Student Spotlight

Each week, we feature in our newsletter a current or former student or member of our faculty who is emblematic of the talent of American Studies.

About

Courtlyn Pippert

Courtlyn Pippert is a M.A. student in the American Studies Department. She received her B.A. from the University of Tampa in 2014 with a double major in English and Film & Media Arts.

Greg Borchardt

Greg Borchardt entered the American Studies PhD program in Fall 2007.  He has a BA from the University of Notre Dame in American Studies.
Detroit Is No Dry Bones event flyer

Detroit Is No Dry Bones: The Eternal City of the Industrial Age, feat. Camilo Jose Vergara

Over the past 25 years, award-winning ethnographer and photographer Camilo Jose Vergara has traveled annually to Detroit to document not only the city's precipitous decline but also how its residents have survived. From the 1970s through the 1990s, changes in Detroit were almost all for the worse, as the fabric of the city was erased through neglect and abandonment.
Molly Henderson leaning on a bookshelf, in a white long sleeve sweater, dark jeans and brown boots.

Molly Henderson

Wed. Nov 13th. Brown Bag Seminar

Join us in celebrating the publication of Dara Orenstein's new book, Out of Stock: The Warehouse in the History of Capitalism. In Out of Stock, Dara Orenstein delive

macias

Elisabeth Macias

Elisabeth Macias is a MA student in the department of American Studies and a high school history teacher.

Funding Opportunities for Graduate Students

For questions about any of the opportunities below, contact Eileen Lavelle, Assistant Director at the Offi

Jason Michálek

Jason Michálek entered the American Studies MA program in the fall of 2015.

Meghan Drury

Meghan Drury is a Ph.D candidate who entered the program 2008 with an MA in ethnomusicology from UC Riverside.

Meet the Dean

The Bio page provides a permanent home for a person's biographical information.

Past Events

Past Events

Mergen-Palmer Distinguished Lecture

Dr. Melanie DuPuis giving the inaugural lecture, on the projector screen is a paragraph that reads, "that ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience."

Melanie DuPuis giving the 2014 lecture, “Dietary Independence: Food From the Founding Fathers to the White House Garden”

Since 2014, the annual Mergen-Palmer Distinguished Lecture in American Studies has brought visiting scholars to GW to share their expertise. Recent talks covered the Iraqi smallpox invasion of 2003, the national quest for food “freshness” and the history of religion in the Mississippi Delta.

2022 Mergen-Palmer Lecture | Thursday, April 21
The Global Curatorial Project: In Slavery's Wake: Mkaing Black Freedom in the World and Unfinished Conversations 


Dr. Anthony Bogues | Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory, Professor of Africana Studies, Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Professor of History of Art and Architecture
Dr. Paul Gardullo | Executive Director of the Matahari Women Workers Center in Boston
Johanna Obenda |  National Museum of African American History and Culture

GJ Sevillano in a black shirt, surrounded by green shrubs.

GJ Sevillano

GJ Sevillano is a Ph.D. student in the American Studies department. He received his B.A. in Politics and a certificate in American Studies from Princeton University in June 2019.

Thomas Gartman holding a camera in front of a large desert background.

Thomas Gartman

Tommy Gartman is a first-year MA student in American Studies with a concentration in Museums and Material Culture.

Renee Scott

Renee Scott

Renee Scott entered the George Washington University American Studies department in the fall of 2017.