This year, Martin Luther King Day will also mark the re-inauguration of President Barack Obama. His first inauguration brought more than 2 million people to the National Mall four years ago; this year, the event is expected to attract hundreds of thousands. …

Most of us heard that the world was going to possibly end on December 21st, 2012, and that it was predicted by the traditional Mayan calendar. In this podcast, Rusty Barrett, a linguist and scholar of Mayan culture and history, explains the superstitions and misunderstandings surrounding December 21st, and a little bit about how the Mayan calendar works.

SPOILER ALERT: The day after our interview, Barrett recieved an email from a Mayan organization (…

Arts & Sciences Dean Mark Kornbluh and history professor Kathi Kern are teaching a class 'inside out' - by taking an issue (in this case, the 2012 presidential election) and building a course around it. The class, "Currents: America Through the Lens of the 2012 Election," is an interdisciplinary look into how American…

At the end of March 2012, the American Studies Center at Shanghai University hosted a symposium on Urbanization in the American South. Richard Schein, a professor in the Department of Geography, gave presentations in Beijing and Shanghai on America's urban landscape. In this interview, Schein discusses his research, some of his experiences in China, and some reflections on how globalization has changed relations between the…

At the end of May 2012, the American Studies Center at Shanghai University hosted a three-day symposium and student summit. The summit was a two-part discussion of an excerpt from the book by Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts." The discussion was facilitated by Michelle Sizemore, an assistant professor in the Department of English. In this interview, Sizemore discusses the text, the unique dynamic…

Adam Meredith and Luke McAnally, two A&S majors, were part of a small group of students that went to the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Washington, D.C. last month. The project that earned such recognition is called “Homegrown Kentucky,” a new agricultural initiative in Owsley County, Kentucky. A small-scale farm is being designed and planted next to one of the schools in Owsley County; fruits and vegetables produced in the gardens will provide local, fresh food to the…

With the help of a generous grant from the U.S. State Department, UK has been able to forge a partnership across the Pacific. On March 29th, 2012, three UK scholars will go to deliver lectures for the Inaugural Symposium for the American Studies Center at Shanghai. Rich Schein and Patricia Ehrkamp from the Department of…

Doug Boyd is the Director of the Louie B Nunn Center for Oral History, part of the University of Kentucky Libraries. The great thing about oral history is its subjectivity and content; the not-so-great thing about it is that most of it is in analog format, un-transcribed, and time-consuming for researchers to use. Boyd and his team have been working diligently on software known as the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer, which will enable users to synch up transcribed interviews to their place in an audio or video recording. It will also…

Alan Nadel is the William T. Bryan Professor, specializing in American Studies. Professor Nadel has particular interests in post-WWII American culture, including television and literature. In this podcast, Professor Nadel discusses narrativity as it relates to our perception of reality and how it offers context to our every day life.

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