New Directions in US Studies:
Re-imagining the 1950s and 1960s
A two-day conference to be held at York University,
Founders College Senior Commons Room
Friday, October 11
9:00 -10:30 Sociology
THIS AMERICAN LIFE—SOCIOLOGICALLY SPEAKING
Moderator: Amber Gazso
Policing Protest in NYC - from Columbia 1968 to Occupy Wall Street
Lesley Wood, York University
The Inclusion of Two American Sites in the "Gateway Cities Project”
Karen Robson, York University
A Twentieth Century American Tragedy: The Story of Diethylbestrol - From Miracle
Drug to Medical Nightmare
Deborah Davidson, York University
Living through Difficult Economic Times: The Health and Well-being of Canadians and
Americans in Mid-life
Amber Gazso, York University
10:45-12:15 Literature
RACES, PLACES, AND PASSIONS: REVISITING AMERICAN LITERATURE
Moderator: Art Redding, York University
“Someone's got to tell it like it is”: James Baldwin Meets Hunter's Point, San Francisco,
1963
Warren Crichlow, York University
2
“Rampant Normality”: Violence and the Suburbs in Patricia Highsmith's Deep Water
Jared Morrow, York University
Re-Reeding [sic] the Sixties as “Mumbo Jumbo”
T. V. Reed, York University/Washington State University
Lunch break
1:30-3:00 History
BODY POLITICS: NEW HISTORIES OF DISABILITY, GENDER, RACE, AND SEXUALITY
Moderator: Molly Ladd-Taylor, York University
Dressing the Model Body in Early Cold War Style: Fashion Designers, Models, and
African American Womanhood
Laila Haidarali, University of Essex, England
Eugenics and the Baby Boom
Molly Ladd-Taylor, York University
Size Matters: Power and Politics in the 1968 Philadelphia Study of Prison Sexual
Violence
Marc Stein, York University
The Color of the Unborn: Race, Religion, and Reproductive Politics, 1967-1973
Gillian Frank, Princeton University
3:15-4:45 Film
THE POLITICS OF AMERICAN FILM AND TELEVISION
Moderator: Scott Forsyth, York University
In the Service of Empire: US Television Spies in the 1960s
Joseph Kispal-Kovacs, York University
3
The Department of Defense, the Motion Picture Production Office and Hollywood:
Militarizing US Film Policy
Tanner Mirrlees, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
From Depth Men to Mad Men: Psychiatry, Motivation Research and Advertising in the
Early US Television Industry
Ken Rogers, York University
5:00-6:00 Keynote Address
Culture as Politics: How Vernacular Arts Opened up US Studies...and why it needed
opening so badly
Paul Buhle, Brown University
6:00-7:00 Reception
Saturday, October 12
9:30-11:00 Music
TRANSFORMATIONS IN POPULAR MUSIC
Moderator: Michael Kaler, York University
Intonation, metaphor and meaning in Bob Dylan's “Like A Rolling Stone”
Mike Daley, York University
Folk music and Cultural Outreach in 1950s Cold War America
Ronald Cohen, Indiana University Northwest
Religious Understandings of the Rebirth of Improvisational Music-Making
Michael Kaler, York University
11:15-12:45 Political Science
THE AMERICAN STATE AND THE POLITICS OF EMPIRE
4
Moderator: Stephen Newman, York University
New Politics and New Democrats: 60s Leftism and the Roots of the Third Way
C.J. Atkins, York University
The Political Economy of American Empire
Leo Panitch, York University
Lunch break
2:00-3:30 Art
TRIUMPH, EXPLOITATION AND NEGLECT: THE RECEPTION OF GREAT AMERICAN ABSTRACT ART
SINCE W ORLD W AR II.
Moderator: Ken Carpenter, York University
Considering Terminal Iron Works: Labor and Industry in the Reception of David Smith's
Sculpture.
Meghan Bissonnette, York University
The Contrasting Reception of Two American Abstractionists: Jackson Pollock and Jules
Olitski.
Ken Carpenter, York University
The Distinctiveness and Continuous Development of Mainstream Modernist Painting
since World War II until Now
Kenworth Moffett, independent critic and curator