What does it mean to say that an artist has “sold out”? Where did this expression come from, and why has it gained such widespread currency? This talk explores the history of “selling out,” which emerges as a cultural anxiety during the Gilded Age, when Americans began to worry that personal success and financial gain might come at a moral cost. We will see how “selling out” spread from the realm of “high” art in the late nineteenth century, to popular art forms like punk rock and hip-hop today.
Ian Afflerbach is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia, where his research and teaching focus on the history of ideas, modernist studies, African American literature, and popular periodicals. He recently completed his first book, Making Liberalism New (Johns Hopkins 2021) and has begun work on a second project—a cultural history of “selling out” in modern America.
Prof. Dr. Brigitte Johanna Glaser (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
November 22, 2022, 9:40am, N.106 (Stufenhörsaal)
“Margaret Atwood’s Venture into Graphic Novels: The Angel Catbird Trilogy and the War Bears Series”
Professor Glaser’s research focus is in Canadian Studies, Globalization and Transcultural Literature, Postcolonial Studies as well as 18th-Century Literature and Culture. Her publications include the co- edited volumes Shifting Grounds: Cultural Tectonics along the Pacific Rim (2020) and Transgressions / Transformations: Literature and Beyond (2018). Since February 2021, she has been the president of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries.
Please join us for our annual Obama Lecture on Thanksgiving, where we will celebrate 70 years of American Studies at JGU Mainz, with contributions from three professors who helped shape what has eventually become the Obama Institute. In addition, we will learn more about the current management of the USA library collection and award the Obama Dissertation Prize as well as the Galinsky Prize for outstanding student theses.
Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
June 14, 2022, 6pm–7:30pm (s.t.)., online via Zoom. Access the event here.
Meeting-ID: 894 5748 9483
Code: 185247
During the last decade, the U.S. has reinforced its diplomatic, economic, and military approach to the Asia-Pacific region. In accordance with the foreign policy rhetoric of partners like Japan and Australia, the Trump administration eventually published the U.S. “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision” (FOIP) in 2019. Since then, FOIP and its principles serve as guideline for U.S. regional policies in the Indo-Pacific, informed by its international agenda of promoting free navigation in maritime spaces and adherence to the existing international rules-based order.
Whereas some critics argue that the implementation of FOIP was a reactionary move to contain China’s ambitions in the region, the prevalent narrative in the discourse on regional security suggests that the rhetorical shift in U.S. diplomacy toward a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” should be considered in the wider context of globalization and the complex mechanisms of economic and national security interests.
Based on his professional experiences as academic instructor and former Captain of the U.S. Navy, Wade Turvold explains the principles and interests implicated by the U.S. “Free and Open Indo- Pacific” vision, and puts it into perspective with contemporary dynamics of the region
Wade Turvold is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and current faculty member of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. He graduated with Merit from the U.S. Naval Academy (MD) in 1989 (B.Sc.), and with Distinction from the U.S. Naval War College (RI) in 2000 (M.A.). Mr. Turvold’s expertise covers issues of maritime security, strategy, national security and military operations. He served two educational assignments at the U.S. Army War College and Defence Academy (UK), and has extensive experience in the fields of security, operation and command as Naval Flight Officer. He completed numerous deployments throughout his career to the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East, and to Europe, and participated in combat operations in Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Academic Director, Narrative Medicine Program Columbia University, New York
May 24, 2022, 12-1 p.m., 02.102 (Philo II)
This talk offers an introduction to Narrative Medicine, as well as the concept of metagnosis as the revelation of a longstanding condition. This can occur when an individual is diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or Asperger Syndrome which was previously present, but undiagnosed; it can also happen when diagnostic boundaries shift. How do these experiences change our knowledge? We will also discuss broader applications of the concept, and ways in which it illuminates the principles and practices of Narrative Medicine.
Danielle Spencer is the author of Metagnosis: Revelatory Narratives of Health and Identity (Oxford University Press, 2021) and co-author of Perkins- Prize-winning The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (OUP, 2017). Her research interests include retrospective diagnosis, contemporary film and bioethics, and healthcare pedagogy; her creative and scholarly work appears in diverse outlets, from Ploughshares to The Lancet. Formerly artist/musician David Byrne’s Art Director, Spencer holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. She is a 2019 MacDowell Fellow and a 2022 Yaddo Fellow.
The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies welcomes several internationally renowned scholars in the summer term of 2022. Please join us for their contributions to our course and research program!
May 9 2–4pm, P3, Philosophicum I
Imagined Pasts: Historical Thinking and Black Immigrants Herman L. Bennett, City University of New York
May 10 2–4pm, 01-6182–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I
Ethnic Formation Now and the Problem with the Past Herman L. Bennet, City University of New York
4–6pm, P 205, Philosophicum I
Visual Arts as Research: Examples from the Studio Ruth Stanford, Georgia State University, Atlanta
May 16 2-4pm, P3, Philosophicum I
Leaving America: Emigrant Culture When the Dream Is Over Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez
May 17 10am–12pm, P106, Philosophicum I
Juanita Harrison’s “Great, Wide, Beautiful World” Cathryn Halverson, Minot State University, North Dakota
2–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I
On the Puertoricanization of U.S. Higher Education Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez
May 24 12–2pm, P207, Philosophicum I
From Lemonade to Homecoming: Beyoncé’s Spatial Politics Patricia Coloma Peñate, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia
4–6pm, P205, Philosophicum I
The Phenomenology of Heinrich Sisstrunk: A Portrait of a First Settler in the New World Patricia Coloma Peñate, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia
June 13 2–4pm, P3, Philosophicum I
The Muslims Are (Always) Coming!: How Religion as a Category of Analysis Complicates American Immigration Narratives Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
June 14 2–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I
“It don’t Gitmo better than this”: Why Guantanamo Bay May Be the Best Worst Place for Understanding Transnational American Studies Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
During the last decade, the U.S. has reinforced its diplomatic, economic, and military approach to the Asia-Pacific region. In accordance with the foreign policy rhetoric of partners like Japan and Australia, the Trump administration eventually published the U.S. “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision” (FOIP) in 2019. Since then, FOIP and its principles serve as guideline for U.S. regional policies in the Indo-Pacific, informed by its international agenda of promoting free navigation in maritime spaces and adherence to the existing international rules-based order.