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Thursday, September 24, 2026

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1957 - Elvis Presley’s single "Jailhouse Rock" is released.

2007 - "The Big Bang Theory” starring Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, and Kaley Cuoco, premieres on CBS.

2015 - Pope Francis becomes the first pope to address the US Congress.

White House Still Bars CNN, MS NOW and Politico Despite Court Ruling.
The New York Times.

The 2026 Fall Arts Guide: A Thousand Ways to Escape.
Washington City Paper.

Musician Solange Knowles to debut her first public large-scale sculpture.
Artsy.

Image courtesy of Chad Heap

In this newsletter edition we spotlight Associate Professor Chad Heap! Professor Heap has recently returned to the department after serving seven years as CCAS’s associate dean for graduate studies. In his writing and teaching, Professor Heap focuses on the changing sexual norms of the nation; the insights that the study of sexuality can provide into American culture and politics; and the role that urban culture and space have played in shaping Americans’ understanding of sexual practices, identities, and communities. He teaches courses that examine the history of sexuality in the United States from the colonial era to the present; the ways that gender and sexuality have shaped American citizenship since the Second World War; and the insights that Washington sex scandals provide into a number of broader historical transformations in American culture and politics.

Professor Heap is the author of Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 2009), which shows how this distinctive cultural practice transformed the popular conceptualization of racial and sexual difference in turn-of-the-century New York and Chicago. He argues that slumming not only created spaces where affluent whites could cross preconceived racial and sexual boundaries but also contributed significantly to the emergence and codification of a new twentieth-century hegemonic social order—one that was structured primarily around an increasingly polarized white/black racial axis and a hetero/homo sexual binary that were defined in reciprocal relationship to one another. Heap’s current research focuses on family secrets and forgotten pasts, using his own genealogical discoveries to explore how the family histories that Americans have chosen to forget not only provide insight into the nation’s changing social and sexual mores but also help to shore up particular histories of the nation’s founding and definitions of American belonging.

Professor Heap was recently featured in a GW Hatchet article highlighting his Fall 2026 Dean Seminar course entitled “Washington Sex Scandals.” In the article, Professor Heap notes, “the main point of the course is to examine how the scandals students are learning about reflect what society considered scandalous at a point in time and how the definition of scandal has changed to become more normalized in the modern day…students will also work to examine other facets of American culture that sex scandals influenced, including how political ideology is shaped and how the media relayed information to the public at different times throughout history.”

Your Chatbot Loves You! Companion AI,
Affective Extraction and the Attachment Economy
GW English, American Studies, & WGSS

When: Thursday, September 24; 5:00–6:30 pm
Where: Duques Hall, Room 151

BARBARA FOREVER
Film Screening

Pioneering queer avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939–2019) broke barriers by centering frank lesbian sexuality and pleasure in an expansive body of beautiful, poetic, personal work. In BARBARA FOREVER—constructed largely from Hammer’s own archive spanning five decades, alongside audio diaries and present-day conversations with her longtime partner, Florrie Burke—director Brydie O’Connor crafts a loving portrait of a force of nature while accompanying her through her final years and creative processes.

When: Friday, September 25 - Thursday, October 1
Where: AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center

Tickets available here!

Prof. Libby Anker recently co-edited a book with Duke University Press titled Melodrama as Provocateur, published this summer.

Alum Zoe Singleton (BA ’26) was selected to join GW’s 2026-27 Presidential Fellowship cohort!

Prof. Chad Heap was recently featured in the GW Hatchet, highlighting his Dean Seminar course “Washington Sex Scandals.”

Major congratulations to three of our current PhD students—Vit Bitencourt, Clara Nam-Lee, and Jonah Fox—who recently passed their comprehensive examinations!

Call for Papers: The editorial team for New Errands: An Undergraduate Journal of American Studies is seeking papers to publish in its next issue for Fall 2026. 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 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.

Need Support?

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