Keynote
Speaker:
Shelley
Streeby
"The Sensational West: Cultural Memories of the US-Mexico
War and the Civil War during the Mexican Revolution"
Saturday,
May 13, 1:00-2:20 pm, 2006
Centennial House, UC Santa Barbara
The American Studies Association has awarded University
of California, San Diego Literature Professor Shelley
Streeby the 2003 Lora Romero First Book Publication
Prize for American Sensations: Class, Empire and the
Production of Popular Culture (UC Press, 2002). The
Lora Romero Prize, presented annually, recognizes an author’s
first published work in American Studies that highlights
the intersections of race with class, gender, sexuality,
and/or nation.
An innovative cultural history, American Sensations
investigates an intriguing and often lurid assortment
of sensational literature that was extremely popular in
the United States in the 18th century. Through dime novels,
cheap story paper literature, and journalism for working-class
Americans, Streeby uncovers themes and images that reveal
the profound influence that the U.S.-Mexican War and other
nineteenth-century imperial ventures throughout the Americas
had on U.S. politics and culture.
American Sensation is an “exemplary work
of interdisciplinary scholarship,” says John F.
Stephens, Ph.D. and Executive Director of the American
Studies Association. It is described by José David
Saldívar, author of Border Matters: Remapping
American Cultural Studies as “the finest book
yet written on the U.S.-Mexican War, and how it was central
to the making and unmaking of U.S. mass culture, class,
and racial formation.”
American Sensations is an accessible, interdisciplinary
book that brilliantly analyzes the sensational literature
of George Lippard, A.J.H Duganne, Ned Buntline, Metta
Victor, Mary Denison, John Rollin Ridge, Louisa May Alcott,
and many other writers. Streeby’s analysis of this
fascinating body of popular literature and mass culture
broadens into a sweeping demonstration of the importance
of the concept of empire in understanding U.S. history
and literature.
“Professor Streeby’s well-deserved award for
American Sensations highlights the innovative
research of our faculty in the UCSD Literature Department,”
says department Chair Todd Kontje. “Ours is a department
of world literature devoted to the historical study of
cultures and society in global context. Professor Streeby,
a key member of our Literatures in English section, teaches
a wide range of highly successful courses on U.S. literature
from the Revolution to the present, combining studies
of canonical texts with innovative courses on the West
and the Western in American film, contemporary science
fiction, and the literatures of and about California.”
Shelley Streeby joined the faculty at UCSD in 1994. An
Associate Professor of American Literature, Streeby is
also a contributor to publications including American
Literary History (Spring 2001); Post-Nationalist
American Studies, edited by John Carlos Rowe (UC
Press 2000); boundary 2 (Spring 1997); Criticism
(Summer 1996); and the forthcoming Blackwell Companion
to Nineteenth-Century American Literature. She is
also the recipient of numerous University of California
grants including a Faculty Career Development Program
Grant, Humanities Faculty Fellowship, Summer Faculty Fellowship
and a Humanities Research Institute Grant; as well as
two Hellman Fellowships and a Mellon Dissertation Year
Fellowship. |
