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Jingle dress dancers circle the Grand Casino Hinckley powwow grounds during the grand entry at the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Grand Celebration Powwow in June 2019 in Hinckley, Minn. This summer, most powwows are canceled, as COVID-19 continues its spread across the state.

Professor and chair of cultural studies and comparative literature and professor of communication studies Laurie Ouellette places the show COPS within a historical and cultural context of reality media that participates in racialized police violence.

Congratulations to Riv-Ellen Prell, Professor Emerita of American Studies at the University of Minnesota, for winning the 2020 prestigous Lee Max Fiedman medal from The American Jewish Historical Society. Trained as an anthropologist and informed by feminist and historical approaches, Riv-Ellen Prell exemplifies a model of humanities scholarship devoted to sustaining community. Her interdisciplinary work has bridged social science and history, bringing together diverse fields and academic communities.

Professor Erika Lee discusses the long history of associating minority and immigrant groups with disease outbreaks, and reflects on a potential silver lining of the pandemic.

American Studies Response to COVID-19

Many Ojibwe people believe in the healing power of music and dance. American studies and American Indian studies professor Brenda Child reveals how an influenza epidemic in the 1920s gave rise to the jingle dress dance and traditions.

Elliott Powell, a professor in the American studies department, researches the historical intersection of sexuality, gender, and race in popular music. He looks at the role of sexuality in collaborations between South Asian and Black popular music from 1960 to the present.

Meet the new American Studies Graduate Cohort!