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Thursday, October 8, 2026

Spring 2027 Schedule of Classes is live!
Undergraduate Courses // Graduate Courses

1840 - Hawaii adopts its first constitution, granting all Hawaiian citizens equal rights.

1956 - New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches the first no-hitter game in Major League Baseball World Series history.

1998 - US House of Representatives votes to begin impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton

2013 - “I Am Malala”, a memoir by Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, is published.

Democratic nominee for DC mayor calls on GW to bargain in good faith with graduate student union.
GW Hatchet.

Canadian Poet Anne Carson Is Awarded Nobel Prize
in Literature.
The New York Times.

Isaias becomes first Atlantic hurricane of the season. These areas are most at risk.
The Washington Post.

Image courtesy of Colin Anderson

This newsletter edition we spotlight Colin Anderson, a GW American Studies PhD alumnus and current Assistant Professor of History and Law at the University of Tampa. 

Anderson’s upcoming book, Culture and Containment: Race, Geographic Mobility and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (UNC Press), grew out of his Ph.D. research at GW and examines the deep historical links between race, geographic mobility, and popular culture during the transformative period historians call “Greater Reconstruction,” 1845–1900. His work looks at representations of white Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans in an array of popular cultural productions, including sheet music, lithographic prints, Wild West shows, and plantation re-enactments. The book shows that white cultural producers normalized fears of non- white movement by depicting Black and Native mobility as destabilizing.

In doing so, such imagery justified the rise of the Indian reservation and Jim Crow segregation, two systems designed to confine Native and Black communities. Using a trans-regional framework spanning the North, South, and West, Culture and Containment places these histories side by side, revealing the story of a modern, white-supremacist, industrial nation built on racial segregation. However, the book also shows that popular culture was a contested space. Black and Native performers, writers, and activists used the same platforms to assert agency, resist confinement, and challenge dominant narratives of mobility.

Anderson has published articles in the Journal of Urban History, and the Journal of Southern History. He is currently scheduled to speak on the Omohundro Institute-sponsored panel “Indigenous Mobility and Sovereignty: New Scholarship and New Approaches” at the Organization of American Historians’ annual conference in the spring of 2027.

Currently, Anderson is the director of the Law, Justice, and Advocacy Minor at the University of Tampa. His research and teaching interests include the history of race, urban history, the history of popular culture, the historical relationship between race and geographic mobility, and the development of racial segregation. Anderson’s book, Culture and Containment, will be published on October 27th with UNC Press!

Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the 20th Century Persian Gulf
Institute for Middle East Studies

"Comrades Estranged" reframes the history of labor activism, citizenship, and decolonization in Persian Gulf by centering the history of social movements—especially organized labor. Alex Boodrookas traces how workers and their allies shaped the world-historic transformations witnessed across the region: the consolidation of British sovereignty, formation of autocratic states, inrush of hydrocarbon wealth, onset of decolonization, and rise of both mass migration and mass politics. But unions failed to incorporate noncitizens into their movement, and as Boodrookas argues, this fatally undermined the movements' strength. The contradictions of nationalist and internationalist visions proved insurmountable. "Comrades Estranged" thus sheds light on both the power, and the limits, of citizenship and the nation-state as the framework for political action.

When: Thursday, October 15, 2026; 2:00 PM
Where: ESIA, 1957 E St NW, Room 505 & Online

RSVP here!

Current PhD student Lins Derry was invited to present their paper, "The Data Twist: Co-designing a Survey for Public Performance", at the IEEE VISAP 2026 conference. This year the conference will be hosted at MIT!

Alum Colin Anderson (PhD ‘22) will publish their recent monograph, Culture and Containment: Race, Geographic Mobility, and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, on October 27 with UNC Press!

GW AMST Faculty and Graduate Students recently gathered to ring in a new academic year!!

Call for Applications: The Office of Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander is seeking applications for the upcoming Spring 2027 internship season. Click here to learn more // Deadline: rolling basis.

Call for Applications: The Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is seeking a Publications Coordinator to serve primarily as the managing editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review. Click here to learn more // Deadline: until filled.

Call for Applications: The International Association for the Study of Popular Music is offering financial support of up to $2,500 for events that promote wider engagement with current research on popular music, broadly conceived. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 15, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Curran Fellowships are currently accepting applications. These are travel and research grants intended to aid scholars studying British magazines and newspapers. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 15, 2026.

Call for Papers: The Post45 Graduate Symposium seeks graduate-level works-in-progress related to post-1945 media, arts, literature, textual or visual objects, digital platforms, politics, and culture. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 25, 2026.

Call for Papers: PopCon invites proposals around Reflections: Looking Back, Listening Again, Writing about Music and the histories/futures of writing, criticism, journalism, scholarship and storytelling about popular music. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 1, 2026.

Call for Papers: The Rutgers Art Review is currently accepting graduate-level papers and digital projects for their next volume. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 6, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum is accepting applications for our Spring 2027 Internships. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 9, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) invites applications for its annual Spring Academy on American Culture, Economics, Geography, History, Literature, Politics, and Religion to be held from April 5-9, 2027. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 15, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research is open to those who study under-researched women photographers internationally, past and present, and under-researched Western American photographers through the Great Depression. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 15, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Newberry Library is currently accepting applications for both their short-term and long-term fellowships. Click here to learn more // Deadline: varies

Need Support?

Like what you see? Have spotlights, kudos, events, or opportunities that you would like to share? We want to hear from you! Navigate to our feedback form using the link below, or more simply, forward your tip to amst@gwu.edu.