2108 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20052

Thursday, September 25, 2025

1237 - Treaty of York is signed between Kings Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland, establishing a boundary between the two countries.

1789 - US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights.

1867 - Congress creates 1st all-black university, Howard University in Washington, D.C.

1926 - Henry Ford announces an eight-hour, five-day workweek for workers at Ford Motor Company, establishing the 40-hour workweek.

1979 - Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical “Evita” starring Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin opens at Broadway Theater, NYC and runs for 1568 performances.

1981 - Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first female US Supreme Court Justice.

Staff hope new provost will boost morale, bridge divides with faculty. GW Hatchet.

How to Make an Art Scene: Alex Goldstein Is Getting the Fridge Up and Running. Washington City Paper.

15 must-watch movies, 7 bingeable shows and more works of art that define D.C. The Washington Post.

The best fall festivals and pumpkin patches in the D.C. area. The Washington Post.

Image credit: Liz Foshe

This newsletter edition we spotlight Liz Foshe! Liz is a PhD candidate in American Studies at GW. A first-generation college graduate, she earned dual bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Philosophy from Virginia Commonwealth University (2019) and a Master’s in Women’s Studies from the University of Alabama (2022). Her master’s thesis examined the portrayal of monstrosity in film, focusing on how racialized and gendered subjects in monster cinema are depicted both as victims and perpetrators of violence. This work explored how these cinematic portrayals articulate complex questions about the nature of violence, who is empowered to enact it, and the social meanings attached to it.

Liz’s current research centers on cultural memory in the American South, with a focus on how collective memory regulates social boundaries within segregated communities. She investigates how memory functions not only to maintain and enforce physical and material segregation but also to challenge these entrenched conditions.

Her dissertation research involves fieldwork in the Laney-Walker district, a historically Black neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia, affectionately known as "The Golden Blocks." Once a vibrant Black business district during the Jim Crow era, Laney-Walker today presents empty streets and vacant buildings—reflecting a broader pattern of decline among many once-thriving Black business communities in the segregated South.

Titled “Remembering the Lenox Theater,” Liz’s dissertation draws on oral histories and local narratives to recover the legacy of the Lenox Theater, the cultural heart of the district’s business and social life. Although the theater was demolished in the early 1970s, its absence symbolizes a profound loss for the community. By documenting how local memories preserve, transform, or overlook this history, Liz aims to show how collective remembrance shapes both social possibilities and material realities. Her work asks not only how this once “golden” block lost its shine, but also how the ongoing vacancy and decay of these historic spaces continue to influence racial politics in contemporary Augusta.

Beyond her academic pursuits, Liz enjoys crocheting, playing The Sims 3, and hiking with her fiancé in the Shenandoah Mountains. She is eagerly anticipating her wedding in March 2026.

GW Philosophy Department 2025 Sophia Lecture
The Monstrous Genealogy of Blackness
Professor Nicholas Whittaker

In this talk, Prof. Whittaker proposes monsterization as a conceptual framework for historicizing and phenomenologizing blackness. To monsterize is to experience (or prepare the conditions of possibility for experiencing) a thing as ontologically liminal and, as a result, threateningly incomprehensible. A philosophy of blackness structured around monsterization must consider not merely black objects, but the diffuse atmosphere of a black world; this allows us to recognize ways in which monstrous blackness can be deployed underneath ostensibly race-blind or pro-black images and phenomenologies.

When: Friday, Oct. 3, 2025; 4:00 PM
Where: Duques Hall, Room 359

DC History Center and Charles Sumner School
Class Action Reads! Model Schools in the Model City
Professor Amber N. Wiley

Join the DC History Center and Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives for a book talk about the history of Black public education and school architecture in the nation’s capital.

Education is essential for social equality, and Black Washingtonians recognize that for the American Dream to apply to them, their children need a quality education. In Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital, author Amber N. Wiley (PhD '11) explains how DC school buildings became a physical realization of Black liberation, agency, and their right to exist as citizens of the United States.

Event is free and open to the public.
Registration is highly recommended.

When: Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025; 6:00 PM
Where: DC History Center (801 K Street NW)

Register here!

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!

Current PhD candidate Mora McLean will present a paper at the forthcoming ASA Conference in San Juan, PR titled “Battered Paradise: The Progressive Destruction of St. Thomas Harbor, St. Thomas, USVI under Danish and American rule, 1841–1931,” as part of a panel on "Rationalizing Tourism: Neoliberalism, Neocolonialism, and Self-Care Culture."

Alum Amber Wiley (PhD ‘11) received positive reviews from The Architect’s Newspaper for her most recent monograph, Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital (University of Pitt Press, 2025).

Prof. Emeritus Richard Longstreth was quoted by The New York Times in the article “Experts Raise Concerns Over Trump’s White House Ballroom Renovation Plans.”

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: The Curran Fellowships are travel and research grants intended to aid scholars studying British magazines and newspapers from the long nineteenth century in making use of primary print and archival sources. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Oct. 15, 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: The Spring Academy on American History, Culture & Politics is an annual, one-week interdisciplinary conference for PhD candidates at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA). Click here to learn more // Deadline: Nov. 15, 2025.

Call for Applications: The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research is currently accepting applications. 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.

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.