Associate professor Naomi Greyser, who teaches American studies and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, joins the program to discuss the role pink plays in our culture and why Barbie looms so large.

The Latina/o/x Studies Program wishes to congratulate Dr. Lina-Maria Murillo on the publication of her article, "Espanta Cigüeñas: Race and Abortion in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands" in the Summer 2023 issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from The University of Chicago Press.

Congratulations to Eric Vazquez on receiving the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Latinx Studies Section (LSS) Outstanding Article Award for his article titled, "'Your Life Is One-Hundred-Percent at Risk': The Caravan of the Mutilated and the Internationalism of the Vulnerable."

American Studies PhD candidate Dominic Dongilli has been accepted to the NEH Summer Institute on "Willa Cather: Space, Place, Archive." The project he proposed is concerned with how "restored" prairies and re-wilded bison herds function as an archive of settler colonial frontier nostalgia.

American studies and Journalism & Mass Communication professor Travis Vogan was interviewed for an article about the movie Rocky III.

American Studies PhD candidate Dominic Dongilli has earned a prestigious Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship. He will be spending 2023-24 conducting research and completing his dissertation at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC, studying in the archives and engaging the animals there.

American Studies PhD candidate Peter Larsen, who is also a practicing attorney, was interviewed by KCRG on January 26 about the effects of HF 2. Iowa HF2 is a bill for an act relating to public contracts, public fund investing, and lending practices with certain companies that engage in economic boycotts based on environmental, social, or governance criteria, and including effective date and applicability provisions.

Congratulations to LATS faculty Dr. Jose Fernandez on receiving an Arts and Humanities Initiative (AHI) grant! Dr. Fernandez will be conducting archival research into three major Latinx authors to examine the links between their literary writings and their articles in Spanish-language newspapers.

American studies PhD students Glenn Houlihan and John Tappen have an article regarding the critical interdisciplinary engagement with institutions, labor and culture article in the journal Science for the People. https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/labor-special-issue/science-work-and-service-work/ This article will be released in full online in January 2023. You can access the full issue now in paperback or digital formats.

American studies doctoral candidate and practicing civil rights attorney Peter Larsen has a guest post in the Pitt Law Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice newsletter on the U.S. student loan forgiveness program. Find the post here https://www.civilrights.pitt.edu/racial-impact-and-rhetoric-student-loan-forgiveness-peter-larsen