Faculty & Staff

NOTE: This list is not exclusive. A number of professors in various departments teach American Studies-related courses and serve on M.A. committees.

Director

Professor David Johnson, Ph.D.

Dr. Johnson is the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities chair.

Program Assistant and Student Advisor

Micah Vandegrift
Program Assistant and Student Advisor

Micah Vandegrift is a student in the American and Florida Studies Master’s program. He has been a student at Florida State University since 2003, and is writing a thesis on the post-punk music scenes in Florida, concentrating on the years 1994-2001. Micah’s research interests are in American culture studies, popular culture, Cultural History, music in the 20th and 21st centuries, indie culture (cinema, music and fashion), and global subcultures. Micah has taught “Underground Music in America, 1980-Present” for the American Studies program since the Fall of 2007.

Click here to email Micah Vandegrift: mlv03@fsu.edu

Faculty Advisors

Professor Karen A. Bearor, Ph.D. University of Texas-Austin, 1988

Dr. Bearor is associate professor of Art History, with research interests in early 20th-century U.S. art and photography. She was co-chair of the Southern American Studies Association conference held at FSU in 2003, and she is currently the Chair of the Committee on Women in the Arts for the College Art Association. She was treasurer for the Association of Historians of American Art from 1999 to 2003. Most recently, she contributed a chapter to Singular Women: Writing the Artist (2003), ed. Kristen Frederickson and Sarah E. Webb. Her book Irene Rice Pereira: Her Painting and Philosophy (1993) was nominated for the 1995 Charles C. Eldredge prize of the National Museum of American Art. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin in 1988.

Click here to email Professor Bearor kbearor@mailer.fsu.edu

Click here to get to Professor Bearor's webpage

John Fenstermaker, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1973

Dr. Fenstermaker is the Fred L. Standley Professor of English. An Ohio State University Ph.D., he has been a member of the English Department since 1973, including 12 years as Department Chair, 1982-1994. Professionally active at state, regional, and national levels, he has served as President of the Florida College English Association, the Florida Association of Departments of English, the South Atlantic Association of Departments of English, and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Recognized several times by the University with teaching awards, most recently Professor Fenstermaker has been honored with Distinguished Teaching Professor and Distinguished Research Professor awards. The South Atlantic Association of Departments of English presented him with its Outstanding Teaching Award in 2004. He is an Executive Editor of the journal Explicator. Author of three books, he is currently working on a two-volume study of Ernest Hemingway.

Click here to email Professor Fenstermaker jfenstermaker@english.fsu.edu

Click here to get to Professor Fenstermaker's webpage

Professor Neil Jumonville, Ph.D. Harvard University, 1987

Dr. Jumonville is the William Warren Rogers Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History. He has taught a seminar on the history of the American Studies movement and other courses popular among American Studies students, such as U.S. intellectual history, U.S. history since 1945, American historiography, and historical methodology. In 1987 he received his Ph.D. in American Civilization (American Studies) from Harvard University. He is the author of Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America, and Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present. His newspaper articles have appeared in the New York Times and a wide collection of other papers.

Click here to email Professor Jumonville njumonvi@mailer.fsu.edu

Click here to visit Professor Jumonville's webpage

Professor W.T. "Rip" Lhamon, Ph.D. Indiana University, 1973

Dr. Lhamon is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and George Mills Harper Professor of English. He has taught a regular American Studies seminar, "Changing American Character."He teaches issues of race and class formation from the 18th through the 20th centuries in the Atlantic world, and, frequently a seminar on 1950s American culture. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Indiana University. He is the editor of American Humor: A Study of the American Character by Constance Rourke, and the co-editor of The Rhetoric of Conflict.He has published three interdisciplinary books, all from Harvard University Press, on further American Studies topics:1) Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a CulturalStyle in the American Fifties (1990, rpt. 2000); 2) Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (1998); and 3) Jump JimCrow: Lost Plays, Lyrics, and Street Prose from the First Atlantic Popular Culture (2003). His study "Little Richard as a Folk Performer" won the 1980 award for best article in Studies in Popular Culture. He was awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellowships,1992-93, 1998-99. His next project is a book, called Secret Histories, about cultural transmission in public spheres of the Atlantic world--what it is, how it happens, and what difference it makes.

Click here to email Professor Lhamon wlhamon@garnet.acns.fsu.edu

Click here to get to Professor Lhamon's webpage

Professor Dennis Moore, Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990

Dr. Moore, an associate professor of literature and American Studies, received FSU's University Distinguished Teacher Award in 1999 and serves as Coordinating Director for FSU's living and learning communities. He regularly teaches such courses as "Problematizing American Exceptionalism," "'Indian' Captivity Narratives in Context," "Slave Narratives," "From the Melting Pot to Multiculturalism," and "American Dreamers." A 1990 Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill, he is preparing a revised and enlarged edition, for Harvard University Press, of Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer and is assembling a collection of theoretically informed essays on Crèvecoeur. He's active in a number of interdisciplinary organizations, including the Society of Early Americanists, of which he is immediate past v.p. (2003-2005), and the national and regional iterations of the American Studies Association; he co-chaired the 2003 SASA conference that our Program hosted in February of 2003.

Click here to email Professor Moore dmoore@english.fsu.edu

Click here to get to Professor Moore's webpage

Professor Wayne Wiegand, Ph.D. Southern Illinois University, 1974

Wayne A. Wiegand is F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and Professor of American Studies at Florida State University. He is author of more than sixty scholarly articles (seven of which have won national awards) and five books (three of which have won "best book of the year" awards from the American Library Association), and editor or co-editor of seven other books. Currently, he serves as Executive Director of Beta Phi Mu (the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society) and is Co-Editor of LIBRARY QUARTERLY (University of Chicago Press) and Co-Editor of "Print Culture History in Modern America" (a monograph series published by the University of Wisconsin Press).

Click here to email Professor Wiegand wwiegand@mailer.fsu.edu

Click here to get to Professor Wiegand's webpage

		Location 404-A Diffenbaugh Bldg. Tallahassee, FL 32306-1549 Map Contact send email 850/644-0202 Fax: 850/644-1139


Program Information Faculty & Staff Undergraduate Information Graduate Information Graduate Certificate Program Course Offerings -Required Textbooks Fall 2008 Links & Resources -Florida Book Awards -Early American Matters -SASA 2009 Conference CFP	Faculty & Staff NOTE: This list is not exclusive. A number of professors in various departments teach American Studies-related courses and serve on M.A. committees. Director Professor David Johnson, Ph.D. Dr. Johnson is the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities chair. Program Assistant and Student Advisor Micah Vandegrift Program Assistant and Student Advisor Micah Vandegrift is a student in the American and Florida Studies Master’s program. He has been a student at Florida State University since 2003, and is writing a thesis on the post-punk music scenes in Florida, concentrating on the years 1994-2001. Micah’s research interests are in American culture studies, popular culture, Cultural History, music in the 20th and 21st centuries, indie culture (cinema, music and fashion), and global subcultures. Micah has taught “Underground Music in America, 1980-Present” for the American Studies program since the Fall of 2007. Click here to email Micah Vandegrift: mlv03@fsu.edu Faculty Advisors Professor Karen A. Bearor, Ph.D. University of Texas-Austin, 1988 Dr. Bearor is associate professor of Art History, with research interests in early 20th-century U.S. art and photography. She was co-chair of the Southern American Studies Association conference held at FSU in 2003, and she is currently the Chair of the Committee on Women in the Arts for the College Art Association. She was treasurer for the Association of Historians of American Art from 1999 to 2003. Most recently, she contributed a chapter to Singular Women: Writing the Artist (2003), ed. Kristen Frederickson and Sarah E. Webb. Her book Irene Rice Pereira: Her Painting and Philosophy (1993) was nominated for the 1995 Charles C. Eldredge prize of the National Museum of American Art. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin in 1988. Click here to email Professor Bearor kbearor@mailer.fsu.edu Click here to get to Professor Bearor's webpage John Fenstermaker, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1973 Dr. Fenstermaker is the Fred L. Standley Professor of English. An Ohio State University Ph.D., he has been a member of the English Department since 1973, including 12 years as Department Chair, 1982-1994. Professionally active at state, regional, and national levels, he has served as President of the Florida College English Association, the Florida Association of Departments of English, the South Atlantic Association of Departments of English, and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Recognized several times by the University with teaching awards, most recently Professor Fenstermaker has been honored with Distinguished Teaching Professor and Distinguished Research Professor awards. The South Atlantic Association of Departments of English presented him with its Outstanding Teaching Award in 2004. He is an Executive Editor of the journal Explicator. Author of three books, he is currently working on a two-volume study of Ernest Hemingway. Click here to email Professor Fenstermaker jfenstermaker@english.fsu.edu Click here to get to Professor Fenstermaker's webpage Professor Neil Jumonville, Ph.D. Harvard University, 1987 Dr. Jumonville is the William Warren Rogers Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History. He has taught a seminar on the history of the American Studies movement and other courses popular among American Studies students, such as U.S. intellectual history, U.S. history since 1945, American historiography, and historical methodology. In 1987 he received his Ph.D. in American Civilization (American Studies) from Harvard University. He is the author of Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America, and Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present. His newspaper articles have appeared in the New York Times and a wide collection of other papers. Click here to email Professor Jumonville njumonvi@mailer.fsu.edu Click here to visit Professor Jumonville's webpage Professor W.T. "Rip" Lhamon, Ph.D. Indiana University, 1973 Dr. Lhamon is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and George Mills Harper Professor of English. He has taught a regular American Studies seminar, "Changing American Character."He teaches issues of race and class formation from the 18th through the 20th centuries in the Atlantic world, and, frequently a seminar on 1950s American culture. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Indiana University. He is the editor of American Humor: A Study of the American Character by Constance Rourke, and the co-editor of The Rhetoric of Conflict.He has published three interdisciplinary books, all from Harvard University Press, on further American Studies topics:1) Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a CulturalStyle in the American Fifties (1990, rpt. 2000); 2) Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (1998); and 3) Jump JimCrow: Lost Plays, Lyrics, and Street Prose from the First Atlantic Popular Culture (2003). His study "Little Richard as a Folk Performer" won the 1980 award for best article in Studies in Popular Culture. He was awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellowships,1992-93, 1998-99. His next project is a book, called Secret Histories, about cultural transmission in public spheres of the Atlantic world--what it is, how it happens, and what difference it makes. Click here to email Professor Lhamon wlhamon@garnet.acns.fsu.edu Click here to get to Professor Lhamon's webpage Professor Dennis Moore, Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990 Dr. Moore, an associate professor of literature and American Studies, received FSU's University Distinguished Teacher Award in 1999 and serves as Coordinating Director for FSU's living and learning communities. He regularly teaches such courses as "Problematizing American Exceptionalism," "'Indian' Captivity Narratives in Context," "Slave Narratives," "From the Melting Pot to Multiculturalism," and "American Dreamers." A 1990 Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill, he is preparing a revised and enlarged edition, for Harvard University Press, of Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer and is assembling a collection of theoretically informed essays on Crèvecoeur. He's active in a number of interdisciplinary organizations, including the Society of Early Americanists, of which he is immediate past v.p. (2003-2005), and the national and regional iterations of the American Studies Association; he co-chaired the 2003 SASA conference that our Program hosted in February of 2003. Click here to email Professor Moore dmoore@english.fsu.edu Click here to get to Professor Moore's webpage Professor Wayne Wiegand, Ph.D. Southern Illinois University, 1974 Wayne A. Wiegand is F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and Professor of American Studies at Florida State University. He is author of more than sixty scholarly articles (seven of which have won national awards) and five books (three of which have won "best book of the year" awards from the American Library Association), and editor or co-editor of seven other books. Currently, he serves as Executive Director of Beta Phi Mu (the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society) and is Co-Editor of LIBRARY QUARTERLY (University of Chicago Press) and Co-Editor of "Print Culture History in Modern America" (a monograph series published by the University of Wisconsin Press). Click here to email Professor Wiegand wwiegand@mailer.fsu.edu Click here to get to Professor Wiegand's webpage