New interdisciplinary Ph.D. explores many facets of America
“Isn’t it great that in the very first year we attracted students from such a variety of backgrounds and with such different interests?”
–Joy Kasson
What does “American” mean?
Answering that question is a nuanced and expansive task for scholars in American studies.
“People think they know what it means when we talk about America, but there are hundreds of different definitions and perspectives,” explains associate professor Patricia Sawin, director of graduate studies in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With the creation of a Ph.D. program in the department, a new generation of scholars will explore some of these meanings.
The program only recently welcomed the inaugural cohort of six doctoral students in the fall of 2013. The foundations of the new program, however, evolved over decades at Carolina.
The University already had a thriving interdisciplinary undergraduate American studies program with strong concentrations as well as a prestigious master’s program in folklore, says Joy Kasson. Kasson, a professor of American studies and English, was the former chair of the Department of American Studies and spearheaded the development of the new program.
“All the pieces were there,” says Bernard Herman, professor of American studies and current department chair.
During Kasson’s tenure as chair, the faculty began to “fill out the offerings” with graduate courses. “We all had a dream of a Ph.D. program,” she remembers. They took initial steps to fulfill that dream by hiring the faculty necessary and seeking support from the administration, which they received. In 2008, when the American studies and folklore programs merged to form the Department of American Studies, a committee continued the process.
“Early on, we discussed what the shape of a Ph.D. program in American studies at UNC would look like. What special qualities would it have? A really successful Ph.D. program would draw on the strengths of the University, broadly considered. We crafted our proposal to emphasize signature strengths,” explains Kasson.
Carolina’s strengths in the field were many. “The elements that make us stand apart are folklore, American Indian studies, Southern studies—they’re particularly distinctive. And the new digital humanities initiative is also at home in the department,” Herman says. “The program plays to the historic and established strengths and to a commitment for engaged scholarship and the kind of collaborative work that is really characteristic of Carolina.”
These strengths make the program especially attractive to certain scholars. “If someone wants to study, say, 19th century American literature and culture, UNC would be a great place. On the other hand, a scholar might also want to go to Yale or Harvard to study those things,” Sawin says. “But if someone wants to study the folk revival or changing perceptions of blues in the American South or the emergence of Lumbee identity or changes with the Eastern Band of Cherokee, this would be a much more logical place.”
In addition to emphasizing established strengths, the program focuses on preparing students for the next step, whether they choose to continue as college professors or work in the public sphere. Or perhaps both. “The end game for doctoral work used to be to teach in the academy. The field has changed dramatically and, I think, for the better. We’re now looking at something that is much more dynamic and much more hybridized—new configurations such as the curator-teacher or the policy analyst-teacher. We wanted to do something that would really recognize those shifts,” Herman continues.
The plan for the program garnered notable support from the Carolina community, both on campus and off. “There was a lot of enthusiasm and support for the new doctoral program from UNC-Chapel Hill. We also had some very farsighted donors who could see the benefits of the new degree we were proposing,” Kasson say. “It was important to have these different kinds of support.” Herman emphasizes that The Graduate School was a “powerful, supportive advocate” during the creation process.
And, of course, several other very important people were intrigued by the proposed program—applicants. The first year, the program received more than 40 applications for the five spots available. The acceptance rate was so positive that ultimately six students were taken rather than five, and all of the accepting students were among the admission committee’s top eight applicants. “It says a lot about the quality of a place that that could happen in the very first class,” Herman affirms.
While the second cohort of students has not been finalized yet, the program received nearly 70 applications.
The six doctoral students who began this fall each come with unique backgrounds and interests that make them special, Kasson says. The students themselves have become strengths of the program.
“We’ve got a very diverse group with different interests,” Kasson explains. “Yet the theory of this program is that people with different interests will stimulate each other and teach each other.”
The American studies Ph.D. students each answered a series of questions about their backgrounds and interests for the Carolina Chronicle.
Elijah Gaddis
Bachelor’s in English, North Carolina State University
Master’s in folklore, UNC Chapel Hill.
What are your areas of interest in the American studies program at Carolina?
My areas of interest, in the broadest sense, are in environmental, cultural and spatial histories, primarily in the American South. At UNC, that means that my coursework is in a broad range of disciplines including American studies, history, folklore, urban and regional planning, and geography.
Why did you choose to come to Carolina? What do you think about the new Ph.D. program so far?
I elected first to come to UNC for my master’s degree and then stay here for my doctorate in part because this is my home state, and I am deeply committed to the ideals of a public-facing research institution. As I was completing my master’s at UNC and applying both here and elsewhere, I felt that the faculty here was particularly committed to the idea of community both within the department and university and, crucially, outside of it. I also felt that this was a program that understood the challenges of humanistic doctoral education in a permanently changed economy and political climate. Rather than being a simple reaction to an unfavorable political climate, I felt like this was a program that was founded in a sincere belief of the usefulness of what we do and that the curriculum was designed for us to grow both personally and professionally. On a less idealistic level, I also wanted to study here because of the range of scholars that we have in the department. None of our faculty here does exactly what I do, but they all can speak to aspects of it and push me toward broadening my understanding beyond disciplinary arguments. To me, that was best represented by the fact that we have so many faculty members whose primary appointments are in American studies. The program so far has been great; I’m excited by the work that we get to do and the people that we have in the department, both students and faculty.
Tell me a bit about your research.
My own research is on the plantation landscape, both as a material object and cultural construct. I take an approach that is historical but interdisciplinary, paying attention to minor details of place that help constitute larger environments. My work is rooted in Eastern North Carolina, but it looks at the way the plantation landscape there was informed by larger systems of exchange.
Rachel Gelfand
Bachelor’s degree, Smith College
What are your areas of study in the American studies program at Carolina?
I’m interested in oral history, documentary studies, women’s studies, queer studies, memory studies and popular music.
Why did you choose to come to Carolina and be a part of this first class of Ph.D. students?
The Southern Oral History Program, as well as opportunities in documentary studies at Duke, drew me to Carolina. While UNC’s American studies Ph.D. program is new, the University already had strong programs in history, geography and communications. I think American studies often overlaps with these disciplines. I also have been a radio deejay, and I was excited to be in a space where there was music and popular culture scholarship going on. UNC was committed to my projects and my pursuit of scholarship.
So far, what’s your overall impression of the program?
There is a lot of support for our class and for the program. I have been impressed by the exciting new faculty hires. My early impressions are that it offers both flexibility and direction. The program is intended to helps us move through graduate study at a steady, but good, pace. I’m enjoying getting to know the American studies community, and I have found my cohort to be great!
Tell me a bit about your research.
So far I have begun two projects. Both are personal, use oral history method and make queer connections. First, I am continuing a memory studies and Jewish studies project that looks at a collection of drawings made in Terezin during the Holocaust that hang in my grandparents’ home. I study the history of the drawings themselves and the role they serve for my grandparents, who are survivors of Terezin. I also examine how they transmit memory to descendant generations. My second project is an experiment in oral history and archival method. I am working in collaboration with my close friend Vicki Gabriner. Gabriner is an integral member of the lesbian community in Boston that raised me. She was also a founding member of the Atlanta Lesbian/Feminist Alliance, or ALFA, in the 1970s. In our project, we go through the ALFA Archives together. We conduct both formal and informal oral histories. As a queer daughter of lesbian mothers, I am positioned between generations of queer experience, and I am interested in how these dialogues play out. This spring, Gabriner and I are presenting at different conferences on the same day on our collaboration. This current project will most likely contribute to my MA Capstone project.
Elijah Heyward, III
Bachelor’s in history, with a leadership studies minor, Hampton University
Master’s in religion, Yale Divinity School
What are your areas of interest in the American studies program at Carolina?
My research focuses on religion and education practices in the Gullah culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. UNC’s American studies program boasts a great faculty, access to amazing resources such as the Southern Folklife Collection at Wilson Library, and a collaborative spirit that encourages interdisciplinary exploration.
Why did you choose to come to UNC and be a part of this first class of Ph.D. students?
There were many factors that informed my decision to accept the department’s admissions offer. I fell in love with the town of Chapel Hill and the many positive attributes of the region. I was also excited to work with the Penn School Collection, which is housed at Wilson Library. Beyond that, UNC appeared to be a place where I could grow as a scholar with the support of an en, I gaged faculty and colleagues.
So far, what’s your overall impression of the program?
The program is a perfect fit. I admire and enjoy working with the members of my cohort. I am challenged and stimulated by the faculty, and I am excited by the proposed progression of the program in the years to come. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue a Ph.D. in American studies at UNC.
If possible, describe any research you have done so far or plan on doing (including your dissertation topic if you’ve decided upon one) while in the program.
The Penn School is located in my hometown. The school was started to educate formerly enslaved sea island inhabitants after the Union army captured Beaufort, S.C. What remains is a rich cultural legacy influenced by the Gullah culture and buttressed by religious practices, food ways, and material culture.
M.E. Lasseter
B.A., English Literature-Creative Writing, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA
M.A., Southern Studies, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
What are your areas of interest as you begin your study as a Ph.D. student?
I’m interested in the U.S. South (especially, but not limited to, the 20th century), hemispheric studies, popular music and popular culture, race, space, migrations, religion and belief, memory, and competing epistemologies. Among other things. You could probably sum this up as “ghosts.”
Why did you choose to come to UNC and be a part of the first class of American studies Ph.D. students?
If you’re going to study the South, there is no better place to do it. There’s a tradition of nearly a century of critical and progressive scholarship on the South here at UNC, and that’s even before you get to the holdings in the Wilson Library.
So far, what’s your overall impression of the program?
Delightful and ambitious. I’m very excited about working with such a great faculty. There’s a sense that everybody is here to get each other wherever they need and want to be, whatever that might entail. It’s very humane, and we’re glad to be able to expand our scholarly community.
Tell me a bit about your research.
I’ve applied for a summer research grant to do a little archival work and fieldwork. I’ll be looking for the presence of folklorists and blues researchers in the files of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which was effectively a domestic spying agency during the 1950s-1970s. There’s been a movement in recent blues scholarship to consider how outsiders have perhaps unduly influenced the blues as a genre and as a commodity; I want to see what we can learn from the interactions of those outsiders with a state agency that existed to preserve white supremacy.
I expect and hope that this will turn into a dissertation chapter. Right now my tentative list of topics to discuss in my dissertation includes Chicago musician Andrew Bird, David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas, John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and perhaps the work of John Darnielle, especially his album (under the name the Mountain Goats) Tallahassee. I’m interested in how each of these composers and authors create and navigate reckonings with memory, space and history, and how each of them brings that reckoning to the South, literally and imaginatively. Ghosts are also involved.
Josh Parshall
BA, American Studies, University of Kansas, 2006
MA, Folklore, UNC Chapel Hill, 2009
What is your areas of interest in the American studies program at UNC?
I am interested in American Jewish culture, specifically the culture and politics of Yiddish speaking immigrants in the early 20th century South.
Why did you choose to come to Carolina?
I attended UNC for my MA in folklore and knew that I would be able to work with some of the same people–particularly Marcie Cohen Ferris–while pursuing my Ph.D. I knew that I would receive good support from the faculty and that I would enjoy living in the area.
So far, what’s your overall impression of the program?
Our department is relatively small, both because we have small cohorts and because there is only one of them right now, and I enjoy that. I know everyone and have a sense of what it is that they do. The program has attracted great students who are also supportive colleagues, and the faculty has shown a lot of interest in our success.
Tell me about some of your research.
Before returning to UNC, I worked for several years as an oral historian at a non-profit based in Jackson, Miss. During that time, I became interested in a national Jewish fraternal organization, the Workmen’s Circle, which is usually thought of as thriving in industrialized northern cities. But it also had chapters all around the South from 1908 until well after World War II. The group interests me because it began as a labor-oriented and politically radical organization, but also supported Jewish causes and promoted Yiddish language and culture. I’ve conducted a number of oral history interviews with people who attended Workmen’s Circle Yiddish classes as children in the 1930s and 1940s, and I also work with archival materials on the group, some of which I have translated from Yiddish.
Mathew Swiatlowski
B.A. in English, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
M.A. in American Studies, University of Massachusetts-Boston
What is are your areas of study/interest in the American Studies program at UNC?
American recorded music & sound culture/20th century working class culture, labor history & social memory
Why did you choose to come to UNC and be a part of this first class of Ph.D. students?
Largely the Southern Folklife Collection holdings at the Wilson Library. I had made great use of the archive while researching & writing my MA thesis at UMass-Boston on reissue record labels and the production of cultural memory for 1920s & 1930s blues and country music, so it made great sense for me to continue my academic work where all that stuff lived.
So far, what’s your overall impression of the program?
The faculty in American studies & folklore has been really warm and welcoming to all of us in the Ph.D. cohort. It’s been really exciting getting to meet with the faculty during colloquiums and in individual meetings. The interpersonal dynamics of the department really can’t be topped.
If possible, describe any research you have done so far or plan on doing (including your dissertation topic if you’ve decided upon one) while in the program.
This summer I hope to begin research on a new phase of my project on the reissue record industry. Having already covered the reissue process for blues and country recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, I am turning my focus to the other ethnic vernacular recordings from that same period. The commercial recording industry of that period recorded and released many sides by Turkish, Polish, Greek, and Hawaiian (as well as many others) vernacular musicians, but these recordings were not canonized in the same manner as blues and country recordings. At this point in the process, I am unsure exactly where this research will lead me, but that is what is exciting about research I suppose!