Duclos-Orsello, E.A., Entin, J.B., Hill, R.N., Ferguson, R.A., & Chuh, K. (Eds.). (2021). Teaching American Studies: The State of the Classroom as State of the Field. University Press of Kansas.
Duclos-Orsello, E.A., Anderson, K., Lefker, J., & Ubiera-Minaya, R. (2021). Ruined for life: service-learning & taking American studies scholarship seriously in an American studies intro course. Teaching American Studies: State of the Classroom as State of the Field (pp. 262–287). University Press of Kansas.
Abstract
“What if American Studies is defined not so much in the pages of the most cutting-edge publications, but through what happens in our classrooms and other learning spaces?” In Teaching American Studies Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello, Joseph Entin, and Rebecca Hill ask a diverse group of American Studies educators to respond to that question by writing chapters about teaching that use a classroom activity or a particular course to reflect on the state of the field of American Studies.
Teaching American Studies speaks to teachers with a wide range of relationships to the field. To start, it is a useful how-to guide for faculty who might be new to, or unfamiliar with, American Studies. Each author brings the reader into their classes to offer specific, concrete details about their pedagogical practice, and their students’ learning. The resulting chapters connect theory and educational action as well as share challenges, difficulties, and lessons learned. The volume also provides a collective impression of American Studies from the point of view of students and teachers. What primary and secondary texts and what theoretical challenges and issues do faculty use to organize their teaching? How does the teaching we do respond to our institutional and educational contexts? How do our experiences and those of our students challenge or change our understanding of American Studies? Chapters in this collection discuss teaching a broad range of materials, from memoirs and novels by Anne Moody and Octavia Butler to cutting-edge cultural theory, to the widely used collection Keywords for American Cultural Studies.
But the chapters in this collection are also about dancing, eating, and walking around a campus to view statues and gravestones. They are about teaching during the era of Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, and giving up authority in the classroom.
Teaching American Studies is both a new way to think about American Studies and a timely collection of effective ways to teach about race, gender, sexuality, and power in a moment of political polarization and intense public scrutiny of universities.
Baumgartner, K., & Duclos-Orsello, E. (2021). African Americans in Essex County, Massachusetts: An annotated guide. National Park Service. Philadelphia, PA. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/african-americans-in-essex-county.htm
Introduction
The rich history of Black people, cultures, and communities in Essex County, Massachusetts, runs deep. This history is embedded in the cultural landscape, from cemeteries like the one at South Church in Andover where Pompey Lovejoy rests to renamed memorial parks such as Remond Park in Salem. Some Essex County residents, archivists, historians, and scholars alike have been working to unearth this history and recover fascinating stories in order to provide a fuller account of the county’s past and present. In a span of nearly four hundred years, Black people have shaped and been shaped by Essex County, which this report highlights.
However, real challenges, including the systemic marginalization of Black people, historically and now, have thwarted the efforts of even the most enterprising and well-trained archivists and historians because much of this history is hidden, scattered, or misplaced, sometimes surfacing at a local public exhibition or an academic talk, but not often beyond that. For those wanting to explore and learn more, frustration begets disappointment while trying to hunt down leads. What kinds of material does a repository in Marblehead have? What is in the collections at Lawrence History Center? Are there connections among these repositories in Essex County? These are some of the questions that this report has begun to answer.