Genus Americanus: Hitting the Road in Search of America's Identity, a conversation with Loren Ghiglione, PhD '76, and Justin Mann, PhD '18
Location
Online
Event Description
Join us in conversation with author Loren Ghiglione, PhD '76, moderated by Justin Mann, PhD '18, as they discuss Dr. Ghiglione's recently published book: Genus Americanus: Hitting the Road in Search of America's Identity. Dr. Ghiglione and Dr. Mann will explore themes found throughout the book such as changes in American "identity," the search for roots and the embrace of fault lines beyond race.
In Genus Americanus, Dr. Ghiglione and two of his Northwestern journalism students, climb into a minivan and embark on a three-month, twenty-eight state, 14,063-mile road trip in search of America's identity, interviewing 150 Americans about contemporary identity issues. Their interviews focused on issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status. What they learned along the way paints an engaging portrait of the country during a crucial moment of ideological and political upheaval.
A native of New York, Dr. Loren Ghiglione graduated from Haverford College in 1963 and Yale University in 1966 with a Law degree and a Master’s in Urban Studies. He went to DC as a congressional fellow, took a job at the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1967, and went on to earn his PhD in American Studies from GW in 1976. Dr. Ghiglione purchased Massachusetts' Southbridge Evening News in 1969, ran the paper for 26 years, and served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors from 1989 to 1990. During a second career in journalism education from 1995 to 2017, Dr. Ghiglione led the journalism programs at Emory University, University of Southern California, and Northwestern University. An Emeritus Professor, Dr. Ghiglione is the author or editor of nine books and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Justin L. Mann is an assistant professor of English and African American Studies at Northwestern University. His manuscript-in-progress, “Breaking the World: Blackness and Insecurity in the New World Order” argues that black speculative fiction is an essential but overlooked archive for understanding security policy since the Reagan Administration. Dr. Mann argues that the worldbreaking work black SF authors including Octavia Butler, Walter Mosley, Colson Whitehead, and N.K. Jemisin imagine in their writing offers key insights to imagining black insecurity in the contemporary moment. His work has appeared in Feminist Studies, Feminist Theory, and Surveillance & Society and is forthcoming from MELLUS. Dr. Mann received his BA from Northwestern University in 2007 and his PhD in American Studies from GW in 2018.
This event is free and open to everyone in the GW community. Please register your attendance in advance.