American Studies

J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American studies and anthropology, chair of American studies and director of the Center of the Americas, spent part of winter break in Qatar. She was there to present her research on “Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Occupy Wall Street: Indigeneity and the 'Other' 1%” for a panel on "Against Exceptionalism." Kauanui joined a global roster of leading scholars in American studies, Middle Eastern studies and other closely related fields who were invited to speak as part of a conference held Jan. 8–11 at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies with support from the Qatar…

In light of President Trump's tweeted ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, Richard Slotkin, the Olin Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus, writes in The Conversation about the long history of integrating minorities into the U.S. military. The armed forces have long "played a vital role in shaping American social policy toward the country's minorities," Slotkin writes. He recalls how "fear and resentment" of African-Americans and immigrants from Asia and Europe "generated a political backlash," resulting in oppressive Jim Crow laws and an anti-immigrant movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then, "The crisis produced by…

Elizabeth McAlister, chair and professor of religion, is the co-author of an op-ed on CNN titled, "Haiti and the distortion of its Vodou religion." Together with her co-author, Millery Polyné, a Haitian-American professor of African-American and Caribbean history at the Gallatin School–NYU, she provides an introduction to the Vodou religion—the creation of African slaves who were brought to Haiti and converted by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. While Vodou shares much with Christianity, and its initiates must be Roman Catholic, it departs in its views of the cosmos. Vodou teaches that there is no heaven or hell, and…

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Wesleyan will host two discussions related to the Dakota Access Pipeline Project on Oct. 7. The Dakota Access Pipeline Project is a 1,172-mile pipeline that will connect the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline would run through federal land less than half a mile away from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation and the tribe’s opposition has inspired protests across the country. Although the pipeline construction has already begun, the project was halted in September after a federal intervention. At 2 p.m. in Usdan 108, Wesleyan faculty will hold a rapid teach-in addressing key issues about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), its…

On Oct. 1, Wesleyan students will publicly present their research from the American studies course, Anarchy in America: From Haymarket Riot to Occupy Wall Street, taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, chair and professor of American studies, professor of anthropology. The course focused on anarchism as a political philosophy and practice — a little known, aspect of American culture and society. Students examined select aspects of anarchist political thought and praxis in the United States and the ways that anarchism has been represented positively, vilified or dismissed. The course explored a range of diverse political traditions including: individualist anarchism, socialist anarchism,…

Amy Tang, assistant professor of English, assistant professor of American studies, is the author of Repetition and Race: Asian American Literature After Multiculturalism published by Oxford University Press, May 2016, Repetition and Race explores the literary forms and critical frameworks occasioned by the widespread institutionalization of liberal multiculturalism by turning to the exemplary case of Asian American literature. Tang reinterprets the political grammar of four forms of repetition central to minority discourse: trauma, pastiche, intertextuality and self-reflexivity. She shows how texts by Theresa Cha, Susan Choi, Karen Tei Yamashita, Chang-rae Lee, and Maxine Hong Kingston use structures of repetition to foreground moments…

In its recent meeting, the Board of Trustees conferred tenure on four faculty members. They are Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, Professor of African American Studies Kali Gross, Associate Professor of English and American Studies Amy Tang, and Associate Professor of Chemistry Erika Taylor. They join eight other faculty members who were awarded tenure earlier this spring. One faculty member, Louise Neary, was promoted to adjunct associate professor of Spanish. In addition, six faculty members are being promoted to full professor: J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American Studies and anthropology Matthew Kurtz, professor of psychology Cecilia Miller, professor of…

The Hartford Courant reported on a study of the Wangunks, the indigenous people of Middletown and Portland, Conn., by members of a Wesleyan course taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of environmental studies. Eleven students spent a semester in the archives of the Middlesex County Historical Society studying the Wangunks as part of a course on local Native Americans: "Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People." Four of those students presented their research at a March seminar at Russell Library. According to the story: The Wesleyan students made use of a number of sources to piece together a…

Barbara Fields, professor of history at Columbia University, will deliver the third annual Richard Slotkin American Studies Lecture Series from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Feb. 17 in Russell House. Fields' lecture will draw on the intellectually transformative book she published with her sister, Karen Elise Fields, titled Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (Verso, 2012). "Her lecture—her thinking about how the forms of racecraft and how racecraft is pulled off—could not be more timely and urgent," said Joel Pfister, the Olin Professor of American Studies and English, chair of the American Studies Department. “Her work on the category of ‘race’ offers…

Joel Pfister, the Olin Professor of English and American Studies and chair of the American Studies Department, is the author of Surveyors of Customs: American Literature as Cultural Analysis published by Oxford University Press, 2016. Within his book, Pfister argues “that writers from Benjamin Franklin to Louise Erdrich are critical 'surveyors' of customs, culture, hegemony, capitalism’s emotional logic, and more. Literary surveyors have helped make possible—and can advance—cultural analysis.” While noting that cultural theory and history have influenced interpretations of literature, he asserts that, in fact, “literature can return the favor.” The book raises many historical, but timely questions. "When and why…

Professor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister is the author of a new paper, "The Militarization of Prayer in America: White and Native American Spiritual Warfare" published Jan. 4 in the Journal of Religious and Political Practice. In the article, McAlister examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. She focuses on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals…

Kauanui Presents “Politics of Occupy Wall Street” Research in Qatar

Slotkin Writes About History of Integration in the U.S. Military

McAlister Writes Op-Ed on ‘Demystifying Vodou’

Asian American Culture, Race Discussed at Roundtable

Dakota Access Pipeline, Global Healing to be Discussed at Oct. 7 Talks

Anarchist Histories and Activism Presentations Oct. 1

Tang Authors Book on Asian American Literature after Multiculturalism

7 Faculty Promoted, 4 Awarded Tenure

Wesleyan Class Studies ‘Lost Tribe’ of Lower Connecticut River

Inequality, Concept of Race Topics of American Studies Lecture

Pfister Authors Book on Literary Surveyors

McAlister Authors New Paper on the Militarization of Prayer in America