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Thursday, September 11, 2025

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1789 - Alexander Hamilton is appointed as the first Secretary of the US Treasury. 

1916 - The first true self-service supermarket “Piggly Wiggly” opens in Memphis, Tennessee.

1967 - “The Carol Burnett Show” premieres on CBS-TV in the US, the show would run for 11 years.

1970 - American rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix gives his last interview with NME’s Keith Allston, in England.

1977 - The Atari 2600 is released in North America.

GW’s Skateboarding Club brings frontsiding, filmmaking to campus. GW Hatchet.

Lou Chibbaro Reflects on 50 Years of Reporting on Gay Life in D.C. Washington City Paper.

How a Group of Students in the Pacific Islands Reshaped Global Climate Law. The New York Times.

Image credit: Ethan Lazenby

This newsletter edition we spotlight Ethan Lazenby, a second-year MA student in American Studies! Ethan previously received a BA in Individualized Study from NYU’s Gallatin School in 2023, where he studied the cultural aesthetics and notions of race in American history.

Ethan’s current research is focused on the politics of racialized sound—specifically how colorblindness plays out not only in what we see, but also in what we hear. His work investigates “sonic colorblindness” through a case that shook the nation: State of Florida v. Michael Dunn. In 2012, Dunn, a white man, opened fire on a car of four unarmed Black teenagers in Jacksonville, Florida, following an argument over the loudness of rap music being played. Dunn killed seventeen-year-old Jordan Davis. During the 2014 trial, Dunn’s defense leaned on racially coded language, avoiding explicit references to race while portraying Davis as inherently threatening.

This case embodies Ethan’s research by showing how sound, particularly rap music, becomes racialized and weaponized. He focuses on how the trial centered not just on actions, but on noise: the bass-heavy, low-frequency sounds common to many sub-genres of rap were framed as aggressive, criminal, and dangerous. The defense’s narrative hinged on the idea that music itself posed a threat, without explicitly stating so. Ethan’s studies are inspired by scholars Jennifer Stoever and Nina Eidsheim, who contend that race, while often perceived as a visual category, is deeply intertwined with sound. His work contributes to this growing field by showing how sonic aesthetics, particularly in hip-hop, are policed, mischaracterized, and criminalized in ways that uphold systemic racism.

Outside of his academic work, Ethan has conducted research on the history of WRGW, GW’s college radio station. His archival project, conducted for the American Studies Department in the Spring of 2025, culminated in a public panel event during WRGW’s alumni weekend and an online exhibit on the station’s origins dating back to the 1930s. This academic year, Ethan is working as the Vanessa Gamble University Professor Fellow, where he provides instructional support for Professor Vanessa Gamble’s courses on the history of race and American medicine. In his free time, Ethan enjoys mountain biking, spending time in the woods or with friends, and relaxing with his new fiancé, Kelly Arce.

Nerd from the Future Podcast!

Alum Ramzi Fawaz (PhD '12) is debuting a new podcast! 
Nerd from the Future is explicitly intended for both non-academic and scholarly audiences. It aims to make the university and its intellectual gifts available to everyone, hence the tagline: It's time the university came to you. New weekly episodes will be available for listeners starting Monday, September 8, with bitesize supplements on following Wednesdays. 

The first episode is now available and features our very own Prof. Melani McAlister! Take a listen here!

Trouble in Paradise: Art historian Alan Wallach in conversation with Robin Veder

Visiting Artists & Scholars Committee
Corcoran Art History

In his new book, Trouble in Paradise, Alan Wallach brings together 24 essays on the social history of American art. Throughout the book, Wallach employs a materialist approach to argue against traditional scholarship that considered American art and art institutions in isolation from their social, historical, and ideological contexts.

Alan Wallach is the Ralph H. Wark Professor Emeritus and Professor of American Studies at the College of William and Mary. He is currently a Professorial Lecturer at GW. Robin Veder is the editor of the scholarly journal, American Art.

When: Thursday, September 18, 2025; 6:15 PM
Where: Smith Hall of Art, Room 114

Click here to RSVP.

Prof. Gayle Wald presented work at the University of Tulsa's "World of Bob Dylan" conference, where Woody Guthrie's granddaughter shared home movies of mother and grandfather, and where she saw newly refurbished video of Dylan's infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance, in its entirety.

Current PhD candidate Mora McLean presented for the first time at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) in Alexandria, Virginia. Her presentation titled “K-12 African Studies: Challenging What it Meant to ‘Know About Africa’ and Why it Mattered, circa 1969-1977” was part of a panel on “Transnational Activism and the Meaning, Politics, and Power of Knowledge.” The panel featured preeminent scholars, among them: Penny Von Eschen (UVA) as chair; Jeannette Eileen Jones (U Nebraska) as discussant; and Megan Black (MIT), an American Studies alumna, as a presenter.

Alum Thomas S. Dolan (PhD ‘21) is continuing work on an institutional history of the Armenian General Benevolent Union and his own monograph. He has also started working as a consultant with Los Angeles County's Anti-Racism, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative for whom he's writing data and demography equity policies for the county. Later this fall, he'll be emceeing the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research Gala on October 4th.

Alum Amber Wiley (PhD ‘11) was featured in an interview on The Society of Architectural Historians website.

Call for Applications: The Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies is currently hiring two graduate student positions to support the exhibition, care, and interpretation of the Washingtoniana collection. Click here and here to learn more // Deadline: rolling basis.

Call for Papers: NeMLA is currently accepting individual papers for their upcoming 2026 annual conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Sept. 30, 2025.

Call for Papers: Rutgers Art Review invites all current graduate students, as well as professionals who have completed their graduate degrees within the past year, to submit papers for its 43rd edition. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Sept. 30, 2025.

Call for Applications: The Department of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton is searching for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of American Studies with a specialty in the interdisciplinary study of the body. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 1, 2025.

Call for Applications: ACLS invites applications for Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships, which provide a year of support for doctoral students preparing to embark on innovative dissertation research projects in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 29, 2025.

Call for Papers: The LGBTQ+ History Association is currently seeking papers for its fourth conference, the Queer/Trans History Conference* 2026 (#QTHC26), to be held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from June 2 to 5, 2026. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 1, 2025.

Call for Applications: The Newcombe Foundation is accepting applications for the Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, which supports doctoral candidates in their final year of writing, who are working in areas of religion, ethics, values, or morals. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 1, 2025.

Call for Applications: CASVA is currently seeking applications for predoctoral dissertation fellowships that support graduate research in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 15, 2025.

Call for Applications: The American Council of Learned Societies invites applications for the 2025 competition of the ACLS Digital Justice Grants Program. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 20, 2025.

Call for Papers: Critical Ethnic Studies is currently accepting submissions for a special issue devoted to the transnational exploration of caste domination and anti-caste social movements and theories, with emphasis on the interrelation of caste and race in the history and geography of empire. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 2, 2026.

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