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Thursday, March 6, 2025

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1808 - The first college orchestra in the US is founded at Harvard University.

1865 - President Lincoln is inaugurated for the second time.

1933 - Eleanor Roosevelt becomes the 1st First Lady to hold an official press conference in the White House.

1957 - Ghana becomes first African country to gain independence from colonial rule.

The Forgotten Artisan Behind Frank Lloyd Wright. Hyperallergic.

Roy Ayers, Vibraphonist Who Injected Soul Into Jazz,
Dies at 84. The New York Times.

The Go-Go Museum and Cafe Keeps the Beat.
Washington City Paper.

Photo credit: Macayne Bock

This newsletter edition we spotlight current MA student Macayne Bock! Bock’s current research explores the media's framing of China as a threat to world peace and American globalism, using the influential American cartoonist Herbert Block (commonly known as Herblock) as a case study. Block's work covered various international and domestic topics, but Bock is particularly interested in Block's depiction of countries believed to be proliferating weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), especially China.

Block's cartoons often portrayed Mao Zedong as a malevolent entity threatening global security, reflecting the cartoonist's fears about the proliferation of WMDs and their impact on international relations. The introduction of WMDs revolutionized the rules of international relations and domestic security, and Block's cartoons were a response to the stress and fear these weapons instilled in the public.

Bock's research draws on Benedict Anderson's concept of "Imagined Communities" to analyze Block's influence on the American public. Anderson argues that mass media syndicates can foster nationalism by creating ideological communities among patrons who never directly interact. Bock posits that these communities, formed through Block's cartoons, may be similar to those driving contemporary conservative movements in America. The influence that Block held over the American public is a prime example of how the media can shape public opinion and contribute to the formation of nationalistic movements.

By exploring the historical roots of China's portrayal in American media, Bock's work offers insights into the formation of ideological communities and their impact on contemporary political movements. This research contributes to our understanding of how media framing influences public perception and shapes international relations, providing a unique perspective on the power of visual media in shaping public discourse and international perceptions, particularly in the context of US-China relations.

On The Promise of Beauty
Prof. Mimi Thi Nguyen
2025 Mergen-Palmer Distinguised Lecture

The historical present is often perceived through the presence or absence of beauty, such that distinct personal, social, and political projects unfold through disputes about the beauty we deserve – which is to say, the life worth living. How might affective and aesthetic responses to scarcity, precarity, and uncertainty, drawn from the crises of war and colonial and capital dispossession, help us to understand the promise of beauty as a world-building engagement? This lecture considers how the promise of beauty is so usable across a spectrum of political claims, whether imperial or insurgent, and how these claims delineate what forms of life are valuable, and for whom. 

Mimi Thi Nguyen is Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author The Gift of Freedom and The Promise of Beauty.

When: Tuesday, April 15, 2025; 4:00 PM EST
Where: Corcoran Hall, 725 21st NW, Room 204

Register here!

America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom
The 74th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

Cultural historian, architectural designer, and curator Mabel O. Wilson addresses the history of slavery and dispossession in US civic architecture in this four-part series. Over four lectures, Wilson presents key themes and examines buildings, works of art, and other historical documents through the interplay of race and the construction of national identity. She brings together historical research on the United States’ early civic architecture, including Richmond’s Virginia State Capitol, the White House, and the design of Washington, DC. Her talks explore the complex dichotomy between the founding ideals of these institutions and the reality of their construction.

When: March 9-30, 2025; 2:00 PM EST
Where: NGA East Building Auditorium & Zoom

Register here!

The Inner Life of Race
Book Talk with Professor Leerom Medovoi
GW American Studies & GW English

Calling into question accounts of race as a politics of embodiment, this talk approaches race instead as a biopolitics of populational threat that relies on a longstanding dialectic of body and soul. While the body can be seen and marked, the soul signals potentially threatening interiorities: dangerous intentions, beliefs, or desires. This talk approaches race as the power-effect of reading and securing the body in order to police the political threat of inner life. In this talk Medovoi sketches a genealogy of racial securitization that begins with medieval deployments of inquisition and confession to wage war against heretics, infidels, and their threat to the salvation of souls. The talk will weave together the histories of color-line racism, nativism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anticommunism into a general account of populational racism that sheds light on the flexible targeting of populations we face in an era of strengthening far-right populism.

When: Thursday, March 20, 2025; 4:00 PM EST
Where: Hall of Government, 700 21st St NW, Room 104

Register here!

Writing Climate Symposium
Georgetown University

Hosted by the Lannan Center, the Earth Commons, Climate Rights International, and Georgetown Humanities Initiative, the symposium will explore the intersection of literature, science, and activism around climate change. Each of the three nights will center around a theme at the junction of climate and literature. The first night’s theme will be “Earth/Land,” the second “Climate Action,” and the third “The Future.”

When: March 25-27, 2025
Where: Georgetown University

Register here!

“Seeing, Sensing, Feeling: Representing Puta Life”
Juana María Rodríguez
GW English Department

Drawing on the publication of her recent book, Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (Duke UP, 2023), this talk explores how different genres of representation–from graphic narratives and oral histories to documentary films and social-media selfies–shape the life stories we consume. As a rumination on the limits and possibilities of representation, it probes the queer things that words do to images and that images do to words in order to confront the ethical quandaries posed by our role as authors and academics in representing the sexual lives of others.

When: Wednesday, March 26, 2025; 3:00 PM EST
Where: Myers Room, GW/Textile Museum, 701 21st NW

Ordinary Cruelty: Explaining Misogyny without Dehumanization
Professor Kate Manne, Cornell University
GW Philosophy Department

Just as we can ask what happens within history or indeed philosophy when we center women’s voices, we can ask what would happen within moral psychology when we center women’s predicaments. What would happen, in other words, if we regarded misogyny not as a marginal phenomenon but placed it firmly at the center of our understanding of how people can and do mistreat one another? In this lecture, Manne shows that interpersonal cruelty can often be explained in ordinary moral terms in conjunction with facts about social hierarchy.

When: Thursday, March 27, 2025; 4:00 PM EST
Where: 1957 E Street NW, Room 212

GW WGSS Yulee Lecture
Professors Lisa Guenther & E. Ornelas

Join the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) community for the annual Yulee Lecture. Professor Guenther will share her research on "Unsettling Perception: A Critical Phenomenology of Settler Colonial Body Schemas." Colonial power shapes the everyday lives of settlers in ways we often overlook. It structures our habits of thought and perception, our desires and fears, our knowledge and ignorance. How do we disrupt these colonial structures, such that they no longer function as common sense but become legible as harmful patterns that remain open to transformation? Professor Ornelas will share their research on “Speculative Fiction, Abolition, and the Limits of the Settler Colonial Imaginary" and discuss the presumed impossibility of abolition and what that says about the constraints around imagining otherwise.

When: Monday, March 31, 2025; 3:00 PM EST
Where: University Student Center, Room 310

Register here!

Book Talk & Launch:
This Is Rhythm w/ Prof. Gayle Wald
Politics & Prose

Based on dozens of interviews and access to Ella Jenkins's personal archives, Gayle F. Wald's This Is Rhythm shares how Jenkins, a "rhythm specialist" with no formal musical training, became the most prolific and significant American children's musician of the twentieth century, creating a beloved catalog of songs grounded in values of community-building, antiracism, and cultural pluralism. Wald traces how the daughter of southern migrants translated the music of her own Black girlhood on the South Side of Chicago into a form of civil rights activism--a musical education that empowered children by introducing them to Black history, African diasporic rhythms, and a participatory, community-centered approach to music. Prof. Wald will be in conversation with NPR Morning Edition host Michel Martin at Politics and Prose.

When: Sunday, April 27, 2025; 5:00 PM EST
Where: 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, DC 20008

Current PhD candidate Matthew Riemer is the recipient of the 2024-25 Philip Amsterdam Graduate Teaching Award! Matthew will receive his flowers at an awards ceremony later this spring. This is a university-wide award and a notable testament to Matthew's dedication in the classroom.

Current PhD candidate Aryn Kelly is the recipient of the 2025 Virgil Thomson Fellowship from the Society for American Music. Aryn will receive the award at the SAM conference next month in Tacoma, Washington. The award recognizes the excellence of Aryn's dissertation entitled Lindy Hop as a Contested Site of Memory and Signification.

Call for Papers: The Bowdoin Journal of Cinema is currently accepting papers for their May Issue. Open to undergraduates only, it is one of the only undergraduate publications to feature work in cinema studies. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 10, 2025

Call for Applications: The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is now accepting fellowship applications. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 12, 2025

Call for Proposals: ASAP/16 is currently accepting proposals for their 2025 conference, which will be held in Houston, TX. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 28, 2025

Call for Applications: The U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music is pleased to offer financial support of up to $2,500 for graduate student-led events that promote wider engagement with current research on popular music, broadly conceived. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Apr. 15, 2025

Call for Applications: The Whiting Foundation is seeking applications to support writers working on a book-length work of deeply researched and imaginatively composed nonfiction for a general adult readership. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Apr. 23, 2025

Call for Submissions: GW's University Writing Program is currently accepting submissions for The Julian Clement Chase Prize for Research Writing on the District of Columbia. Click here to learn more// Deadline: May 15, 2025

Call for Participants: GW's Nashman Center invites individuals to attend their upcoming UpStart Workshop series. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Rolling

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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.