American Studies To-Go

Voucher

Good for two round-trip tickets on Caltrain

Between Palo Alto and San Francisco Museums for one American Sudies Major and Friend

Attention American Studies Majors:

Are you interested in the history of American photography or folk art?

In Jews and American music?

In gender and American popular culture?

These are some of the areas that exhibits currently in San Francisco explore, and the American Studies Program wants to make it easier for you to get to them.

Ø To that end, we will reimburse you for the train fare and museum admissions for a trip that you and a friend take to the City to go to one or two of the exhibits listed below (your friend should be a Stanford student, but doesn’t have to be an American Studies major). You may redeem this voucher at the American Studies office when you bring in (a) receipts for the train fare and museum admissions, and (b) a paragraph describing what you did and what you learned. This voucher expires at the end of fall quarter.

Ø Check museum web sites for opening and closing times.

Ø If you become aware of other current museum exhibits you would prefer to attend, we are open to substitutions. Also note that some of these exhibits are free, or free on certain days. If you purchase a ticket, bring your student ID and buy it at the student rate.

The History of American Photography & Folk Art

Ø Richard Avedon, Photographs 1946-2004, from the start of school through November 29^that SFMOMA

Ø Whether photographing politicians, artists, writers, fashion models, or movie stars, Richard Avedon revolutionized the genre of portraiture. He rejected conventional stiff-and-staid poses and instead captured both motion and emotion in the faces of his subjects, often encapsulating their intrigue in a single charged moment. SFMOMA is proud to be the only U.S. venue for this retrospective that spans the artist's remarkable career. Featuring more than 200 photographs along with a selection of vintage magazines, the exhibition presents work spanning Avedon's entire career, from his earliest street scenes to his breakthrough 1950s Paris fashion pictures and the iconic celebrity portraits that brought him world renown. This in-depth retrospective reveals Avedon's singular ability to blur the lines between photojournalism, fashion photography, and fine art.

Ø http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/exhib_events

Ø Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown, November 14, 2009-June 10, 2010 at the DE YOUNG MUSEUM

Ø This exhibition features approximately 48 full-size and crib quilts dating from the 1880s to the 1940s. Quilts made by girls and women of various Amish communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest are visual distillations of their way of life. The Amish faith embodies the principles of simplicity, humility, discipline, and community, but their quilts are anything but humble. Using a rich color palette and bold patterns, these quilts are truly a unique contribution to American textile history. The quilts highlight the beauty and complexity of the abstract patterns.

Ø http://www.famsf.org/deyoung/exhibitions/index.asp

Jews and American Music

Ø Jews on Vinyl, from the start of school through October 13, 2009, at THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM

Ø What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers-think Neil Diamond baring his chest hair on the cover of Hot August Night or Barbra Streisand in hot pants on the cover of Streisand Superman-soon became a quest for identity, history, and culture between the grooves of LPs.  Together, guest curators Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a thrilling journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America.Jews on Vinyl is a unique exhibition based on their new book: And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost, which spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the holy trinity of Neil, Barbra, and Barry.The exhibition features a soundtrack of highlights from these LPs to provide opportunities for Museum visitors to experience forgotten moments in Jewish American pop history. Much of the music is no longer available in any format and through this exhibition, audiences will have the unprecedented opportunity to explore new perspectives on Jewish identity and history through this exciting aspect of Jewish culture.Guest curated by Roger Bennett and Josh Kun. They are the creators of trailofourvinyl.com and co-founders of Reboot Stereophonic, a nonprofit record label dedicated to rereleasing lost classics from the Jewish past.Roger Bennett is a board member of the Academy of the Recent Past (academyofthererecentpast.com) and the co-creator of Bar Mitzvah Disco and Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies.Josh Kun is associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America and a contributor to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. http://www.thecjm.org/index.php?option=com_ccevents&scope=exbt&task=detail&oid=40

Ø Jews of the Fillmore, from the start of school through October 20, 2009 at the JAZZ HERITAGE CENTER’s Koret Center Lobby

Ø On view in the Koret Heritage Lobby at the Jazz Heritage Center, Jews of the Fillmore celebrates an era when the Fillmore District was home to San Francisco's City Hall and the famous Dreamland Rink, when it was the best place to find a loaf of "Jewish" rye and where, on Sundays, a small neighborhood jazz-record shop owner showcased local music talent.

Ø Event: Monday, October 12, 2009, 7PM Fred Rosenbaum Lecture at the JHC's Media and Education CenterFred Rosenbaum is the author of the forthcoming Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Press, November 2009. He is also the founder and director of Lehrhaus Judaica.

Ø http://www.magnes.org/fillmore/about.html

Gender and American Popular Culture

Ø On View: Candice Breitz, from October 1 to December 20, 2009, at SFMOMA

Ø This exhibit includes Mother (2005), an exploration of pop culture icons. For this video piece, Breitz edited film performances by Faye Dunaway, Diane Keaton, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, and Meryl Streep to create a revealing composite of the Hollywood cliché of the difficult mother

Ø Monsters of Webcomics at the CARTOON ART MUSEUM , from the start of school through December 6, 2009, includes work by four American women cartoonists.

Ø Cat and Girl By Dorothy Gambrell catandgirl.com For the past ten years, Dorothy Gambrell’s Cat and Girl, described as “a cat, a girl, and an experimental meta-narrative,” has run online and been featured in various print anthologies. Many of the strips consist of philosophical and political conversations between the cynical, intellectual Girl and the whimsical Cat, who likes polka, frosting, and eating paint. Other characters include Girl’s hipster counterpart Grrrl; a beatnik vampire called, appropriately, Beatnik Vampire; the hapless Bad Decision Dinosaur; and the lovelorn Boy.  

Ø Girl Genius By Phil and Kaja Foglio girlgeniusonline.com  Phil and Kaja Foglio began publishing Girl Genius, a “gaslamp fantasy” about the adventures of mad scientist Agatha Heterodyne and her friends, rivals, and minions, as a traditional print comic book. Soon, however, they discovered they could reach far more readers on the Web. Girl Genius now runs online, with new pages posted three days a week, before being published in graphic novel form.  The most recent Girl Genius collection, Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, was nominated this year for a Hugo Award in the Graphic Fiction category.

Ø Dicebox By Jenn Manley Lee dicebox.net  Dicebox is a science-fiction graphic novel of epic scale. Set in the distant future, the story follows a year in the lives of two female migrant workers, Griffen and Molly, as they journey from planet to planet. Jenn Manley Lee, a graphic designer in Portland, Oregon, plans for the story to span four books with a total of 36 chapters. Book One is now close to completion online.   Dicebox has yet to be published outside of the Web, in part because the lavish full-color art would be expensive to publish in print. Comics scholar Scott McCloud listed Dicebox as one of his “Personal Top Twenty” webcomics. 

Ø Family Man By Dylan Meconis lutherlevy.com  Dylan Meconis’ first webcomic, Bite Me!, begun while she was still in high school, was a slapstick comedy about vampires in revolutionary France. Family Man, her current project, reworks some of the characters and concepts from Bite Me! into a meticulously researched graphic novel set in 18th-century Germany. Luther Levy, a young scholar and theologian, leaves his university job and begins stirring trouble within both his family and academia.  Meconis has also published work in the Flight anthology and illustrated the nonfiction comic Wire Mothers, written by Jim Ottaviani.

Ø http://www.cartoonart.org/