Dear Frosh,
Greetings!
The American Studies majors (no faculty will be involved) invite you to a special Open House feast:
WHY AMERICAN STUDIES? AMST MAJORS GIVE PROSPECTIVE MAJORS THE SCOOP!
This feast will be held from 6:00-7:00, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, in the CENTER FOR THE AMERICAS (opposite Fisk), the lovely home of American Studies. The American Studies majors’ food for thought will be complemented by Typhoon Thai food, Lyman’s Orchards apple cider, and Lucibello’s (New Haven) Italian almond cookies.
American Studies is, among other things, about crossing the academy’s intellectual boundaries: it is a super-energized multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, antidisciplinary, and even postdisciplinary critical and creative project. It’s about the making of new knowledge that illuminates what we’re involved in (and, for some, what we can do about it). It challenges students to both learn and unlearn. It’s an intellectual and artistic adventure that prepares you to question whatever “givens” that confront you at Wesleyan and after Wesleyan. It helps you imagine how the “givens”–the world–might be created otherwise.
Also, every year we bring a superstar intellectual to campus for our Annual Richard Slotkin American Studies lecture. (Richard Slotkin, founder of American Studies at Wes [in 1968], retired in 2008 and is widely respected and celebrated as one of the most groundbreaking intellectuals in the history of American Studies.) This year our Slotkin lecturer is the great Professor Barbara J. Fields, a former “MacArthur Fellow” (sometimes nicknamed the “genius fellowship”). Her lecture–RACECRAFT–will challenge the way many Americans think about “race.” So if you want to challenge yourself, and see an absolutely brilliant critique of the category of “race” and of the ways in which has been used, come see Fields in action the day after our WHY AMERICAN STUDIES? MAJORS GIVE PROSPECTIVE MAJORS THE SCOOP Open House feast: Wed. Feb. 17, 4:30-6:00, Russell House.
Cheers,
Joel Pfister
Olin Professor of American Studies
Chair, American Studies Department