I am OFFICIALLY a member of the American Studies Association!!! AAAAAH!!!! YAY!!!!!!!! Through my American Studies departmental honors seminar, I got a chance to go to the National Conference, held in Philadelphia this year. The department paid for our membership in the ASA, our conference registration, our food, our parking, and here’s the best part …. FREE BOOKS from the book exhibit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here’s how the day went:
I got up at 3:45 am to get dressed and drive up to Philadelphia, PA with two other girls from my class. Now, we didn’t have to be up that early (Dr. McDermott didn’t care what time we showed up) but we wanted to go and see Dr. Loviglio give one of the presentations at 8:00 am (we love him and his presentation was partly about UMBC!) Apparently, all of the professors had made bets on whether we’d actually be there or just sleep in, haha (even though we’d promised that we would be there to hear him). Some of out other professors were speaking on Thursday and Friday, but we had class and they didn’t want us to skip (even though we wouldn’t have minded, haha).
During his presentation, Dr. Lovilgio definitely totally put me on the spot by pointing out to everyone at the session that we were his undergraduate students and that I am looking at Graduate Schools and hope to be a professor one day! It was really nice that he was helping me network, but wow, I was awkward (although the other girls said I sounded perfectly poised …. suuuuure, haha!)
After his presentation, we went to another session on teaching Oral History in K-16, which was fascinating, especially since I would like to teach Oral History (at least to undergraduates … not to K-12, ugh). After those sessions, we all went out to lunch and just hung out. It was so weird to see all of my professors talking with their friends about their own grad school days and to find out that there are a lot of people who do American Studies (it IS legitimate, yay!)
The girls and I went to one last presentation, a performance of a number of plays related to HIV and AIDS and their representations in American media. This was such an amazing presentation, especially since it tied in almost perfectly with one of my friend’s research projects (he asked for her to send her research to him when she’s done … how cool is that?!)
Then … the BOOK EXHIBIT! Every topic you could think of to research and all the books that have been written on them and all the authors right there …. I’m still giddy about it! I signed up for some e-mailing list that sounded interesting and got a free book (1491) and Dr. McDermott got me a book for one of my research projects (Living with Star Trek). She definitely didn’t have to do that and I’m sure that my awkward response didn’t even begin to convey my very real and sincere gratitude for how much care she put into our trip. On top that that, we each got to pick out two books that the department will buy for us (I ordered Chick Flick and Fandom) and I bought myself a couple more books (Investigating Farscape, Geek Chic, and Dewey’s Dream).
On that note, time to start reading … 
