Sarah Schrank
________________________________________________________________________
History Department,CSULB
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach CA 90840-1601
sschrank@csulb.edu
562.985.2293
EDUCATION
Ph.D., History, University of California, San Diego, 2002.
Dissertation: “Art and the City: The Transformation of Civic Culture in Los Angeles, 19001965”
Director: Dr. Rachel N. Klein
M.A., History, University of California, San Diego, 1997.
B.A. (Honors), History, McGill University, Montréal, Canada, 1994.
Baccalauréat Français, Lycée Marcelin Berthelot, Saint Maur des Fossés, France, 1990.
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Associate Professor (early tenure), Department of History, CSU Long Beach, Fall 2007present.
Assistant Professor, Department of History, CSU Long Beach, 2002-2007.
Program Director, American Studies, CSU Long Beach, Fall 2006-present.
Academic Advisor, American Studies, CSU Long Beach, Fall 2006-present.
Lecturer, Department of History/Urban Studies, UC San Diego, 2000-2002.
Teaching Assistant, Department of History, UC San Diego, 1995-2000.
EDITORIAL POSITIONS
Book Review Editor, Southern California Quarterly, Fall 2005 to present.
EXTERNAL GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation Summer Research Grant, 2005.
Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies Fellowship, Princeton University, 20042005.
John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation Summer Research Grant, 1999.
John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Research Fellowship, The Huntington, 1998.
ACADEMIC HONORS AND INTERNAL GRANTS
Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee Award, CSULB, 2003, 2005-07.
Educational Effectiveness Enhancement Grant, CSULB, 2003, 2007.
Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Department of History, UCSD, 2001.
Office of Graduate Student Resources Writing Fellowship, UCSD, 2000.
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Dissertation Research Fellowship, UCSD, 1999.
James McGill Merit Scholarship, McGill University, 1993-1994.
Dean’s Honor List, Faculty of Arts, McGill University, 1993-1994.
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, in press, forthcoming 2008.
The Naked City: Los Angeles and the Cult of the Body, 1886-1932, work-in-progress.
Articles and Essays:
“Public Art and the Body: Constructing Civic Identity in Los Angeles,” Journal of Social
History, forthcoming 2008.
“Modern Urban Planning and the Civic Imagination: Historiographical Perspectives on Los
Angeles,” Journal of Planning History, forthcoming 2008.
“Nuestro Pueblo: The Spatial and Cultural Politics of Los Angeles’ Watts Towers,” The
Spaces of the Modern City: Imaginaries, Politics, and Everyday Life, ed. Gyan Prakash and Kevin
Kruse, Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2008.
“Artland and Barnsdall Park: Cultural Politics, Public Art and Competing Visions of Civic
Space in 1920s Los Angeles,” Varieties of Urban Experience: The American City and the Practice of
Culture, ed. Michael Ian Borer, University Press of America, 2006.
“The Art of the City: Modernism, Municipal Censorship, and the Emergence of Los
Angeles’ Postwar Art Scene,” Los Angeles and the Future of Urban Cultures, ed. Raul Villa and
George Sanchez, Johns Hopkins University Press. 2005 (reprint).
“The Art of the City: Modernism, Municipal Censorship, and the Emergence of Los
Angeles’ Postwar Art Scene,” American Quarterly. Volume 56, Number 3. Sept 2004.
“History, Landscape, and Desire in Roger Dorsinville’s In the Shadow of Conrad’s Marlow,”
Postcolonial Stories by Roger Dorsinville, edited and translated by Max Dorsinville. Edwin Mellen
Press, 2001.
“Picturing the Watts Towers: The Art and Politics of an Urban Landmark,” Reading
California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, ed. Stephanie Barron, Ilene Fort, and Sheri
Bernstein, University of California Press, 2000.
“A Matzah Ball Planet: a study of food as it appears in selected works of Mendele Mykher
Sforim, Y.L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem.” The McGill Undergraduate Journal of Jewish Studies,
Vol 2. No. 1, 1994.
Book Reviews:
Lee M.A. Simpson, Selling the City: Gender, Class, and the California Growth Machine,
1880-1940. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, H-Net Reviews, H-Urban, 2006.
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Ethan Rarick, California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005. Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2006.
Becky M. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of
Los Angeles, 1920-1965. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Nevada Historical Society
Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 1, Spring 2006.
Grant Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. The Public Historian, vol. 27, no.3, Summer
2005.
Tom Sitton and William Deverell, editors, Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the
1920s, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Southern California Quarterly, vol.85,
no.2, Summer 2003.
Film Review:
“Golden Gate Bridge,” Prod. by Laura Longsworth and Ben Loeterman, PBS, 2004. Journal
of American History, vol. 91, no.3. December 2004.
Reference Texts and Catalogs:
“Pop Art,” in The Encyclopedia of the American Counterculture, M.E. Sharpe, forthcoming 2008.
“Abstract Expressionism,” in The Encyclopedia of the American Counterculture, M.E. Sharpe,
forthcoming 2008.
“Robert Caples Biography,” Caples: Oils and Watercolors, California Art Gallery Catalog. Los
Angeles: Fine Arts Printing, 2006.
“Artist Colonies,” in Dictionary of American History, third edition. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
2002.
“California History Timeline,” Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, ed.
Barron, Bernstein, Fort. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Public Art and the Body in 20th century Los Angeles,” Society of American City and
Regional Planning History,” Portland, Maine, October 2007.
“Health Cults and Frolicking Nudists: Los Angeles and the Political Economy of the Body,
1890-1932,” Semiotic Society of America, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 2007.
“The Visual Arts as Civic Space,” American Studies Association, Atlanta, Nov 2004.
“The “Highbrow” and Hollywood: Civic Art and Interethnic Politics in 1930s Los Angeles,”
Organization of American Historians, Boston, March 2004.
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“Poetry Readings, Public Hearings, and Painted Garbage Cans: Alternative Art and Civic
Performance in 1950s Venice Beach,” American Quarterly Los Angeles and the Future of
Urban Cultures Conference, The Huntington, November 2003.
“Faceless Art and Raceless Monstrosities: Modern Sculpture and Los Angeles’ Postwar
Political Landscape” American Studies Association, Hartford, CT, Oct 2003.
“The Watts Towers: Competing Histories of a Community Symbol,” 12th Annual Front
Range Symposium in Art History, University of Colorado, Boulder. Sept.2003.
“Booster Myths and Temples of Art: Building a Civic Identity in Los Angeles, 1880-1940,”
California American Studies Association, UC Riverside. May 2002.
“Secret Festivals and Glass Towers: Art, Community, and Civic Culture in Black Los
Angeles,” American Studies Association, Montréal, Québec, Canada. Nov. 1999.
“Envisioning Los Angeles: Civic Identity, Public Art, and the Annual All-City Art Festivals,”
American Studies Association, Seattle, Washington. Nov. 1998.
“A Festival of Controversy: Civic Imagery, Municipal Politics, and the Los Angeles All-City
Art Shows, 1951-1957,” Western History Association, Sacramento, Oct.1998.
“Defining the Moon: Aesthetics, Politics, Culture, and the 1951 Griffith Park Controversy in
Southern California,” GSA Humanities and Social Sciences Conference, University of
Nevada, Las Vegas. November 1995.
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
“The Civic Imaginary and the Politics of Modernism: Art and Culture in Early 20th Century
Los Angeles,” History Department Research Seminar, CSULB, May 2006.
Keynote Address, “Archiving the City: Methodologies in Urban Historical Research,”
Writing the City into History Graduate Student Conference, Princeton University, April
2005.
“The Watts Towers: Race, Civic Identity, and Urban Cultural Politics in Postwar Los
Angeles,” Cities: Space, Society, and History Seminar Series, Davis Center for Historical
Studies, Princeton University, April 2005.
“Sex, Suburbia and the Culture of Containment,” Department of History, McGill University,
Montréal, Canada. February 2005.
“The Watts Towers: Art and Politics,” Multicultural Center, CSULB, Nov. 2003.
“The Watts Towers: The Art and Politics of an Urban Landmark,” Guest Lecture in Italian
Studies and the American Studies Program, CSULB, Sept. 2003.
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“Artland and Barnsdall Park: Women, Civic Art and Cultural Politics in 1920s Los Angeles.”
Women’s Research Colloquium, CSULB, April 2003.
“Faceless Monstrosities and Imagined Landscapes: Abstract Art and the Curtailment of
Public Space in 1950s Los Angeles,” Los Angeles History Seminar, The Huntington, March
2003.
“Creating Bohemia: Space, Commercialism and Identity at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles,
1957-1966,” 16th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium, Department of Fine Arts,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. March 1997.
CHAIR AND COMMENT
Comment, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, Series in
Western/Borderlands History. University of Southern California. April 2006.
Chair, “Communities: Planned, Imagined, Intentional,” American Studies Association,
Washington D.C, November 2005.
Chair and Comment, “L.A. People and Places: New Voices, New Views in Los Angeles
History,” Los Angeles History Seminar, The Huntington, November 2003.
Chair, “Representations of the Other in Contemporary Music Performance.” First Annual
Conference of Ethnic Studies in California, University of Southern California. March 2003.
PUBLIC LECTURES
“Contextualizing Los Angeles and Factors Associated with Mobilization,” The Thomas and
Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles, Urban Lecture Series. Filmed for
Channel 36. Loyola Marymount University, February 2007.
“Creating Bohemia: Space, Commercialism and Identity at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles,
1957-1966,” Audio-recorded for OCMA archives. California Council for the Humanities
Lecture, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California. January 1998.
AREAS OF RESEARCH AND TEACHING SPECIALIZATION
Modern U.S., Urban, California, Women, Culture, Public Art, Los Angeles
TEACHER TRAINING PRESENTATIONS
“Public Housing, Red Baiting, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar Los Angeles,”
Compton Unified Teaching American History Grant Summer Institute, June 2006.
“The Great Depression and the New Deal in California,” American History Weekend
Institute Series for 11th Grade Teachers, California History-Social Science Project. Feb. 2006.
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“Gender and Pop Culture in Film,” Scholars Series, California Council for Social Studies,
Burbank, March 2004.
“Counter-monuments and Researching Alternative Histories,” Teaching American History
Summer Institute, Long Beach Unified, 2003.
“Postwar California and the New American Culture,” Orange County History and Social
Science Project Summer Teaching Institute. CSU Fullerton July 2002.
FACULTY RESEARCH AND TEACHING INSTITUTES
University Honors Program Faculty Retreat, August 2006.
Summer Institute on Teaching and Learning, CSULB, August 2005.
Panelist, College of Liberal Arts Annual Faculty Retreat, January 2004.
Los Angeles Demographic Analysis Workshop, June 2003.
CSULB Faculty Urban Research Group, 2002-present.
MANUSCRIPT REVIEWS
Outside Reader for The History Teacher, 2007
Outside Reader for The History Teacher, 2006
Textbook review for Routledge, 2006
Outside reader for Journal of San Diego History, August 2005
Textbook review for Blackwell, 2005
Textbook review for McGraw-Hill, 2005
Outside reader for Journal of Urban History, 2003
Outside reader for The History Teacher, 2003
Reader report for Edwin Mellen Press, 2002
ART AND HISTORICAL PRESERVATION ACTIVITIES
Advisory Committee, Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association, 2004-present.
Advisory Council, Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts, 2005-2007
Member and Guardian, Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts, 2004-2006
FILM CREDITS
Featured Interviewee and Historical Consultant, Tous les Habits du Monde, Documentary. Dir.
Roxanne Frias. ARTE network, 2007 (France) 60 mins.
Historical Consultant, The Cool School, Documentary. Dir. Morgan Neville. Tremolo
Productions, 2007 (USA) 86 mins.
Interviewee and Historical Consultant, Joop Beljon, Documentary. Dir. Roland Beljon. 2006
(Holland) 90 mins.
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MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITIONS
Granted permission to the Orange County Museum of Art to reproduce “The Art of the
City: Modernism, Municipal Censorship, and the Emergence of Los Angeles’ Postwar Art
Scene,” American Quarterly. Volume 56, Number 3. Sept 2004 for the museum’s interpretative
programs, collection website and gallery media stations. August 2006.
Historical research consultant for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exhibition Made
in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000. April 1999-September 2000.
Photographic and visuals rights and reproduction coordinator for the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art’s Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000 timeline. JanuaryOctober 2000.
Panel Writer for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exhibition Made in California: Art,
Image and Identity, 1900-2000. June-September 2000.
CURRENT PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Semiotic Society of America
American History Association
Organization of American Historians
American Studies Association
California American Studies Association
Urban History Association
American Association of University Women
Historical Society of Southern California
Society for American City and Regional Planning History
Western Association of Women Historians
Los Angeles History Research Group
English and French
LANGUAGES
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