occupy Wall Street" actions, whether here in New York City or any of the other places around the country where they've been

Thursday 9/15: a lecture on food history and digital research

2011-09-09T20:14:00.006-04:00

Food historian and digital scholar Gabriella M. Petrick will speak on "Food and the Sensory City: Using Digital History to Map Everyday Life in 20th-Century New York" at Fordham University's Bronx campus on Thursday, September 15, at 5:15pm. Dr. Petrick's talk will explore the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for research on ethnic bakeries in urban contexts. This lecture is linked to

American Studies major's play in Fringe Festival!

2011-07-31T23:04:00.002-04:00

American Studies major Ariadne Blayde's play The Rubber Room is in the 15th annual New York International Fringe Festival! Performances are on August 18, 19, 20, 22 and 27 at Teatro LATEA (107 Suffolk Street, Suite 200, New York, NY 10002). Click the link for ticket info and times (they're different each day). Then go!

American Studies Professor Saul Cornell on "New Originalist" interpretations of the Constitution

2011-05-13T23:29:00.004-04:00

Fordham historian and American History Professor Saul Cornell has written a forceful and clear article in Dissent criticizing those from the Supreme Court on down who claim to know "the original meaning" of the Constitution. Cornell argues that "new originalist meaning ultimately has nothing to do with history: it is a modern ideology dressed up in historical clothing." This is perhaps his most

A most American Studies Easter Break

2011-04-25T18:05:00.004-04:00

Senior year is almost over. This will likely be my last blog and testament since there are a number of papers I need to finish and polish, and I was never quite as good at blogging as I should have been to begin with.Over the Easter Break I visited the Philadelphia, described by fellow blogger and very good friend Kaylyn as the "Birthplace of America." While my Virginian sensibility kicked in at

Letter in the NY Times on union-busting in Wisconsin

2011-03-11T11:11:00.003-05:00

I'm a little reluctant to use the blog for self-promotion, but I can't resist posting a link to the letter from me that the New York Times published today.This letter came about in a sort of interesting way. I posted something very much like this on my Wall in Facebook right after reading the story about the law in Wisconsin passing, and a bunch of people "liked" it. And I asked myself why only

Public Broadcasting + Proposed Budget Cuts = Public Reaction

2011-03-01T17:19:00.009-05:00

On February 19, the House passed a bill that would eliminate all federal financing for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by the year 2013. However, just a few days earlier, Obama's proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year promised not a decrease, but a $6 million increase to public broadcast funding. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) President and CEO Paula Kerger released a statement

Borders Sings the Blues (to the tune of bankruptcy)

2011-02-28T12:16:00.011-05:00

Professor walks into a bookstore. Professor is looking for a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Instead, Professor finds Jersey Shore’s J-WOWW signing books. A humorous anecdote told in my Literature of the West class by Professor Contreras may have incited a roar of laughter, but it should be sadly noted that, it’s funny because it’s true. Bookstores are (and have been for some time)

Santa Brought American Studies Loot!

2010-12-26T16:21:00.011-05:00

Finals are finally over! I hope every one is having a relaxing break with family & friends!It's the day after christmas & I'm wondering: what did Santa bring all the American Studies Majors?I had a particularly fortuitous christmas this year: lots of cookies and lots of american pop-culture paraphernalia! Or as news-satirist-extraordinaire, Stephen Colbert tweeted this morning "I got everything

Cabritismo

2010-12-03T02:29:00.004-05:00

We were talking about cabritismo at dinner the other night. Cabrito is goat in Portuguese. A goat, when tied to a post, will eat all the grass in its reach, down to the roots, denuding the ground in a sweeping circle along the radius of his line. Cabritismo is this ultimately self-defeating greed.Mozambican friends claim that it is standard practice in business here. An employee skims away at

Developing States & Developing Nations: More Comparisons

2010-12-03T02:09:00.003-05:00

I like Kaylyn's post on developing states in the United States. Here in Mozambique, we have been talking about the release of the latest Human Development Index by the United Nations.It's always interesting and worthwhile to look at how the United States fares. Fascinatingly the United States jumped up to number 4 on the HDI this year** (had not been in the top 10 before) because of a new way

American exceptionalism in the news

2010-12-01T23:52:00.002-05:00

One of the more arcane of the keywords of American studies--"exceptionalism"--is currently in the news, as several Republicans have recently either denounced President Obama for not believing in American exceptionalism (despite the fact that he has publicly asserted that he does) or given speeches arguing for a restoration of a belief in American exceptionalism.Here's a link to a front-page

Wikileaks and the Cable Releases

2010-11-28T20:12:00.002-05:00

Wikileaks- the website which brought us Collateral Murder, the Afghan War Diaries and the Iraq War Logs today released, according the the New York Times, a "quarter million confidential American diplomatic cables" The cables could not be posted on the actual website, wikileaks.org, because they were under a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack, an attack on the website in which multiple systems

Friday at the ASA conference

2010-11-22T15:10:00.004-05:00

I'm now blogging about the conference from back in New York, rather than blogging from the conference....but I was just too busy while in San Antonio to keep up!Friday included two major highlights. The first was a morning panel specifically about the special issue of American Quarterly titled Nation and Migration: Past and Future...which just happens to be the central book we're using in the "

Interactive Map: Do We Have "Developing States"?

2010-11-20T19:03:00.011-05:00

I encountered something very interesting today while browsing the GOOD site, and as a result, I have been spending quite some time this afternoon playing around with this map feature. I thought many of you might be interested in it, since it seems very relevant to a lot of what we do in American Studies:http://measureofamerica.org/maps/It is a map of the United States which rates each state on

Thursday at the ASA conference

2010-11-19T15:39:00.004-05:00

The most interesting panel I attended yesterday was a plenary session on the conference theme, “Crisis, Chains, and Change.” As with any panel on such a broad theme, the papers were very different from one another, but the three I heard were all fascinating and illuminating.In the first, Vijay Prashad (who has spoken at Fordham twice in the past few years, and may be known to Fordham American

Reevaluating Rubber Rooms

2010-11-19T01:09:00.004-05:00

(Rubber Rooms: where New York City's teachers go when they “misbehave.” A sort of “paid detention.”)Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of watching the performance of a play written by one of our fellow American Studies majors, Ariadne Blayde. A double major in playwriting, Blayde was inspired to write her play “The Rubber Room” after reading an intriguing New Yorker article which exposed the

2010 American Studies Association Annual Meeting

2010-11-18T10:05:00.003-05:00

I flew from New York City last night to San Antonio, Texas, which is the site of this year's annual meeting of the American Studies Association. I'm not going to try to blog about everything that happens here--as you can see if you take a look at the program, it's an incredibly rich event, with a dozen different panels on different topics taking place at any given time--but I am going to try to

Learning About Globalization from Mozambique: A Keyword Reconsidered

2010-10-25T10:25:00.005-04:00

It doesn't happen very often, but the developing world, where I live, came up in my American Studies reading the other day. "Neoliberal policies" imposed by "international banking and financial institutions," this scholar warned, threatened developing countries. Land, previously used for subsistence agriculture was being handed over to large-scale agriculture for export crops. "Millions of

Paranormal Activity

2010-10-24T02:06:00.003-04:00

So, those of you who know me may know that I am a movie buff. My older brother graduated from Fordham in 2008 and since then the two of us have gone to the movies about once a week as a way to keep up with each other and keep our eyes on what is going on with our favorite visual medium.Last year we went together to see a low budget movie that had become somewhat of a cult phenomenon, Paranormal

Blackface and the VMAs

2010-09-15T23:20:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week MTV held its VMA (Video Music Awards) ceremony and there was a slight bit of controversy when Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas fame arrived to the show with his face painted black (I don't own the copyright of a photo so to avoid legal issues, click here to see one).Immediately this was condemned as a "blackface" performance by the media and there was a small bit of outrage over it,

On Education: Do We Need a Hero?

2010-09-13T16:24:00.009-04:00

During one of the last hot days of August, I found myself in Brooklyn, where I finally had the opportunity to visit the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co.- which I’ve been hoping to do ever since I saw this Dave Eggers TED talk on the idea (entitled “Once Upon a School.”)*In case you haven't heard of the center, Dave Eggers was inspired to open the center when he lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He had

American Studies Aslant: Musings on Riots in Mozambique

2010-09-13T04:21:00.003-04:00

8 September 2010 I have been driven around town this afternoon. It’s a cool Wednesday, and you would not know that summer is approaching in Maputo, Mozambique. We have a sea breeze, and the light is lovely. It is hard to believe that just a week ago I was sitting inside my house, unable to go out as mass protests spread around me. Billowing black smoke rose from the tires protesters were

"We Have To Remember What Happened Here"

2010-09-12T22:33:00.013-04:00

(Visitors looking out at Ground Zero) Today, one day and nine years after the tragic events of September 11th 2001, I thought it would be timely and relevant to blog on the recent controversy surrounding the building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero. (Here: a New York Times Article on the heated debate: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/nyregion/20muslims.htm?_r=1 But after a visit to

Introducing our other bloggers for 2010-2011

2010-09-10T12:27:00.001-04:00

In Fall 2010 the Fordham American Studies blog greets one new student blogger and welcomes back two continuing students as well as two ongoing guest bloggers, in addition to Professor Swinth, who was introduced in a previous posting.Our new addition is Rebecca Gehman, who is a Junior American Studies major & Communications minor at the Lincoln Center campus. Rebecca is a professed "media

Introducing Kirsten Swinth

2010-09-10T10:16:00.002-04:00

I'd like to introduce guest blogger Kirsten Swinth, who is an Associate Professor in the History department at Fordham and directed the American Studies program from 2003 to 2008. She is working on a study of the gender revolution accompanying the rise of a postindustrial service economy in the United States (Competition and Care in the New Economy: The Making of the “Working Family”, forthcoming

The Kagan Court

2010-09-08T12:42:00.002-04:00

The Supreme Court begins its new term in a few weeks, and court watchers like myself will be eagerly searching for clues about how Elena Kagan’s recent confirmation will affect the Court.Unfortunately, the confirmation hearings this summer were not much help. To no one’s surprise, Kagan proved to be just as skilled as other high court nominees at deflecting the senators’ questions about her

Summer at the New York International Fringe Festival

2010-09-04T16:46:00.003-04:00

So I ended up this summer working as a Venue Production Assistant for the New York City International Fringe Festival. For those of you who are unaware of it, the NYC Fringe festival this year was 197 shows in 18 different venues downtown over two weeks every August (www.fringenyc.org). The festival is known for presenting audiences with new and exciting theatre (Like Jurassic Parq a musical

An Intense Week at The Futures of American Studies Summer Institute

2010-07-02T12:18:00.012-04:00

Hello American Studies majors and enthusiasts. My name is Marty Northrop and I'm a graduate student here at Fordham, working on a PhD in American Literature. This spring I was honored with a scholarship, administered by the Fordham American Studies program and funded by the Fordham GSAS (thanks!), to attend the fifteenth annual Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth, June 21-27. The

Professor Saul Cornell writes in the New York Times about the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment

2010-06-30T01:00:00.005-04:00

Professor Saul Cornell of Fordham's History Department (and the Fordham American Studies executive committee) was one of seven scholars asked by the New York Times's "Room for Debate" to comment on Monday's Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of an individual’s right to bear arms applied to state and local laws. Professor Cornell, who joined the Fordham faculty a year

The Kagan Nomination

2010-05-11T09:51:00.003-04:00

President Obama yesterday nominated Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. For me, it is not a surprising choice. It is also a pretty safe choice. A Solicitor General basically has the same professional qualifications as a sitting federal judge, so some of the talk about her lack of experience is misplaced. What better training in constitutional law can you get than arguing the government's cases

The Letter of the Law

2010-04-26T09:43:00.006-04:00

I was reading this article in The New York Times today about the qualities that President Obama is looking for in a Supreme Court nominee. The focus of the article is on “empathy” and whether it is appropriate for presidents to seek this quality or not. The gist of the concern critics have about “empathy” is that justices should not let their personal biases influence their decisions. “Empathetic

Are There Too Many Judges on the Supreme Court?

2010-04-15T14:37:00.005-04:00

I want to thank Professor Hendler for his warm welcome and the invitation to post on this blog. It really is an exciting time to be studying the Supreme Court.I want to elaborate on a few points from my San Francisco Chronicle article, which Professor Hendler posted below. As a political scientist, my primary interest is not so much in who President Obama should be appointing to the Supreme Court

Now blogging on the upcoming Supreme Court nomination and confirmation: Professor Robert Hume

2010-04-13T18:21:00.005-04:00

We're very pleased to announce that Professor Robert Hume from Fordham's Political Science Department has kindly agreed to provide us with his insights as President Obama selects a nominee for the seat on the Supreme Court opened up by the imminent retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, and as the Senate goes through its confirmation process.Professor Hume is best known to Fordham American

American Studies Graduate Programs

2010-04-13T12:08:00.003-04:00

On Sunday, I gave tours of Fordham at the school's annual Open House for accepted students. As per usual, I faced many perplexed faces each time I said that I was an American Studies major here. While there was some eye rolling, most families seemed very intrigued by my undergraduate interdisciplinary experience and one family even commented that the American Studies premise seemed very much in

Thinking About Health Care

2010-04-09T10:49:00.005-04:00

Amanda recently blogged about the health care legislation passed by Congress. Health care is currently a hot topic for debate. Those people and organizations with power in the U.S. (like the American Medical Association) have long been resistant to health care reform and have continuously thwarted efforts for change. Nevertheless, health care reform is necessary for our country. I have started

A Different Kind of Research: Visual Ethnography

2010-04-06T10:29:00.007-04:00

One of my classes this semester in Dublin is "Visualizing Americanization." In the class, we have studied visual ethnography as a research method and as a tool for future projects, like the senior thesis. Because it is visual, it is a kind of research that gleans meaning from an archive of images and the process of creating that archive. An ethnography is defined by one leading practitioner,

Media coverage of a recent event on the Fordham campus

2010-03-30T22:04:00.003-04:00

My attention was just called to two very different online stories about the recent appearance on campus of Michael Sulick, a Fordham alum who is now director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. I didn't attend the lecture, so I don't have my own account to provide, but I'd be interested in comments from (a) anyone who did attend, and (b) any of you interested in journalism and media who'd

Health-Care Confusion

2010-03-30T12:16:00.015-04:00

Last week, President Obama and Congress passed historic health-care legislation, arguably the most sweeping government reform measure in decades. Analysts, academics, politicians and average Americans everywhere have since been trying to make sense of the 2,000-plus page bill that will potentially redefine a fundamental system of American society.I tried my hardest to follow the year-long

The British Library takes notice of our blog!

2010-03-28T00:04:00.004-04:00

The British Library's "Americas Collection" decided to start making a list of interesting American Studies blogs...and ours was first on the list! Check it out!

You are what you eat (or something like that)

2010-03-11T09:33:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I saw a commercial on TV for high fructose corn syrup. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP! Apparently the Corn Refiners Association felt that the product (or is it an ingredient?) needed a bit of a makeover in order to counteract its bad reputation. Personally, I don't think high fructose corn syrup needs any good publicity.My reaction to the commercial was

Professor James Fisher

2010-03-07T20:08:00.004-05:00

Last year, I had the honor of taking Dr. James Fisher for the course Religion and the American Self. Dr. Fisher, an American Studies professor at Fordham, recently released a book called On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie and the Soul of the Port of New York (Cornell University Press). The book chronicles the back story of Elia Kazan's award-winning 1954 film On the Waterfront,

Thinking About Welfare

2010-03-01T14:34:00.004-05:00

In my Contemporary Social Issues and Policies class, a major topic of discussion is the Feminization of Poverty and Welfare Reform. While welfare reform was largely considered a “success” during the 1990s when the economy was growing and jobs were readily available, this is not so much the case today. We all know that in recent years the economy has been in a continual decline and jobs have

Olympics

2010-03-01T08:50:00.003-05:00

The Olympics have a spellbinding effect on the world. Every two years, we watch the world's top athletes push themselves to the edge of their physical capabilities and represent their individual countries. While the modern games are ridden with sponsorship extravagance, performance enhancing drugs and other controversies, at their core, the games are still a cultural symbol of peaceful

God on the Quad? Religion at America's Universities

2010-02-22T13:40:00.005-05:00

I usually do not like to take on the topic of religion in everyday conversation. As a religious person, this is not because that I am not open to other people's ideas or that I can't defend my convictions. It is because I really do respect individuals who disagree with me and find that I am just not given that same respect for my views. With that disclaimer, I am going to try to write about

My American Idol: Journalist David Brooks

2010-02-16T11:35:00.004-05:00

Lately, a lot of people have been telling me that the best way to sculpt your ideal life is to find someone who is living it and copy them. My "someone" is and always will be journalist David Brooks.David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, who has had a long, successful career in journalism. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek

Paula Scher

2010-02-11T23:07:00.000-05:00

After two long years of core curriculum classes and nearly another two years of courses for my major and minor, I’ve finally managed to squeeze an elective into my schedule. This semester I began studying graphic design, which is something I’ve always been interested in, but never studied formally. Touches of graphic design are everywhere, and if you look closely enough,

"You came to Ireland... to do American Studies?"

2010-02-10T20:55:00.002-05:00

I wish I had been keeping track of how many times I have been asked this in the past month (because it’s a lot.)But it’s true- I am taking a semester abroad at the Clinton Institute for American Studies in Dublin, Ireland. Within the Institute, students and professors see it as completely logical and beneficial to look at the United States from an outside perspective; to

Preserving American Journalism

2010-02-08T12:53:00.009-05:00

On Friday, I attended an event co-sponsored by Fordham's Donald McGannon Communication Research Center and the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy and Education.At the event, authors John Nichols and Robert McChesney spoke about their recently published book The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that will Begin the World Again. Nichols spoke first about

Digital Democracy

2010-02-01T12:58:00.005-05:00

Dr. Michael Wesch is a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University who specializes in digital ethnography. The YouTube videos he makes about his work have gained a lot of attention nationally and really make you think about how much new media is changing the way colleges, corporations, America and the world operates. Below I have embedded two of the videos I found the most interesting.

Now and Then

2010-01-30T20:41:00.002-05:00

Alas, my time at Fordham University is coming to a close. Fortunately, this semester seems to be off to a good start. I have to say that overall, I have had a very rewarding experience at Fordham and I am very thankful for that. Yet as I think about how thankful I am, I also ask myself, what other choice did I really have? Sure, I could have attended a different university. But not going to

Accent on America

2010-01-27T14:36:00.005-05:00

Growing up, I was blissfully unaware of my heavy Long Island accent. After all, everyone spoke the way I did, which made it near impossible to ever pick up on the difference. This came to an end the minute I came to college freshman year, when I was randomly placed to live with a girl from Boston. Our initial interactions were actually about the way we both spoke and those first few weeks

2009 Year of Movies

2010-01-23T20:11:00.003-05:00

I consider myself to be something of a movie aficionado and since the Oscar season is upon us I figured this would be a good time to give some thoughts on movies that have come out in the last year.My pick for best movie of 2009 is The Hurt Locker, I saw this movie twice in theatres and it was worth more than cost of the two admissions. This Iraq war drama featured some amazing character work by

Fordham at the School of the Americas Protest

2009-11-30T15:31:00.002-05:00

On the weekend before Thanksgiving, I traveled with sixty Fordham students, staff members, and students from St. John’s University in Queens to the School of the Americas protest and Ignatian Family Teach-In in Fort Benning, Georgia. Why did so many of us spend eighteen hours on a bus in order to be a part of this event? Why did countless others travel from even farther? I knew I wanted to attend

It's A Small World After All

2009-11-26T10:32:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday, November 17th, the Gangway Beatz rappers from Berlin, Germany came to Professor Naison’s “Feeling the Funk” class. The Gangway group had been New York City before and had already visited Fordham University. Because it was their second time coming to one of Professor Naison’s classes, they knew some of my classmates he had taught in previous semesters. This talented group

Guest Blog: Our Great (Gatsby) Evening at the MET

2009-11-22T23:00:00.003-05:00

Were it an ordinary evening, I would not normally expect to be asked, “Mike, is my flapper dress straight?” or “Do my linen pants match my shoes?” Then again, this was no ordinary evening—several (about 40) of my friends from Tierney Hall and I were getting ready for what would prove to be the perfect inauguration to our lives as college students living in New York. Straight

"Imagining" Salsa

2009-11-08T12:26:00.003-05:00

Taylor’s intriguing, and well-written, blog has inspired me to elaborate on the theme of “imagined communities.” Taylor discusses Stalter’s article about the Third Avenue El Train. Because the train ran so close to apartment buildings, it seemed to bring the people of the city closer together. The train “reinforced urban community” and created an “imaginary connection” between people” (323).

The Museum of the American Indian

2009-11-07T09:31:00.002-05:00

While most New Yorkers headed to the annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village, trick-or-treated in the streets, or simply slept in from the night prior, I, along with Lynne Rowan (an American Studies minor and a good friend), traveled downtown to the Museum of the American Indian. Located in the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, the museum contains artifacts and art from

Busy Week

2009-11-05T02:30:00.003-05:00

So...I've had a busy week. For those that don't know I'm am heavily involved with theatre at Rose Hill. I usually Stage Manage the shows for the Mimes and Mummers (a group whose ranks include Allen Alda and G. Gordon Liddy) but I was offered the position of stage manager for the FET (Fordham Experimental Theater) production of "The Twilight Zone" and I couldn't resist.As a result, I have been

Howard Dean "Beyahs" the American Media

2009-10-24T11:34:00.003-04:00

It took me nearly three seasons to catch on, but I am glad I finally did. The lying! The cheating! The scandals! I mean, it’s no wonder I spent half of my summer in front of the tube barely blinking and the other half waiting for the mail man to arrive with my next Netflix installment. I am of course referring to my, and in a larger sense, America’s, fixation with Mad

A Cultural Analysis of College Safety

2009-10-02T13:43:00.006-04:00

The Daily Beast, a "news reporting and opinion web site," published by Tina Brown (a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker) and edited by Edward Felsenthal (a former editor at The Wall Street Journal), recently compiled a list of the 25 most unsafe college campuses in America. Safety at Fordham is a delicate issue to all students here, not just American Studies

A Bronx Tale

2009-10-01T20:56:00.002-04:00

Today I attended two events sponsored by the African and African-American Studies Department. The first of which was the department's open house, the second a book talk for The Rat that Got Away a memoir written by Allen Jones with Mark Naison.At 11:30 in the morning I met Dr. Naison (also known as Notorious PhD) and two other students from my Feeling the Funk class to go pick up the food for the

Race

2009-09-21T22:34:00.001-04:00

My peers and I in the American Studies Senior Thesis course have recently read Omi and Winant’s “Racial Formation in the United States.” While I found this book extremely insightful and helpful in better understanding the concept of “race,” (which is also defined in the book “Keywords in American Studies”) I also felt that it was somewhat limited in that it only offered a leftist perspective on

'Toying' with Thesis Writing

2009-09-19T09:08:00.004-04:00

It was the first week in May (our spring semester finals were still going on) when we received the syllabus for our American Studies senior thesis seminar. Probably five minutes after the syllabus entered my inbox, my phone starting beeping incessantly with text messages from my American Studies friends, everyone instantly stressed and apprehensive about the seminar's workload. Despite

Senior Year

2009-09-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

For some people, the fall season means changing leaves, football games, and cozy sweaters. For me and the other American Studies seniors, it means it’s time to finish our senior theses.When I enrolled in the American Studies program as a sophomore, the idea of committing to such a long writing project seemed daunting, but I was not too concerned because it seemed so far in

Thinking--and feeling--about 9/11

2009-09-11T17:35:00.000-04:00

On September 11, 2001, I was not yet at Fordham. I was teaching at Notre Dame, which means I was living in the Midwest, far from where the crimes took place. Even though I’m a scholar who works on the history of emotions, and so am the last person to argue that emotions don’t matter, it seemed very important—after registering shock and horror—that our emotions about 9/11 not prevent us from

A New Year and Looking Back

2009-09-11T14:29:00.002-04:00

The beginning of a new school year is, quite simply, decision time. And I have never been very good at decisions. This seems to be quite a common attribute among the American Studies community. We can’t choose among our passions; we desire connections, not strict classifications. Fragments frustrate us. We want to take a literature class, and a history class, and a

Beginning of Junior Year and Johan Norberg

2009-09-04T15:09:00.008-04:00

Another year began at Fordham University this week. I must admit I had grown used to an empty and quiet campus over the summer but the returning students have brought back a lot of life and activity to Rose Hill.This will be my junior year. I'll have more opportunities to explore the courses offered to American Studies majors, look into taking on a minor (I'm considering African and African

Jury duty is grand

2009-09-02T23:07:00.001-04:00

When I mention that I’m in the midst of four weeks of jury duty, most people respond by offering their condolences. But it’s really been interesting, believe it or not! Of course, it hasn’t come at the best time, what with a new baby in the house and classes starting this week. However, so far the experience has taught me a lot about our legal system, and given me more faith than I had before in

The American Studies Experience

2009-08-31T15:14:00.001-04:00

We, students, are frequently asked by our friends, family members, co-workers, etc., what our college major is. Whenever I tell people I’m an American Studies major, I either get puzzled faces staring back at me, or responses such as, “Oh, so you want to be a teacher?” Explaining the major in detail, as well as the wide range of careers it can prepare one for (not only teaching), usually takes

Fordham American Studies in Fall 2009

2009-08-29T14:44:00.004-04:00

This will be another exciting year for Fordham's American Studies program. Yes, we're launching this blog (more on that in another posting), but right now just let me talk about what's happening in the curriculum.1) We're continuing the process of making American Studies a two-campus program by offering the major at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. This fall, for the first time,