American Studies | Faculty

Associate Professor

Prof. Dent is the author of Chesapeake Prehistory? Old Traditions, New Directions and a significant number of other publications on the archaeology of the Chesapeake and Middle Atlantic regions. He maintains interests in both prehistoric and historic... [More]

Associate Professor

Eileen J. Findlays first book, Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920 was published with Duke University Press. In her article, “Courtroom Tales of Sex and Honor: Rapto and Rape in Late-Nineteenth Century Puert... [More]

Associate Profressor

Prof. Franz holds degrees in museum studies and American Civilization from Brown University. She specializes in 20th Century US cultural history with a focus on popular culture and the history of technology. She's also an active curator and public hi... [More]

Assistant Professor

Focusing on the history of the Early America, Kate Haulman’s teaching and research interests include cultural history, women’s/gender studies and material and visual culture. She is the author of “Fashion and the Culture Wars of Revolutionary Philade... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Kakoudaki teaches interdisciplinary courses in literature and film, visual culture, and the history of technology and new media. Her interests include cultural studies, science fiction, apocalyptic narratives, and the representation of race... [More]

Department Chair, Art

Professor Helen Langa continues as Chair of the Art Department (Art History, Graphic Design, and Studio Art) for the second year in 2009-10. She is teaching "Visual Art of the U.S.: Colonial to 1890" this fall, and in the spring wil... [More]

Department Chair, Anthropology

Language in everyday life is shaped by material conditions, by ideology, by power, by resistance– and by yearnings that are never extinguished by social regulation. Professor Leap's studies of American Indian English, language and AIDS, “gay men’s En... [More]

Department Chair, Literature

Author of Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights, Keith D Leonard did his master's in English at UNC Chapel and his PhD at Stanford.His publications, presentations, and courses have revolved around his study of... [More]

Professor Andrew J. Lewis is a historian of early America who specializes in the history of science, cultural, and environmental history. He is the author of A Democracy of Facts: Natural History in the Early Republic (Penn, 2010) as well as articles... [More]

Associate Professor

Professor Noble's teaching and research interests include American literature, culture studies, and gender studies, with a particular emphasis on the construction of sexuality in nineteenth-century American women's literature. She is the author of Th... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professors Sims has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the Charles Warren Center Dissertation Writing Fellowship. She has served as tutor, research assistant, and writing instr... [More]

Assistant Professor

Ed Smith is a third-generation Washingtonian and the Director of American Studies and Special Assistant to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Special Advisor to the President at American University, where he has taught since 1969. He i... [More]

Acting Director, American Studies Program

Katharina Vester specializes in cultural theory, transnational studies, and the dynamics of power in everyday practices. She is Scholar-in-Residence in the American Studies Program. She was assistant professor of American Studies at the University of... [More]

Professor

Brett Williams began her work as an anthropologist working among migrant farm workers in Illinois, exploring how they coped with terrible poverty and helping them organize a lettuce boycott and raise money for a halfway house. Since coming to Washing... [More]