News Release

Student research to be featured at American studies conference

February 18, 2010

From fashionista moms, to Michael Jackson death humor, to Gettysburg, research by Penn State Harrisburg students will be featured when the Middle Atlantic American Studies Association hosts its annual conference at La Salle University in Philadelphia March 19 and 20.

Nineteen Penn State Harrisburg American Studies students and three faculty members will make presentations at the conference, according to Associate Professor of American Studies and Literature John Haddad, the conference coordinator. The association is a regional chapter of the American Studies Association and promotes and encourages the study of American culture in the Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania regions.

The Penn State Harrisburg American Studies doctoral and master’s degree students and faculty presenters and their research topics include:

Heidi Abbey, assistant librarian – “Buying into a Designer Childhood: Fashionista Moms Creating Community and Identity Online,”

Michael Barton, professor of American studies and social science Michael Barton –
 “Observing and Imagining Belfield: Eugene Chesnick’s Novel, Farm Persevere, as an American Studies Project.”

Trevor J. Blank, doctoral student – “Posthumous Parodies: Michael Jackson Death Humor in Cyberspace.”

Jennifer Dutch, doctoral student – “Rest in Pieces: Memorializing New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain.”

Jose R. Feliciano, graduate student – “New York and Tokyo Street Fashion: How Visual Representations Shape Identity in Popular Culture.”

Nick Gotwalt, graduate student – “Highball to Victory: American Railroad Calendar Art in the Second World War.”

Spencer Green, doctoral student – “Constructing National Identities at Gettysburg: Negotiating Past and Present, Here and There, Us and Them With Relative Distances.”

William Jackson, graduate student – “Elijah Abel: From Slave to Settler.”

Nancy Jones, graduate student – “A Mother Feathering Her Next: How Women’s Preparations During Pregnancy are Addressed in Scientific and Cultural Settings and in Mother’s Narratives.”

Graduate student Todd Klokis – “The Betsy Ross House: A Landmark of Symbolic Patriotism and Colonial Domestic Life.”

Mark Layser, graduate student – “Imaginary Spaces: Yoknapatawpha and Hollywood in the Work of William Faulkner.”

Bernadette Lear, assistant librarian and graduate student – “The Libraries of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as Sites of Cultural and Social Encounter.”

Erin Miller, graduate student – “Dance Dance Revolution: The Society Effects of Popular Music.”

Graduate student Ronald A. Nath – “Upscale Boutiques Migrate to Bleeker Street: The Genteel Greenwich Village Street Now Rivals Madison Avenue.”

Beth Orton, graduate student – “Modern Day Mormon Pilgrimages: Palmyra, New York.”

Tara Trovitch, graduate student – “Girl Scout Camp Closings and Their Effect on Memory and Tradition: How Heritage and Legacy are Becoming Casualties in Modern Scouting.”

John W. Wolgamuth, graduate student – “Progressive Era Concerns About Character: How the Boy Scouts of America Attempted to Develop Character in American Boys.”