Faculty
R Dent | E Findlay | H Langa | B Leap | A Lewis | |E Smith | B Williams
Richard J Dent
202-885-1848
Potomac@american.edu
I
am an archaeologist. My geographic focus is the archaeology of North
America, specifically the Middle Atlantic region. Much of my early research
concerned Paleoindian studies with regard to matters of adaptation,
paleoecological, and landscape reconstruction. More recently I have
focused on both the prehistory and history of the Chesapeake Bay area.
My most recent large-scale excavations were on 18th- and early 19th-century
sites in Philadelphia. The theoretical perspective that has guided all
these investigations tends to be more pragmatic than ideological. I
believe that archaeology is best served when we approach the past with
a wide spectrum of ideas. Issues of meaning and choice can coexist with
notions of human adaptation and culture history.
From a methodological standpoint I am especially interested in the practice of field archaeology. In that regard I am particularly interested in the application of large- and medium-format photography in excavation settings as well as computer-aided collection and analysis of data. I have a great deal of experience and interest in cultural resources management and issues of cultural heritage. The majority of my current writing focuses on the prehistoric and historic archaeology of the Chesapeake region and the archaeology of Colonial and Federal Philadelphia.
I put a great deal of effort into teaching and offer a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. The common denominator in all these classes is a desire to help students gain a personal perspective on what has been accomplished within any particular area of study and to help them see where new ideas are emerging. I believe that an environment where old notions can grate against new ideas is most conducive to learning. I also believe that students need the space and freedom to explore personal interests and ideas. In my experience, independent research, exploration, dialogue, and hands-on experience are key elements toward that end.
Eileen J Findlay
202-885-6264
efindla@american.edu
Professor
Findlay earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Her work has fused social, cultural, and political history to examine
issues of gender and race. She is the author of Imposing Decency:
The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920. Her
work was recently (2005) featured at the Sixth Annual Graduate Symposium
on Women and Gender History at the University of Illinois. Her current
research interests include historical memory, Spanish Caribbean diasporas,
and the gendered formation of racial and ethnic identities. She is a
recipient of the university’s award for Outstanding Teaching in
General Education.
Helen Langa
202-885-1680
hlanga@american.edu
Professor
Helen Langa earned her PhD in American and modern art history from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. She teaches a four
part sequence of courses on Art of the United States: Colonial to 1890,
1890 to 1940, 1940 to 1970, and Contemporary. All these courses emphasize
the social, cultural, political, and historical contexts within which
works of painting, sculpture, and photography are produced, with particular
emphasis on issues of racialized identities, whiteness, gender difference,
and in the last course, postcolonial and postmodern issues. Every third
spring, she also offers a seminar on some aspect of 20th century art.
Her own research focuses on art of the 1920s to 1940s, particularly
addressing issues related to printmaking and visual culture, gender,
labor and politics, antiracism, and religion. She has also taught the
WGST 150 course titled Women's Voices Through Time, which emphasizes
historical and contemporary gender politics and women's sociocultural
and political experiences expressed in fiction, poetry, and theoretical
essays.
Bill Leap
202-885-1831
wlm@american.edu
My
research interests examine the intersections of language, sexuality,
gender, and power. I study how these intersections are negotiated and
contested in face-to-face conversations, in life stories and other personal
narratives, in public documents, and in materials from print and broadcast
media.
One strand of this work involves studies of language and homophobia, with a particular interest in describing the processes of text formation and reception on which communication of homophobic messages depend.
A second strand explores language and sexual geography in Washington DC and in late-apartheid Cape Town, South Africa. I examine gay men’s accounts of spatial practices and other language use in these settings, as well as depictions of urban gay life in popular media, and policy documents that affect gay presence as they restructure the contours of the urban terrain. White space and white privilege dominate all of these textual practices, and one goal of this inquiry is to show how discourses of urban sexuality remain deeply embedded in assumptions of racial/class hierarchy.
A final strand interrogates the still-marginal positioning of lesbian/gay research (and researchers) within anthropology (including applied anthropology) and linguistics. Work in this area includes; preparing publications like Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English, the collections Out in the Field and Out in Theory (co-edited with Ellen Lewin); chairing the American Anthropological Association's Commission on Lesbian/Gay Issues in Anthropology, coordinating the annual American University Conference on Lavender Languages and Linguistics (www.american.edu/cas/anthro/lavenderlanguages/); and keeping lgbtq concerns in the foreground of my courses in anthropology and American Studies at American University.
Andrew Lewis
202-885-2409
alewis@american.edu
Professor Lewis teaches Early American and nineteenth century cultural
history, history of science, and religious history. His publications
include “A Democracy of Fact: Swallow Submersion and the Natural
History in the Early American Republic” (William and Mary
Quarterly) and “Gathering for the Republic: Botany and the
Economies of Early Republic America” (Colonial Botany: Science,
Commerce and Politics in the Early Modern World). He is completing
a book on natural history in the early republic and developing a new
project on wine in colonial and early national America. His many awards
include the Barra Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship of the McNeil
Center for Early American Studies.
Edward C Smith
202-885-1192
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 is also a Civil War, African-American
Cultural Heritage, and Art History Lecturer and Study Tour Leader for
The Smithsonian Institution, The National Geographic Society, The National
Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior) and The Historical Society
of Washington, D.C. He is a Visiting Classics Tutor at St. John’s
College in Annapolis, Maryland, a Lecturer for the James Madison Memorial
Foundation, and a Guest Curator for the National Building Museum. Professor
Smith has served as a Consultant to numerous federal agencies, including
the U.S. Senate, and in 1977 and 1978 he took a leave of absence from
teaching to work at The White House as a Presidential Speechwriter during
the Carter Administration. His writings appear in The Yale Review,
The Washington Post, The Military Review, The
Gettysburg National Battlefield Journal, The Wall Street Journal,
Washington History, and The Lincoln Review, for which
he is an Associate Editor. He is the Founder and Co-Director of the
American University Civil War Institute and a frequent contributor to
the “Civil War Page” of The Washington Times. He
is also the artist-appointed interpreter of the work of the sculptor
Frederick Hart.
Brett Williams
202-885-1836
bwillia@american.edu
I began my 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 Washington in 1976, I have written about gentrification, displacement,
and homelessness; urban renewal and public housing; race and poverty;
environmental justice; credit and debt (including pawn shops, credit
cards, and student loans). I have published four books, including one
on the African American hero John Henry, and another, Upscaling
Downtown, on failed integration in an urban neighborhood. During
the last few years my students and I have done projects for the National
Park Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Smithsonian
Institution’s Festival of American Folklife, and the Anacostia
Watershed Society. We tried to join theory and practice in promoting
better public policy and social change.
I have taught many courses that explore the city of Washington: as national shrine, seat of state power, residents' city, center of African American history and culture, political colony. I teach courses on racism and poverty, ritual and taboo, anthropology in the United States, and environmental justice. My courses often emphasize the connections between anthropological theory and pressing social problems. Many of my students do research projects and internships with local groups, and several of them have collaborated with me on public anthropology projects, including studies of how people experience and perceive Washington's national parks, and how well new public housing programs are serving the poor.
