The American Studies Roundtable

The American Studies Roundtable is the graduate student organization in American Studies that enables students in the program, through affiliation with the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA), to gain access to a range of resources and services devoted to graduate education at UMass Boston. The GSA offers grants to partially offset the cost of graduate student travel to attend academic conferences, and sponsors competitions for research grants to students.

Each fall one graduate student serves as president and another as treasurer of the American Studies Roundtable, filing the necessary paperwork to activate our organization for the academic year. Once the American Studies Roundtable is activated, it can apply to GSA for funds to support outside lecturers, to enable students to attend local cultural events, and to enable various kinds of community building efforts within the program. In past years, GSA support enabled the American Studies Roundtable to

• bring Pipo Nguyen-duy, an Asian American photographer who catalogs images of identity to campus for lecture on his work
• help bring George Chauncey to campus for a symposium on Gay Marriage with a private breakfast meeting for American Studies graduate students and faculty
• arrange walking tours of Boston (on labor history and African American history) with scholar experts as guides
• financially assist students attending the national American Studies Association conference
• help bring George Sanchez, the national president of the American Studies Association to UMB and to provide a lunch after his presentation
• help sponsor a panel of women World War II veterans to talk about their experiences in the military
• co-sponsor a guest lecture for the university by James Lowen (author of Lies My Teacher Told Me), with a private dinner reception for American Studies students with Dr. Lowen
• underwrite tickets for American Studies students to attend a Boston production of a new play by Dom DeLillo

The Roundtable website at http://www.roundtable.umb.edu has information useful for American Studies graduate students, including a current student listing, message board, semester course schedules, this program handbook, etc.

For further information about the Roundtable, contact Shauna Lee Manning, the program assistant and advisor to the Roundtable.