American Studies

American Studies Program

Welcome to the Fall 2022 semester at CSULB!

We are looking forward to a return to somewhat normal activities this fall, including our traditional American Studies events, including pizza nights, movie club, scholarly talks, and walking tours of downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach. Look for information about these and other events on our BeachBoard page and on social media, including “American Studies at the Beach” on Facebook and our amst_csulb page on Instagram.

Please consult the campus Covid-19 information page for important information about and clear steps for planning your time on campus. If you have questions about your in-person experience at The Beach, you will find answers to those and much more on that page.

Advising

Dr. Mizelle, Director of American Studies, will hold American Studies advising office hours on Tuesdays from 3:30-4:30 and Thursdays from 12:30-1:30. These office hours will be held in our new American Studies Program office in F02-226. Dr. Mizelle is on campus most of the week, so if you need to meet with him at a different time or remotely via Zoom, please email him directly at brett.mizelle@csulb.edu to schedule an appointment.

Students should also talk at least once per semester with an advisor at the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) ATLAS network, as they are terrific with the “big picture” issues like general education, timely graduation, and so forth. You can make an appointment with them via their website. We hope to hear from all of you at some point this semester to see how things are going and to make plans for the rest of this academic year, so please reach out to Dr. Mizelle and to ATLAS when you can.

Faculty News

Dr. Justin Gomer has received a much-deserved sabbatical leave for Fall 2022 and will be off this semester. He will return in Spring 2023 to teach AMST 142 (Race and Hollywood) and AMST 419 (The Suburbs). Dr. Preeti Sharma is a recipient of the prestigious Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars to work on her book The Thread Between Them: Affective and Intimate Labor in Los Angeles South Asian Threading Salons. She will be on leave all year, returning in Fall 2023. Congratulations to both Dr. Sharma and Dr. Gomer on these awards!

Please extend a warm welcome to our new American Studies faculty for Fall 2022. Joining our returning faculty members Brett Mizelle, Brande Jackson, KT Bender, and Chris Farrish are Heather Agnew and Ashley Loup. Both of them received their M.A. degrees in American Studies from Cal State Fullerton, with Heather completing her PhD in Geography at UCLA and Ashley finishing her PhD in American Studies at Iowa. We are delighted to have them join the American Studies at the Beach team this semester!

Please email the department chair, Dr. Brett Mizelle, with any questions you might have about the American Studies Program at Brett.Mizelle@csulb.edu. Go Beach!