Leaderless Movements and Democracy

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/why-occupy-wall-street-wants-nothing-to-do-with-our-politicians/2011/10/21/gIQAc2wT3L_story.html

Fordham faculty discuss Occupy Wall Street and its repercussions

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 Ben-Atar (History), Leonard Cassuto (English), Heather Gautney (Sociology), Micki McGee (Sociology), and Mark Naison (African and African American Studies). Other faculty may join the conversation over the coming days and weeks.

Some may post once; others may have a series of postings. Some may primarily post links to things they think would be useful for others to read; others may emphasize their own writings. Anything is fair game if bloggers think it will help students and others gain a historical, analytic, political, sociological, or other perspective on the phenomenon. All political perspectives on the events are welcome: left, right, and other. A robust and diverse discussion is the goal, though of course it will only be as diverse as the people who volunteer to contribute.

My other request to contributors is that I would prefer that the postings not be merely polemical, either cheerleading or denunciation. That's not to say they can't come from a recognizable and passionate political perspective, but my view is that one important thing an American Studies program blog can do is model for its readers--students and others--ways of talking about controversial events and issues that are analytic and civil, but at the same time don't pretend to be purely objective. However, the bloggers themselves will be the judge of what meets these standards; the only things that will be taken down are postings that violate widely recognized online ethical standards and practices--for instance, personal attacks. But I certainly don't expect anything of that sort to happen.

I'm excited to see where this conversation goes. Subscribe to/follow/bookmark/favorite this blog, and check back often--the discussion is bound to be lively! And most importantly, feel free to reply to anything you read here in the comments section!

What is a general strike?

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 United States? This is not my area of expertise, but here's a useful journalistic article that surveys the history, noting that the two major examples of general strikes in US history took place in 1919 in Seattle and--interestingly--in Oakland in 1946. There's an extremely useful site at the University of Washington, supervised by history professor James Gregory, with lots of information about the Seattle strike. I haven't found as comprehensive an account of the Oakland strike online; but there's an overview here.

If any readers of this blog have knowledge about the history of general strikes, or insights or experiences pertaining to related current events, please feel free to post in the comments here.

Political Dissent in a Time of (Economic) Crisis

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 members just before Priscilla Wald's presidential address:

Political Dissent in a Time of (Economic) Crisis

A Statement by the Council of the American Studies Association
20 October 2011

We are the public. We are workers.  We are the 99%.  We speak with the people here in Baltimore and around the globe occupying plazas, parks, and squares in opposition to failed austerity programs, to oligarchy, and to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.  The loss of jobs, healthcare, and homes, the distressing use of mass incarceration and mass deportations, and the destruction of environments have brought so many households and individuals to crisis. We join with people re-claiming commons rights to public resources.  We join in the call against privatization and for a democratic re-awakening.

As educators, we experience the dismantling of public education, rising tuition, unsustainable student debt, and the assault on every dimension of education.  As American Studies scholars, our work includes, among other things, addressing the problems and challenges societies face, drawing lessons from the past, comparing across polities, and making informed recommendations that will spark open debate.  We draw inspiration from earlier social movements that have challenged the unequal distribution of power, wealth, and authority. Today’s movements continue this necessary work. The uprisings compel us to lift our voices and dedicate our effort to realizing the democratic aspirations for an equitable and habitable world.  We are the 99%.

Graduate School Now!

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 then take questions. One of the presenters is an American Studies major from the class of 2009, Allie Stryker, who went on to an M.A. in Museum Studies and American Studies and is now working in the museum world.

Details below.

The Comparative Literature Program Presents


GRADUATE SCHOOL NOW!

Panel Discussion with recent Fordham alumni

for all Fordham students interested in applying to graduate school

Friday, October 14, 2012

12:00 – 1:30

LINCOLN CENTER (LL 1013)

Panelists:

Laura Barker
(MS.Ed, Hunter College; FCRH Spanish & English major, ’08)

Thomas Callahan
(M.A. Russian & Slavic Studies, N.Y.U., FCRH Comparative Lit major ’07)

Adam Kozaczka
(M.A. program in English, Syracuse, FCRH Comparative Lit major 09)

Keeran Murphy
(M.A. program in Irish Studies, N.Y.U., FCRH English major 09)

Alice Stryker
(M.A. in Museum Studies, George Washington University; FCRH American Studies major 09)

Karen Velasquez
(Ph.D. program, Teachers College, Columbia; FCRH Anthropology major 08)


generous support provided by the FCLC and FCRH Dean’s Offices
co-sponsored by American Studies, English, LALSI, Modern Languages & Literatures

Call for "Occupy Wall Street" photos

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 springing up. If you have any cellphone shots of OWS activity, please consider contributing to the Historian's Eye website. Photos can be submitted by email to matthew.jacobson@yale.edu, historianseye@gmail.com OR see the flickr instructions under the "participate" tab on the Historian's Eye website, where some OWS images are already posted. If you're a reader of this blog and you do submit photos, please let us know at amerstudies@fordham.edu; we might ask you to post them here as well.

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

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 the Fall 2011 American Studies Senior Seminar on "Food and Globalization," taught by Professors Julie Kim and Oneka LaBennett.

Dr. Petrick's book, Industrializing Taste: Food Processing and the Transformation of the American Diet, 1900-1965, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press, analyzes how new food processing techniques transformed the foods available to American consumers as well as how housewives incorporated these new industrial foods into their family’s diet over the course of the last century. She is also working on a second book project entitled Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter: Taste in History, for the sensory history series at the University of Illinois Press.

Dr. Petrick earned her doctoral degree from the University of Delaware as a Hagley Fellow and is currently an Associate Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and History in the Department of Nutrition, and Food Studies at George Mason University. Her interdisciplinary research on food combines the fields of the history of technology, sensory history, environmental history and the history of science. Additionally Dr. Petrick’s training at the Culinary Institute of America, Cornell University and at several wineries in Napa and Sonoma Counties has shaped her theoretical approach to taste.

The recipient of many awards for her scholarship, including the Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Society for the History of Technology, the W. Gabriel Carras Award for Junior Scholars from the Steinhardt School, New York University, and a National Science Foundation Grant, Petrick also publishes in the Journal of American History, Agricultural History, and History and Technology, among other journals and edited volumes.

Dr. Petrick's lecture will take place at Fordham's Dealy Hall (Room 204) on the University's Bronx (Rose Hill) campus at 441 East Fordham Road. The closest campus entrances to access Dealy Hall are just off of Webster Avenue and East Fordham Road, or at Bathgate Avenue just north of Fordham Road. View map for directions.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the American Studies Program, the Urban Studies Program, the History Department, the English Department, the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, and the Digital Humanities Working Group.