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.

American Studies major's play in Fringe Festival!

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

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 biting passage:

In the wacky world of new originalism, dissent becomes assent, minorities become majorities, and the interpretive method of the Anti-Federalist losers supplants the methods of the Federalist winners. Such creative rewriting of the past makes for interesting alternate histories, but it is not a serious scholarly methodology for understanding the historical meaning of the Constitution. It is a legal scam.

Many American studies students have taken Professor Cornell's courses in early American history or constitutional history. Especially if you're heading off to law school after you graduate--as many of you are!--have a look at the article....and write a response here on the blog, too!

A most American Studies Easter Break

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 this claim (causing Kaylyn to very nearly turn the car around) I do appreciate the great historical place this city of brotherly love has for the United States (after the state of Virginia voted on independence and brought it to the Continental Congress (See 1776 for a delightful musical version of these events)).

We saw a few of the sites you would expect, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's Grave

Here is the hilarious epitaph that Franklin wrote for himself in his youth "never intended for actual use" it lives on on a plaque next to his grave.

We walked South Street for most of its length, stopping in a recycled art store where I was very tempted to buy a bowl made from a melted record. I ate the requisite Philly Cheesesteak which, despite my fears, was actually better than the one I usually get at the bodega down the street.

So, as for the last blog and testament part. It's been an interesting four years. For any potential Fordham students or current undecided students out there, look into the American Studies program. I hear many of my friends complain that their advisor doesn't know who they are, that they feel on their own academicswise. No one in the American Studies program feels that way. The program really does become a tight knit community. I would consider all of the American Studies majors in my year a friend, and over the last three years we have watched and encouraged each other's academic growth. Prof. Gold's Major Developments in American Cultural class was a high point in my college career. There is no doubt in my mind that Prof Hendler truly cares about the success of every student in the major, not to mention his son is almost too adorable at advising meetings. Profs Aronson and Cahill were a nearly perfect combination of approaches and demeanors for the Senior Seminar.

This program gave me the freedom to chose from a wide variety of subjects (from Funk music to The Postmodern American Novel) while requiring of me a sense of academic rigor that I sense is lacking from the college experiences of some of my peers.

I'm moving out to St. Louis to freelance as an electrician in theaters with the hope of being accepted to a playwriting MFA in a years time. To a lot of people that might seem completely unrelated to American Studies, let me assure you it is not. The American Studies major provides its students with the academic discipline to achieve in any number of post-graduate pursuits. It is a major that encourages both individualism (and what could be more American) and cooperative group work towards common goals (and what could be more American). I know I have sent a few of my younger friends towards the program, and I couldn't be happier that they are continuing the pursuit. I encourage everyone to look into this major as I can't imagine having gone through the last four years in any other program. Thank you Prof Hendler, Prof Gold, Prof Aronson, and Prof Cahill, you have truly made a difference in my life and you are mentors that I will remember for years to come.

(sorry for getting sentimental)

-Taylor Riccio

Letter in the NY Times on union-busting in Wisconsin

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 my friends--most (but not all) of whom probably agree with me--should be reading it. So I rewrote it according to the guidelines of a letter to the editor, and sent it in...and they published it!

The lesson is: we all comment on things on Facebook, and we all post links to stories in the newspaper and other places. But sometimes maybe we should try to reach larger audiences, people we don't already know and agree with, by moving things in the other direction--from Facebook into other venues, even "old media" like the newspaper.

Writing from leave,
Professor Glenn Hendler

P.S. Apologies to Dr. Edward Cahill for the fact that the Times listed me as Director of the American studies program. My signature clearly told them that I'm on leave this semester from that position, but they didn't include that detail....

Public Broadcasting + Proposed Budget Cuts = Public Reaction

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 saying, “Our country is confronting difficult decisions, so we’re very thankful that the Obama Administration recognizes the critical value of public broadcasting and the public service it provides to American teachers, parents and children." (PBS Statement on the President's FY 2012 Budget)

This is not the first time Congress has butted heads over potentially cutting public broadcasting, but it is perhaps the first time the ensuing debate among the public has occurred in a primary way on the Internet. I wanted to explore the public reaction in more depth (at the risk of blatantly overusing the word "public" within a single blog post.) First, however, I had to clarify some details about exactly what the cut in funding would mean.

Congress allocates money each year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) . According to CPB's web site, "Funding for CPB helps to support more than 21,000 American jobs, which contribute more than $1 billion to the national economy." In addition, the site assures that CPB's main source of income is membership contributions, and that according to the Public Broadcasting Act, no more than 5% of federal funding can go toward administrative costs. This means that 95% of federal funds allocated to CPB go directly to stations like PBS and NPR.

In 1995, as I recently learned, a similar attempt to eliminate federal financing for public broadcasting was "thwarted by the timely appearance of Sesame Street characters and by panicked supporters who filed petitions and flooded Congressional offices with calls," as reported by the New York Times on February 27, 2011.

This time, however, in the aftermath of the bill there was an overflow of online petitions, rather than phone calls (the same style of petition being widely used to respond to proposed cuts to Americorps and Planned Parenthood). This time, even a visit to the capitol from Arthur (yes, the aardvark) did not prevent the bill from passing in the House. See below for a charming image of the PBS star with co-chairman of the Public Broadcasting Caucus, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.

Source: New York Times (Harry Hamburg/ Associated Press)

Blumenauer argued in his letter to the House that "Public broadcasting is America’s largest classroom and we cannot force our stations to close their doors. Funding for CPB is what makes our local public TV and radio stations thrive. It’s what gives our communities a voice and provides the infrastructure that connects rural to urban." Unfortunately, he did not meet as much bipartisan support as he has in his past defenses of public media, and now the decision will be up to the Senate. So, in the meantime, what role does the public have in influencing what will be done with funding for public broadcasting?

We are being encouraged by groups like 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting (name taken from the number of Americans who use public media each month) to pressure our elected officials to find different areas of the federal budget to cut. They and similar activist groups hope that their online petitions will be supplemented by phone calls by supporters- but at this time in history, will the public express their feelings in venues outside of cyberspace?

From Wisconsin to Washington, DC, and everywhere in between, we have recently seen Americans respond to legislation in some of the most tried-and-true ways we recognize from civil rights protests, but we have also seen an unprecedented use of the online space for reacting via Facebook, Twitter, online petitions, emails to elected officials, and more venues that provide space, if not a location, for conversation with officials.

Even in this modern age, in which we largely accept online conversation as genuine, I have to wonder whether officials have to react in the same way to masses of emails that they must to postal mail, phone calls, and especially gatherings of actual constituents. There is a way in which earlier forms of communication required either the official or someone in their office to actively receive and deal with the public sentiment accordingly. Some feel that Internet activism is the new frontier. Our parents couldn't attend protests while sitting in class, after all, but in a few clicks, we can participate in some form of political movement even without physical presence. Critics call it "slacktivism": if we cared deeply about the issues, we would be out there making sure someone was listening, rather than simply making ourselves feel that we have participated by adding our email to a list, especially when that list may or may not reach, or have great meaning for, the elected officials in whose hands these decisions finally lie. I myself have "signed" countless petitions on Facebook and activist websites (including 170 Million Americans), without ever really being sure what my signature means or where it will go.

In addition, ironically enough, when we have more venues for mass communication than ever before, we are faced with a new problem of disunity: masses of people will not appear to be masses if they are divided in their methods of reacting. When individuals feel similarly, but have different levels of media literacy, how will they connect with one another?

Now I am left wondering: will the people who rely on public broadcasting for news, arts, and culture be able to unite- in an online space or otherwise- to convince their elected officials to restore federal funding for public broadcasting before it is too late?